HubSpot Credits vs Zoho One: What You Really Pay
HubSpot now sells its platform on seats and credits. The UK pricing page lists a Starter seat at £7 a month under a limited-time 65% offer, and every paid edition includes a monthly allowance of credits. Read quickly, it looks like a low and simple price: pay for the people who use it, and spend credits on the work the platform does for you.
The catch is that a credit is a unit of usage, and usage is hard to forecast before you have run the platform for a few months. This article works through HubSpot's published rate sheet, prices a busy month and a heavy month on a 10-seat Starter plan, and sets the result beside Zoho One. In our heavy example, £70 of seats becomes about £3,900 once credits are counted. We are a Zoho partner, so we have a view. Every figure comes from the vendors' own pages, checked on 7 October 2026, so you can test it yourself.
HubSpot and Zoho One pricing side by side
HubSpot publishes its credit rate in euros and dollars, so a sterling quote may differ slightly. Where a figure below is in euros, that is how HubSpot publishes it.
| Item | HubSpot seats and credits | Zoho One |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | Starter from £7 per seat a month under a limited-time 65% offer, which implies a list price of about £20. | £37 per employee a month (all-employee) or £80 per user a month (flexible). Billed annually, excluding VAT. |
| Who you must license | Starter is capped at 10 paid users. Professional and Enterprise allow more. | All-employee pricing needs a licence for every employee on payroll. Flexible pricing lets you buy any number. |
| Included usage | 5,000 credits a month on Starter, 10,000 on Professional and 15,000 on Enterprise. Unused credits do not roll over. | Zia Agents are free to build. Zoho-hosted models come with a monthly token allowance: 30 million on the standard tier and 20 million on the pro tier. |
| Extra usage | €0.010 per credit, billed monthly in arrears, or bought in packs of 1,000 credits for €10. | Prepaid credits in an Agent Wallet. On the standard tier, 1 credit covers 1,000 tokens. You can also use your own model key and pay the model vendor directly. |
| What else is metered | Marketing email sends, workflow actions, calling minutes above your allowance, WhatsApp messages and accepted quotes all use credits. | Zoho says there is no separate charge for Zoho MCP, which works within the API limits of your existing subscriptions. Individual apps carry their own limits. |
| Mandatory onboarding | Required on Professional and Enterprise, not on Starter. HubSpot's US Marketing Hub page lists one-off fees of $3,000 and $7,000. Confirm the fee for your hub and region. | None listed in Zoho One's pricing FAQ. Premium support is an optional add-on. |
How HubSpot's seats and credits model works
HubSpot's catalogue supplement for flexible seats-and-credits pricing sets out the rules. These are the parts that move your bill.
Seats and the ten-user ceiling
Starter allows a maximum of 10 paid seats. Beyond that you move to Professional, where HubSpot's UK pricing page lists plans from £81 a month with additional seats at £81 each, or Enterprise from £155 a month with seats at £155 each. A Professional seat costs more than eleven times the promotional Starter seat. HubSpot also divides Professional and Enterprise seats into Core and Front Office types, so check which type each user needs, and allow for the mandatory onboarding fee.
What a credit buys
HubSpot's rate sheet sets the number of credits each action uses. At €0.010 a credit, the main items cost:
| Action | Credits | Cost at €0.010 |
|---|---|---|
| Marketing email sent, first 10,000 sends in a month | 15 | €0.15 |
| Workflow action, first 10,000 actions in a month | 3 | €0.03 |
| Breeze workflow action | 10 | €0.10 |
| Customer agent, one resolved text conversation | 50 | €0.50 |
| Data agent, one prompt for one record | 10 | €0.10 |
| Prospecting agent, one lead | 100 | €1.00 |
| Calling minute above included capacity | 10 | €0.10 |
| Templated WhatsApp message | 20 | €0.20 |
| Accepted quote captured | 100 | €1.00 |
Per-unit rates fall with volume. Emails drop to 5 credits from the 10,001st send in a month, 2 credits from the 55,001st and 0.5 from the 100,001st. Workflow actions drop to 2, then 0.5, then 0.1. Even so, Starter's 5,000 included credits cover about 333 marketing emails at the first tier.
