When building a website today, it’s no longer enough to think about design or functionality in isolation. Brands need digital experiences that seamlessly integrate marketing, sales, and service ecosystems from the ground up. This is exactly where HubSpot CMS for websites comes into play.
HubSpot has long been known for its CRM, marketing automation, and sales tools. But its website platform—powered by the CMS Hub—extends its reach, offering businesses a powerful way to create, manage, and grow a website that is fully connected to the tools they already use to engage audiences and convert leads.
Why Build a Website on HubSpot?
1. All-in-One Platform
HubSpot isn’t just a CMS; it’s a full-stack growth engine. In its true form. The website you build sits directly on top of your CRM layer, meaning visitor behaviors, form submissions, email interactions, and even chat conversations are automatically tied to the customer record. This seamless integration makes personalizing user journeys easier—and smarter. Marketers like this approach for inbound marketing.
2. Flexible Design Without Heavy Coding
HubSpot’s CMS offers a drag-and-drop editor, themes, and modules that make it possible to build visually sophisticated websites without extensive developer support a.k.a. no-code site. For businesses with in-house marketing teams, this lowers the barrier to quickly launching, testing, and iterating pages.
At the same time, for agencies and developers, HubSpot offers custom development tools (like HubL, serverless functions, and dynamic content capabilities) to create completely tailored experiences.
3. Built-In SEO, Analytics, and Optimization
HubSpot’s CMS comes equipped with tools to optimize on-page SEO, track visitor behavior, run A/B tests, and generate reports—all natively. Instead of stitching together third-party analytics and SEO tools, teams can see how their content is performing and make data-backed decisions from a single dashboard.
4. Security and Reliability Out of the Box
Website hosting through HubSpot includes SSL certificates, Web Application Firewall (WAF), DDoS protection, and automatic updates. This minimizes the need for additional plugins or complex server management, giving brands peace of mind that their digital front door is secure.
Ideal Use Cases for HubSpot Websites
Growing Businesses:
Companies looking for an easy-to-manage website that scales alongside their CRM and marketing efforts.
Marketing-Led Organizations:
Brands that want their marketing, content, and web development teams working from a unified system.
B2B Companies:
Especially those with long sales cycles, where connecting touchpoints across web, email, and sales outreach is key.
Agencies:
Firms building websites for clients who need both an intuitive CMS and a marketing infrastructure in one platform.
Working with HubSpot CMS
At ArtVersion, we approach HubSpot website design projects by balancing user-centered design with the technical structure that HubSpot CMS provides. Our design and development teams work closely together to ensure that the websites we build are visually engaging, strategically aligned, and fully optimized to leverage HubSpot’s CRM and marketing capabilities. From custom theme development to building modular systems that allow for easy client updates, we create solutions that fit seamlessly into the HubSpot environment without sacrificing creativity or usability.
On the technical side, our developers often take advantage of the HubSpot CMS CLI, allowing us to develop websites locally, version control code, and maintain more sophisticated workflows. Using HubL, HubSpot’s proprietary markup language, along with custom modules and serverless functions, we’re able to deliver flexible and dynamic experiences that still feel native to the platform. HubSpot’s structured development environment gives us the tools to maintain design consistency while enabling marketers to manage day-to-day updates without heavy reliance on technical support.
While HubSpot offers a strong framework, there are some natural limitations compared to fully open-source platforms. Custom backend development is more restricted, and highly complex interactive applications often require creative workarounds or external integrations. However, for most business needs—especially marketing-focused websites—the trade-off is well worth it. HubSpot’s stability, security, and direct CRM connectivity allow us to deliver websites that not only look great but actively support our clients’ lead generation and customer engagement strategies.
HubSpot vs. Traditional CMSs
While platforms like WordPress, Drupal, or Webflow offer deep customization, they often require managing a suite of plugins, hosting environments, and security measures separately. Some platforms, like Drupal with CRM Core or WordPress with Jetpack CRM, offer CRM extensions, but these solutions are typically add-ons rather than fully native integrations. They can require additional configuration, maintenance, and troubleshooting to ensure everything works together smoothly.
By contrast, HubSpot streamlines the experience, offering an all-in-one solution that trades some flexibility for efficiency, security, and growth enablement. It’s a different approach—less about piecing together tools and more about delivering a connected, high-performing website faster.
What About Salesforce CMS?
Another option in the market is Salesforce CMS, which offers content management tightly integrated with Salesforce’s CRM and customer data platform. Like HubSpot, it aims to connect website content with customer insights, allowing brands to deliver personalized experiences across channels. However, Salesforce CMS is typically better suited for organizations already deeply embedded in the Salesforce ecosystem. It often requires more technical setup and integration work compared to HubSpot’s more out-of-the-box usability.
In short, while Salesforce CMS can be a powerful choice for enterprise teams with extensive Salesforce investments, HubSpot’s CMS tends to be more approachable, faster to deploy, and easier to manage for mid-sized businesses and growing teams.
Pricing Considerations and Budgeting
When evaluating HubSpot for web design, it’s important to consider pricing early in the decision-making process. Unlike open-source platforms like WordPress or Drupal, which are free to use but require separate hosting, security, and plugin investments, HubSpot CMS Hub operates on a subscription model. Pricing typically starts with the CMS Hub Starter, designed for small businesses, and scales up to Professional and Enterprise tiers, which unlock more advanced features like dynamic content, adaptive testing, serverless functions, and custom integrations.
While the upfront costs are higher compared to building a basic site on traditional CMSs, HubSpot’s pricing bundles hosting, security, CRM access, analytics, and marketing tools into a single platform. For growing organizations, this can often result in lower total cost of ownership over time by reducing the need for multiple third-party services and ongoing technical maintenance.
When budgeting for a HubSpot website, businesses should factor in not just the CMS Hub subscription, but also potential costs for design, development, ongoing content management, and any premium integrations or custom modules they may need to maximize the platform’s capabilities.
Security and Uptime
HubSpot takes a lot of the guesswork out of website security and performance. Every HubSpot-hosted website includes enterprise-grade security features by default, such as SSL certificates, a web application firewall (WAF), DDoS protection, 24/7 threat monitoring, and automated platform updates. There’s no need to manage third-party security plugins or manual server patches. HubSpot also guarantees 99.99% uptime through a globally distributed content delivery network (CDN), ensuring that websites load quickly and stay online even during periods of high traffic or regional server disruptions. For businesses that can’t afford downtime or security risks, this built-in infrastructure provides a significant advantage over traditional self-managed CMS environments.
Final Thoughts
Choosing HubSpot for your website isn’t just a technology decision—it’s a growth decision. By consolidating CMS, CRM, marketing automation, and customer service under one roof, businesses can create digital experiences that aren’t just beautiful, but also smarter and more connected.
For organizations ready to align their website with their customer journey—and grow smarter—HubSpot offers a compelling path forward.