“Thank you MailChimp, we’ll take your wonderful freemium model with email – that has worked so well for you for the last decade and you recently decided to discontinue – and slot it nicely into our CRM.”
That, I imagine is what went through a number of people’s minds when HubSpot announced their (also wonderful) freemium email model now available* in HubSpot Free.
It’s hard to fault the strategy. So many small to mid businesses are starting with HubSpot’s free tools and then (I imagine) upgrading to their Pro tools as needs require.
One thing that will be interesting though, is how much this opens up HubSpot to be used as a spammer’s paradise – after all, getting 2000 free email sends a month is going to be hard to resist for those spammier companies. Just spin up a new account and start over each time your previous account gets banned.
It’s obviously on HubSpot’s mind – just watch how much time Kyle addresses the issue in this introductory video – almost a minute and half ramming home the point that you need to be very considered in your sending. Good luck with that one.
I hope that the Pro accounts aren’t somehow linked to the same sending IPs as these free accounts – there’s going to be deliverability issues for sure arising from this IMO.
*Interesting also that they are pushing as a sales focus, not a marketing focus.
