Open Mercato as a HubSpot alternative
An open system where you pay for the rollout rather than for every extra head on the team. For companies whose subscription CRM has started costing more than it brings in.
In three sentences
HubSpot is a very good CRM for sales and marketing — and a poor home for a production process, a warehouse or service jobs. If you are looking for a cheaper HubSpot, this is the wrong page. If you are looking for a system that also handles what happens after the contract is signed, and stops charging for every new person, this is the right one.
You do not have to take our word for it: the public Open Mercato demo is open — go in and click around. One tip: at first glance it will feel overwhelming, so do not count the modules, look at the details instead — a record's change history and who is allowed to edit it versus only view it.
When HubSpot is the better choice
We start here, because for some companies this section ends the conversation — better before the money is spent than after.
You sell and market, you do not manufacture
Pipelines, email sequences, lead scoring, ready-made sales reports — HubSpot spent years polishing those and nobody rebuilds them in a few weeks of implementation.
You want to start this week
You sign up and work the same day. A bespoke system means weeks before anyone logs in for the first time.
The team is small and not growing
Per-seat pricing only hurts at scale. With five salespeople the bill is harmless and a migration will never pay for itself.
There is nobody to run the system
A bespoke system needs someone accountable — on your side or a partner's. Without that, SaaS is the safer answer and we say so plainly.
Where the difference actually is
| Open Mercato | HubSpot | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | MIT-licensed core, no per-seat fee. You pay for the rollout, hosting and optional support. | A per-seat subscription every month, plus one-off onboarding on higher tiers. |
| Team growth | Ten more people do not change the bill. | Ten more people means ten more seat fees — next year as well. |
| Your process | Custom entities and fields from the admin panel: a production job, a service inspection, a material batch. | Custom objects only on higher tiers, and always within the CRM model. |
| After the contract is signed | Production, warehouse, jobs and the customer portal in the same system and the same database. | It ends at sales and service; the rest lives in another tool joined by an integration. |
| Data | Your database and your hosting — including on-premise or an EU data centre. | Data sits with the vendor. Export exists, but the system stays on their side. |
| AI | The assistant works on your data with the permissions of the logged-in user; you choose the model. | AI features run on credits that reset at the end of the month. |
| Audit and advanced permissions | Part of the foundation — the change log and per-role, per-person permissions are there from day one. | In tools of this class they usually live in the most expensive tier rather than the base plan. |
| Exit | The code is yours — you can change the contractor and keep the system. | Changing vendor means changing system. |
HubSpot's plans, limits and prices change several times a year. Below we give the figures we verified at source, with the date.
What you get instead of a subscription
One system instead of three
CRM, quotes, jobs and warehouse in one place — with no monthly bill for the tool that glues them together.
The process that is not in the box
A quoting configurator, a production board, a product technical card. The things that in a classic CRM always end up in a spreadsheet next to the system.
A customer portal on the same data
A client or distributor logs in and sees their orders, statuses and documents. Same data, different permissions, no synchronisation.
A cost that stops growing
The rollout is a one-off expense. Hiring fifteen people does not add fifteen seat fees to your system bill.
Sensitive data and compliance
Encryption of selected fields, a full audit trail and permissions down to a single person. With personal data that is the entry ticket, not an extra.
AI wired into the data
The assistant sees what the user sees and can act inside the system — create a record, fill a field, pull data out of an email.
What it actually costs
The pattern I see at clients is always the same: it starts out pleasant — a few dozen dollars, the Starter plan, everyone happy. The bill turns serious once you want the system to carry more of the company: more people, more departments, a higher tier. HubSpot Sales Hub Professional is 90 USD per seat per month billed annually (100 USD monthly), plus a one-off onboarding fee of 1,500 USD. Enterprise starts at 150 USD per seat with 3,500 USD onboarding. AI features run on credits that do not carry over to the next month.
- A ten-person team on Professional is roughly 10,800 USD a year — the amount returns every year and grows with every hire.
- On the Open Mercato side you pay once for the rollout, then for hosting and optional support. There is no seat fee at all.
- Honestly: a bespoke system costs more up front, and the break-even point usually falls in year two or three rather than after a quarter. If someone shows you a return within a quarter, they are showing you an offer, not a calculation.
HubSpot prices checked on 15 August 2026 on the vendor's official pricing page (hubspot.com/pricing/sales). Verify at source before deciding.
Frequently asked questions
Will Open Mercato replace HubSpot one to one?+
No, and we do not make that promise. Email sequences, lead scoring and ready-made marketing reports are HubSpot's polished ground. Open Mercato replaces it where the CRM has to carry the real business process: quotes, jobs, production, service, warehouse and the customer portal.
Can data be moved out of HubSpot?+
Yes. Contacts, companies, deals and notes export from HubSpot and import into the new system. The harder part is not the data but deciding which processes we deliberately do not migrate, because they were only ever run provisionally.
How long does a rollout take?+
A first usable version is usually a few weeks, because roughly 80 percent of the functionality comes with the platform. The longest part is not writing code but understanding the process — our discovery has run longer than building the first three modules.
Can I keep HubSpot for marketing?+
Yes, and we often recommend exactly that. HubSpot at the top of the funnel, Open Mercato from the moment fulfilment starts. An integration joins the two, and the decision about a full move can wait.
What if I have no IT department?+
Then you need a partner to run the system — a real, recurring cost we name out loud. If you have neither IT nor a partner, HubSpot is the safer choice.
Is Open Mercato just another low-code tool?+
No, and this is the most common misunderstanding — people place it next to Make, n8n or no-code platforms. The difference is simple: in those you have no access to the code underneath. You get modules you configure, and sooner or later you hit a missing thing you cannot add. Here you have the whole codebase, you extend it the intended way, and you decide where the system runs. The price of that freedom is that running it is on you.
Let us check whether the numbers work for you
Show me your process and your current CRM bill. I will tell you plainly whether moving is worth it or whether you should stay put another year.