Packs, pay-as-you-go and spend limits
You can buy extra credits in capacity packs of 1,000 credits a month for €10, or pay as you go at €0.010 a credit, invoiced monthly in increments of 10 credits. Under this model, usage beyond a pack is charged at the pay-as-you-go rate, and pay-as-you-go returns to your original limit at each monthly reset. Agents Packs sell 2,500, 40,000 or 150,000 credits for €25, €400 or €1,500, which is the same €0.010 per credit at every size.
Professional and Enterprise customers can also buy email sends packs, from €200 for 2,000 sends to €1,000 for 10,000, and workflow action packs from €150 for 500,000 actions. Starter customers cannot. HubSpot also lets you set credit limits per feature, which is your main control over a spike.
A busy month on Starter
Take a 10-seat Starter team paying £70 a month at the promotional seat price. The first three rows are a busy month: it emails 2,000 contacts weekly, runs automation and uses two AI agents. The last row is a heavy month. Starter includes 5,000 credits.
| Usage in the month | Credits used | Cost beyond the 5,000 included |
|---|---|---|
| 8,000 marketing emails (2,000 contacts, weekly) | 120,000 | €1,150 |
| The emails above, plus 12,000 workflow actions (six steps for 2,000 contacts) | 154,000 | €1,490 |
| All of the above, plus 400 customer agent resolutions and 3,000 data agent prompts | 204,000 | €1,990 |
| A heavy month: 10,000 contacts emailed weekly (40,000 sends), 30,000 workflow actions, 500 customer agent resolutions and 5,000 data agent prompts | 445,000 | €4,400 |
We have applied the volume tiers cumulatively across the month, which is our reading of the rate sheet. The agent rows assume your edition includes those agents, so confirm that before you plan around them. Even allowing for the euro to sterling conversion, the heavy month is more than fifty times the £70 seat bill. Each step up to Professional or Enterprise adds 5,000 credits, which trims only €50 from each figure. On Professional or Enterprise, four 2,000-send email packs would cover the first row for €800.
Would a higher tier be cheaper?
Professional adds 5,000 included credits and lets you buy email and workflow packs, which cost less per unit than credits. The catch is the seat price. Ten Professional seats at the £81 listed on HubSpot's UK page cost £810 a month, against £70 on Starter. Here are the same four months with seats and usage both priced, at an approximate £0.88 to the euro.
| Usage in the month | Starter, 10 seats | Professional, 10 seats |
|---|---|---|
| 8,000 marketing emails | About £1,080 | About £1,510 |
| The emails above, plus 12,000 workflow actions | About £1,380 | About £1,650 |
| All of the above, plus 400 customer agent resolutions and 3,000 data agent prompts | About £1,820 | About £2,000 |
| The heavy month above | About £3,940 | About £4,150 |
Professional figures use the cheapest route: email packs, the workflow action pack, and credits only for agent use beyond the 10,000 included. They exclude the mandatory one-off onboarding fee. If your quote uses the lower Core seat that HubSpot lists from €60, Professional comes out level to about £100 cheaper in the three busier rows, and about £150 dearer in the email-only row, again before onboarding. Volume is what changes the answer. On £81 seats, Professional only clearly wins at roughly 48,000 workflow actions or 63,000 marketing emails a month. At this size, moving up is a features decision more than a cost saving.
