Creme Collective is paying ~$28,900/year for HubSpot. Some features are well-used, but major paid capabilities sit idle.
The account includes Sales Hub Enterprise (15 seats) and Marketing Hub Professional (12,000 marketing contacts, 120,000 emails/year).
The CRM is genuinely active — 23,158 contacts, 12,661 deals, 6,042 logged activities in the past 90 days, 12 active workflows, and 116 lists show real operational investment.
However, the most expensive capabilities remain completely unused: 0 of 120,000 marketing emails sent, 0 of 5,000 HubSpot credits used,
and only 2 forms active. The Marketing Hub Professional subscription (~$800/mo) is generating near-zero marketing value.
Additionally, multiple deal pipelines have severe data quality issues — in some pipelines, 90%+ of deals are categorized as "Spam".
The core question: does the team need Enterprise-level sales tools and Professional-level marketing tools,
or would Sales Hub Professional + Marketing Hub Starter deliver the same value at a fraction of the cost?
Recommendation Options
Option A: Optimize Tiers
Downgrade to Sales Hub Professional + Marketing Hub Starter.
Keeps workflows, pipelines, lists, and CRM. Drops unused Enterprise features and marketing email capacity.
Estimated savings: $15,000–20,000/year.
Option B: Activate Marketing
Keep the current plan but commit to using Marketing Hub: launch email campaigns, build landing pages,
use the 120,000 emails/year allocation. Clean up spam data. This justifies the current spend if the team will actually execute.
Option C: Clean House First
Before any tier decision, clean the pipeline data (spam deals are skewing everything),
audit the 15 Sales Enterprise seats (who's active?), and assess which workflows are delivering value.
Then decide with clean data.
Option D: Migrate to Creme Reporting Portal
Export all contacts, companies, and deals from HubSpot into a PostgreSQL database on AWS (Creme's existing cloud provider).
The Creme Reporting Portal reads directly from this database — and gains a built-in CRM module (pipeline board, contact management, activity logging) so the sales team keeps working without interruption.
Cancel HubSpot entirely — estimated savings: ~$28,900/year.
What this involves:
- One-time bulk export of contacts, companies, and deals (23K contacts, 17K companies, 12K deals) via HubSpot API
- PostgreSQL schema design — the
creme-report-automation service already has a hubspot_deals table pattern to extend
- Reporting Portal updated to read from PostgreSQL instead of HubSpot API
- AWS cost: ~$15–30/month for RDS PostgreSQL (vs. $2,400/month for HubSpot)
What needs to be rebuilt:
- CRM UI (built into the Reporting Portal) — the sales team's actual HubSpot usage is narrow: pipeline board, contact lookup, deal editing, and email logging. This translates to 4–5 pages/components added to the portal:
- Pipeline/Kanban board — drag-and-drop deals across stages (the most-used feature)
- Contact & Company list views — searchable, filterable tables with detail panels
- Deal detail page — edit fields, change stage/owner, view activity timeline
- Activity feed — log notes, link emails, view history on any record
- 12 active workflows — would need to be recreated as code (AWS Lambda/Step Functions) or deprecated if no longer needed
- Email logging integration — could be replaced with a Gmail/Outlook integration or manual logging in the portal
Why this could make sense:
- The Reporting Portal is being built as the primary data interface for Creme — if it can display and manage deals/contacts, HubSpot becomes redundant
- Full data ownership — no vendor lock-in, no API rate limits, no per-seat pricing
- The data already flows through AWS (creme-report-automation) — this consolidates rather than adding a new system
- Net savings of ~$28,500/year after AWS database costs
Insightly CRM was previously used by Creme. Here's how it compares as an alternative.
Insightly Pricing (per user/month, billed annually)
| Tier |
Per User |
15 Users/yr |
18 Users/yr |
| Plus |
$29/mo |
$5,220 |
$6,264 |
| Professional |
$49/mo |
$8,820 |
$10,584 |
| Enterprise |
$99/mo |
$17,820 |
$21,384 |
To match HubSpot's 12 active workflows, Creme would need the Professional tier ($49/user) — the Plus plan only offers basic task templates, not conditional workflow automation.
Insightly Plan Limits
| Limit |
Plus |
Professional |
| Records |
100,000 |
250,000 |
| File Storage |
10 GB |
100 GB |
| Workflow Automation |
Task templates only |
Full automation |
| Custom Fields |
Limited |
Expanded |
| Advanced Reporting |
No |
Yes |
Creme has 53K+ total records (23K contacts, 17K companies, 12K deals) and 151 custom properties — the Plus plan may not accommodate this.
Head-to-Head: Insightly vs. Creme Reporting Portal
| Factor |
Insightly Professional |
Creme Reporting Portal (Option D) |
| Annual Cost |
$8,820–$10,584/yr (ongoing, scales with headcount) |
~$180–360/yr (AWS PostgreSQL) |
| Migration Effort |
Map 7 pipelines, 151 custom properties, 116 lists into Insightly's data model. Re-train team on new UI. |
One-time data import to PostgreSQL. Build 4–5 React components in existing portal codebase. |
| Data Integration |
Requires API bridge between Insightly and Portal — two systems to keep in sync |
Direct — portal reads from its own database. Single source of truth. |
| Team Experience |
Learn a new CRM (third CRM in Creme's history) |
Same portal the team already uses for reporting |
| Per-Seat Scaling |
Every new team member adds $49/mo ($588/yr) |
Unlimited users — no per-seat cost |
| Customization |
Constrained by Insightly's UI and field limits |
Fully custom — built to match how Creme actually works |
| Vendor Lock-in |
New vendor dependency — data lives in Insightly's cloud |
Full ownership — data stays in Creme's AWS account |
| Time to Value |
Faster — off-the-shelf CRM, available immediately after migration |
Requires development sprint for CRM module (pipeline board, contact views, activity logging) |
Bottom Line
Insightly saves money compared to HubSpot ($8,800 vs. $28,900/year), but it introduces a third CRM into Creme's history, creates a two-system problem
(Insightly for deals + Portal for reporting), and still carries per-seat costs that scale with headcount.
The Reporting Portal approach costs a fraction of either option, keeps the team in one interface, and gives Creme full control over its data and workflows.
The trade-off is development time — but that investment pays for itself in the first year and every year after.
⚠ Data Collection Notes
4 endpoints could not be accessed. Tickets require Service Hub (not on this plan). Marketing email stats require the marketing-email scope, which was not available to add to the Private App.
The billing page confirms 0 of 120,000 emails sent, so this does not affect the findings.
- Tickets (3 endpoints): Requires Service Hub — not included in current subscription
- Marketing Emails API: Requires
marketing-email scope — billing page confirms 0 emails sent