HubSpot and Payani price the same growth problem in different units: HubSpot by seat and by marketing contact, Payani by plan. Here is every published line, then what a five-person team actually pays in year one.
The published prices, side by side
| Product | Plan | Price | What it covers | Billing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Payani AI | Starter | $49 per month | 1 seat, 2,000 AI credits, 5,000 contacts, 10,000 emails per month | Monthly |
| Payani AI | Pro | $99 per month | 3 seats, 7,500 AI credits, 25,000 contacts, 50,000 emails per month | Monthly |
| Payani AI | Business | $249 per month | 10 seats, 20,000 AI credits, 100,000 contacts, 200,000 emails per month | Monthly |
| Payani AI | Extra seat | $20 per month | One additional seat | Monthly |
| Payani AI | Credit top-ups | $35, $95, $240 | 2,500, 7,500 or 20,000 AI credits | One time |
| HubSpot | Marketing Starter | $20 per month per seat | One seat | Monthly |
| HubSpot | Marketing Professional | $890 per month, or $800 per month billed annually | 3 Core Seats and 2,000 marketing contacts | Monthly |
| HubSpot | Professional, extra Core Seat | $45 per month | One additional Core Seat | Monthly |
| HubSpot | Professional Onboarding | $3,000 | Required, one time | One time |
| HubSpot | Marketing Enterprise | $3,600 per month | 5 Core Seats and 10,000 marketing contacts | Monthly |
| HubSpot | Enterprise, extra Core Seat | $75 per month | One additional Core Seat | Monthly |
| HubSpot | Enterprise Onboarding | $7,000 | Required, one time | One time |
| HubSpot | AEO | $50 per month, or $45 per month billed annually | Tracks 25 prompts across 3 answer engines daily | Monthly |
Prices are as listed on each vendor's pricing page on 29 September 2026.
Two lines in that table decide most of the bill. HubSpot Professional covers 2,000 marketing contacts; HubSpot prices contacts above that in its bundle calculator rather than on the pricing page. And the Professional Onboarding fee is required, one time, and almost never in comparison tables.
What a five-person team pays in year one
On HubSpot Professional, five seats means the three included Core Seats plus two more, and the onboarding fee in the first year: $890 x 12 + $45 x 2 x 12 + $3,000 = $14,760. That buys 2,000 marketing contacts; anything above is quoted separately.
On Payani Pro, five seats means the three included seats plus two more: $99 x 12 + $20 x 2 x 12 = $1,668. That covers 25,000 contacts and 50,000 emails a month, with no onboarding fee.
If you land on HubSpot Enterprise, the base is $3,600 per month with 5 Core Seats included, and the required Enterprise Onboarding is $7,000, so year one starts at $3,600 x 12 + $7,000 = $50,200 before any contacts above 10,000.
HubSpot AEO, its answer engine tracking, is $50 per month, or $45 per month billed annually. HubSpot's footnote says it is included in Marketing Hub Professional and Enterprise, so a Professional buyer does not pay that line twice.
None of this is hidden. It is published. It rarely appears in comparison articles because they copy the headline tier price and stop, and the $3,000 onboarding fee is the most under-reported number in the category.
Why your bill goes up when your list does
Contact-priced billing charges you for storage, and storage is the one part of marketing that produces nothing on its own. You import a trade show list of 3,000 people. None of them has opened anything. Your bill goes up. You run a lead magnet that pulls in 2,000 students who will never buy. Your bill goes up.
The behaviour this produces is worse than the cost. Teams start deleting contacts to manage spend. They stop importing historic customers because the CRM makes them expensive. They keep marketing and sales data in separate places because merging the two databases would raise the bill. That is a pricing model degrading the asset that compounds, which is your own first-party data.
Payani prices on the plan, not the person. You pay for the AI work you use through credits, topped up when you want more. Every paid plan runs the whole platform, so the plans differ in seats, AI credits, contacts and emails rather than in features.
The number that matters more: what the whole stack costs
Comparing one tool's line item to another's is the wrong frame for an operator. A real business at this size is buying a CRM with pipelines, an email platform, a scheduler, a forms tool, social publishing, ad management and a reporting layer that ties GA4 to revenue. On HubSpot, the marketing number above is the marketing number; seats for the sales team and onboarding sit alongside it.
Which one to pick, honestly
If you are B2B with a real sales team, a long cycle and a marketing operations hire whose job is to run the system, HubSpot Professional does what enterprise software does. Go in knowing the onboarding fee is mandatory, the seat ladder is $45 per additional Core Seat, and contacts above 2,000 are priced in the bundle calculator.
If you own the growth number and you do not have five people, five tools and a mar-ops hire to glue them together, the fragmented stack is the problem and buying a bigger piece of it does not fix it. That is the case for Payani: one system, $49 to $249 per month, the whole platform on every plan.
What changes at 25,000 contacts
This is the question to actually ask, because nobody stays small. On Payani, 25,000 contacts is Pro at $99 per month with 3 seats and 50,000 emails. On contact-priced platforms, the slope is the product. Your results did not change. Your database did. Model the bill at the list size you are planning for, not the one you have.
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Frequently asked questions
What does HubSpot Professional cost in year one for a five-seat team?
HubSpot Marketing Professional is $890 per month and includes 3 Core Seats and 2,000 marketing contacts, with additional Core Seats at $45 per month each and a required one-time Professional Onboarding fee of $3,000. For five seats that is $890 x 12 + $45 x 2 x 12 + $3,000 = $14,760 in year one, before any contacts above 2,000.
Does Payani charge more as my contact list grows?
Payani prices by plan, not by contact. Starter is $49 per month for 5,000 contacts, Pro is $99 per month for 25,000 contacts and Business is $249 per month for 100,000 contacts, each with email sending included. You pay for the AI work you use through credits, which can be topped up at $35 for 2,500, $95 for 7,500 or $240 for 20,000.
Do I have to pay HubSpot's onboarding fee?
HubSpot's pricing page lists Professional Onboarding as a required one-time fee of $3,000 and Enterprise Onboarding as a required one-time fee of $7,000. It is published, it is mandatory on those tiers, and it almost never appears in comparison tables. Include it in any year-one budget.
What is included on Payani's cheapest plan?
The whole platform: every paid Payani plan runs the same product, with no locked features. Starter at $49 per month differs from the higher plans in seats, AI credits, contacts and emails.
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