How that compares with Zoho One
Zoho One's licence already includes email sending and CRM workflows, so each Zoho figure below is the whole monthly bill for 10 people, not an extra on top. The HubSpot figures are seats plus credits. Zoho One costs £37 per employee on all-employee pricing or £80 per user on flexible pricing.
| Usage in the month | HubSpot Starter, seats plus credits | Zoho One all-employee, whole bill | Zoho One flexible, whole bill |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8,000 marketing emails | About £1,080 | £370, usage included | £800, usage included |
| The emails above, plus 12,000 workflow actions | About £1,380 | £370, usage included | £800, usage included |
| All of the above, plus 400 customer agent resolutions and 3,000 data agent prompts | About £1,820 | £370, plus any AI usage above the free allowance | £800, plus any AI usage above the free allowance |
| The heavy month above | About £3,940 | £370, plus any AI usage above the free allowance | £800, plus any AI usage above the free allowance |
Each Zoho figure is the whole monthly bill for the activity shown, not an extra on top. Zoho's plan details page lists Zoho Campaigns email sending as unlimited, with 5,000 contacts per licence, and lists no per-action charge for CRM workflows. The two agent rows add AI usage, which is free within Zoho's monthly token allowance and extra beyond it, and we have not priced a Zoho equivalent of HubSpot's customer and data agents. Zoho Flow runs on a monthly task allowance and stops if it runs out. This compares cost for the same activity, not the same feature list. At low volume HubSpot Starter is far cheaper. On these assumptions it passes Zoho One's all-employee cost at roughly 2,600 marketing emails a month.
£70 a month is the price of the seats, not the price of the platform in use.
Four places the credit bill grows
Credits are used by ordinary work, not only by AI. These four examples use the rate sheet above, each measured against Starter's 5,000 included credits.
Each marketing email sent uses 15 credits at the first volume tier. A weekly send to 2,000 contacts is 8,000 sends and 120,000 credits a month, about €1,150 beyond the included allowance.
Every workflow action uses credits, starting at 3 each. A six-step workflow running for 2,000 new contacts is 12,000 actions and 34,000 credits, about €290 beyond the included allowance.
A resolved text conversation uses 50 credits. At 500 resolutions a month that is 25,000 credits, about €200 beyond the Starter allowance, if your edition includes the agent.
Each lead the agent researches uses 100 credits. At 1,000 leads a month that is 100,000 credits, about €950 beyond the Starter allowance, if your edition includes the agent.
How to work out your own monthly cost
You can estimate this before you buy. Work through four steps and keep the result next to the quote.
Count the marketing emails, workflow actions and agent actions you expect in a normal month and in your busiest month.
Use the credit values in HubSpot's catalogue supplement, and apply the volume tiers for emails and workflow actions.
Starter includes 5,000, Professional 10,000 and Enterprise 15,000. Price the remainder at €0.010 a credit, or compare it with a pack.
Add seat costs and any one-off onboarding fee, then set a credit limit for each feature so that a spike stops at a figure you chose.
What this means for UK and Irish businesses
HubSpot's seats and credits model suits a small team with modest usage that wants a low entry price, and its published rate sheet and spend limits let you cost it properly. The risk is a team that signs up on the seat price and then switches on email, automation and agents. Those are where credits go, and the bill follows usage, not headcount. Moving to a higher edition does not remove the metering, and at 10 seats it can cost more.
Zoho One costs more per head at the start, and it has its own rules. All-employee pricing needs a licence for every employee on payroll, so it works out cheaper overall only when more than about 46% of your staff need access (£37 divided by £80). For a business of 40 people, flexible pricing is cheaper if fewer than 19 people need a licence. Zoho also meters AI: Zia Agents run within a free monthly token allowance and then draw on prepaid credits. Its apps carry their own allowances too, so check your email and automation volumes against Zoho's plan details page. Its pricing FAQ says there are no long-term contracts, and that the price is the same whether you buy direct or through a partner.
As a Zoho partner we are not neutral, so check every figure here against the vendors' pages. If you want a second pair of eyes on a HubSpot quote, or a costed comparison for your own volumes, we are happy to have that conversation without the sales pressure.
How we checked: HubSpot's UK pricing page, its flexible seats-and-credits catalogue supplement and its US Marketing Hub page, and Zoho's UK pricing page, pricing FAQ, plan details, Zia Agents and Zoho MCP pages, all on 7 October 2026. HubSpot runs more than one pricing model, so your quote may not match the figures here. Prices change, so confirm before you buy.