Honest Hubspot Chatbot Review 2026: It’s not worth it

HubSpot is one of the most used CRM platforms in the world. But is it also good for creating chatbots?

In this HubSpot review I will cover the HubSpot chatbot features, pros and cons, and pricing options. And I will share whether you should use it or not.

Let’s get started!

What is HubSpot?

HubSpot is an all-in-one CRM platform for growing your business.

The HubSpot Platform contains everything you need to grow your business, including:

• Marketing
• Sales
• Service
• Operations
• Website-building
• Chatbot software

But this isn’t a full HubSpot CRM review. In this review, I will focus mostly on their chatbot feature for creating chat automations.

Using the HubSpot Chatbot Builder

Setting up a chatbot in HubSpot is fairly simple. In HubSpot, your chatbot consists of Chatflows. When you create your chatflow, HubSpot first asks on what channel you want to create it:

Once you’ve decided on the channel, you can get started with one of the HubSpot templates or start from scratch:

On this screen, you can pick between Live chat or Knowledge base + live chat. You also have four pre-built chatbots available. A preview appears on the right:

1. Concierge bot
2. Qualify leads bot
3. Meetings bot
4. Offline bot

 

When you click on one of those and go “Next”, a chatflow is automatically made in the HubSpot chatbot builder.

When editing the chatflow, HubSpot has a flow builder that gives a good overview:

 

To edit an element, you can just click on it. And if you want to add an element, you can just click on the “+” button. It’s pretty intuitive.

In the HubSpot chatbot builder, you can choose from three main blocks:

1. Sending a message
2. Asking a question
3. If/then branch, which can be used to personalize the conversation

Once you have created your chatflow, you can use the Preview option to test the chatflow before it actually goes live:

Lastly, you can determine who you want to target. For example, you can determine the URL and some specifics about your target audience:

The editing of chatflows is really simple, and the platform is quite easy to use. By using one of the templates that HubSpot provides, you can get started pretty quickly with creating your chatbot.

Want to compare HubSpot with 33 other chatbot platforms? Compare them here →

Hubspot Chatbot elements

HubSpot does not have a huge number of chatbot elements. The fundamental ones are available, like we mentioned, sending a message, asking a question, and a conditional if/then element. All of these are the building blocks of a good chatflow.

However, what is missing is a “start chatflow” option. This is a clear drawback that limits the chatbot scalability. You can’t reuse existing automations. Instead, you have to make every new automation from scratch. Essentially, creating larger chatbots is next to impossible.

Contacts

In HubSpot, you can see all the contacts that have interacted with your chatbot:

When you click on any individual contact, you can see all the information about that contact:

In HubSpot, you can add your own custom fields and also determine tags that you can add to contacts.

Likewise, you can create your own segments and segment your audience by various criteria.

Hubspot AI Features

There is no keyword recognition or AI in HubSpot whatsoever.

If someone just types a question, HubSpot can’t do anything with that, which is disappointing. HubSpot only has flow-based chatbots.

You create the flow and people go through it, without being able to do anything outside of that flow.

In the screenshot below, if a user decided to type in the word “order” instead of clicking one of the two buttons, nothing would happen.

Live Chat

HubSpot has a built-in live chat, that allows you to hand off the conversation from the chatbot to a human agent:

Unfortunately, you cannot set up auto-assignment rules with the live chat. HubSpot just picks the least busy available agent.

Channels

HubSpot only allows you to have a chatbot in two places:

1. Your Website
2. Facebook Messenger

Only being able to use two channels can be a drawback. This limits companies that want to create chatbots on many channels.

Marketing

With HubSpot, it is not possible to send broadcasts or sequences (sequences are available in the HubSpot CRM but not with the chatbot). This is a huge drawback, because this is the basis for most marketing chatbots (where HubSpot is focused on).

But you can add a widget to your website, so customers can communicate with your chatbot.

You can customize this widget to your own branding, and also send proactive messages that trigger on specific events:

Although you can create a chatbot on Facebook, you don’t have access to any of Facebook’s marketing tools, which is a definite drawback.

What you can do is add a widget your website and send proactive messages on your website.

HubSpot Chatbot Integrations

HubSpot has an App Marketplace with over 1600 direct integrations. You can basically pick an app and connect it directly to HubSpot:

They also have direct integrations with Zapier and Make. This lets you connect HubSpot to just about any software on Earth.

Likewise, you can also call APIs inside your chat flows to connect with other applications.

HubSpot Chatbot Pricing

HubSpot comes with a free plan and a free trial, so you have plenty of room to test out their platform before you start paying.

After the free plan, the pricing structure is a bit complicated. The Service Hub Professional plan costs $100 per month (90 if paid annually).

However, what is a little bit strange to me, is that they mention that “Conversational bots” (aka chatbots) are part of their “Free Forever” plan. But when you use the chatbot, you do not always have the permissions to use to the full potential:

 

For example, when I wanted to add the “Webhook”, I got this:

So if you want to use the full range of features, you need to upgrade to the Operations Hub Professional plan, which costs $800 per month.

This is obviously a huge price increase.

So, I’m not sure which elements you can use to build a chatbot in HubSpot. You need other CRM parts, and they may cost extra.

Analytics

I always say: If a chatbot platform doesn’t have analytics, do not use it.

And that applies here. HubSpot does not provide any built-in analytics for your chatbot at all. You can create your own custom reports, but that costs (too much) money.

To make your custom reports, you will be greeted with this:

The button “Create report” is obviously the one to click, but again, it costs you extra to make custom reports.

Is the HubSpot Chatbot Worth It?

So, should you use the HubSpot Chatbot to create your chat automations?

I will be honest with you, I will not recommend this platform to you when building your chatbot. HubSpot chatbot features miss some basics, like:

• Analytics
• Recognizing keywords
• Broadcasts & sequences
• Marketing possibilities on Facebook

Many users searching for a HubSpot conversations review probably wonder the same thing. It’s whether the chatbot feature offers enough value to justify its cost. For many, the answer may lean toward no.

So when should you use it then? I think this software is great when you are already using the HubSpot software as your CRM and want to try chatbots for the first time.

It is really easy to setup a chatbot in just a few minutes in which you can automatically qualify your leads or let people book an appointment with you.

Go to HubSpot

Frequently Asked Questions

Is HubSpot chatbot free?

HubSpot chatbot pricing offers a free plan that includes basic chatbot features. However, to get access to full features, you will need to use one of the paid plans. The Service Hub Professional plan starts at $100/month.

What are some HubSpot chatbot examples?

HubSpot provides four pre-built chatbot templates:

1. Concierge bot: Helps users navigate your website
2. Qualify leads bot: Gathers information to assess potential customers
3. Meetings bot: Schedules appointments automatically
4. Offline bot: Collects messages when live agents are unavailable

These bots work best for basic customer interactions and lead qualification.