The best newsletter tool is the one your team will actually open.
A lot of service businesses already run their whole week in monday.com, color-coded boards and all. Now monday CRM and monday campaigns can send email too, which raises a tempting question. Why buy a separate marketing platform when the board is right there?
| Platform | What it really is | Who it's built for |
|---|---|---|
| HubSpot | A CRM first, with marketing, sales and service built around it. | A RevOps or marketing ops pro, or a partner you pay to be one. |
| monday.com | A work-management platform that added a CRM and email. | An ops-minded team that already lives on monday boards. |
The short answer depends on where your team spends its day.
Pick HubSpot if marketing is a real function at your business and you want deep segmentation, attribution and a website that feeds the list.
Try HubSpotPick monday.com if your team already runs projects and deals there, and the newsletter is a friendly, regular note to clients and prospects.
Try monday.commonday.com puts the sale and the work on the same board.
That's the part HubSpot can't copy. When a deal closes in monday CRM, the project can kick off on a board in the same workspace, and the account manager who's been reading the client's replies is the one running the work. The data stays fresh because nobody has to remember a second password.
monday campaigns start at $50 a month for 2,000 contacts billed annually, and CRM seats come in packs of three. Bigger lists get a custom quote, which is vendor for "let's hop on a call."
HubSpot is a marketing department in a box.
HubSpot segments on any property or behavior, runs hundreds of workflows on Professional, and wires your website, forms, blog and SEO straight into the list. monday campaigns gives you about five workflows on Pro, and its segments come from board columns, which works great right up until your list gets interesting.
You pay for that depth. HubSpot Professional starts at $890 a month with a $3,000 onboarding fee, which is a lot of money for a monthly "here's what we've been up to" email.
The WTF Matrix shows where HubSpot and monday.com each pull ahead.
Pick the rows that matter for your newsletter's job, then read across. The dots are our opinion, and we have a lot of those.
| What we judged | HubSpot | monday.com |
|---|---|---|
| PublishingDoes it think like a publication or like a campaign tool? | The editor is polished and Breeze helps, but it thinks in campaigns, not issues. | It sends a perfectly fine email and treats it like one more item on the board. |
| Revenue toolsDoes it give you ways to earn beyond client work, like an ad network, sponsorships or paid subscriptions? | It can sell courses and gated content, but it won't sell your audience to a sponsor. | No ads, no sponsors and no paid tiers live here. |
| Growth toolsDoes it give you built-in growth tools, like referrals and recommendations? | Its blog, SEO and landing pages pull people in, but readers can't refer you. | It gives you forms and wishes you luck. |
| Ease of useCan a busy founder run it without hiring a wizard? | It does everything, which is why most businesses hire someone to drive it. | If your team already lives in monday.com, it'll feel like home on day one. |
| Getting signal to salesCan a salesperson see who read what and do something about it? | Every open and click lands on the record your salesperson already lives in. | Deals sit on the same boards as the client work, which is handy for a services business. |
| Plays well with your stackDoes it talk to your CRM, website and the other tools you already pay for? | More than 1,500 integrations means it's probably already connected to your stuff. | It connects to a wide range of work tools, and you can build your own board automations. |
| AI that actually helpsDoes it save real time, or just write filler faster? | Breeze gets genuinely useful once your whole business lives in HubSpot. | Its agents source leads and prep meetings, which helps the selling more than the writing. |
| Automation and segmentsHow clever can it get about who gets what, and when? | You can segment on anything, including the deal stage of a reader's company. | Segments come from board columns, which gets clumsy once your list gets interesting. |
| Price to startWhat does a small list cost you in year one? | Starter is cheap, and the automation you want lives on Professional. | Campaigns start at $50 a month, and CRM seats come in packs of three. |
| Price at 50,000What happens to the bill when the list takes off? | Every reader counts as a marketing contact, and the renewal email is a jump scare. | Bigger lists get a custom quote, which means a sales call. |
What you can sell, and what each platform skims off the top, varies a lot.
| Platform | Paid newsletter | Digital products and courses | Podcast hosting | Community | Sponsors and ads | What the platform takes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HubSpot | Gated memberships on Content Hub | Yes, via HubSpot payments (US, UK, Canada) | No | No | No | 0.5% platform fee plus card processing |
| monday.com | No | No | No | No | No | Nothing to cut |
The bill at 50,000 subscribers looks nothing like the bill at 1,000.
These are the prices we found at the time of publication for the plan most businesses would actually use. Vendors change pricing whenever they feel like it, so treat this as a snapshot, not a promise.
| Platform | Free plan | About 1,000 contacts | About 10,000 contacts | About 50,000 contacts | How it bills |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HubSpot | Free tools for up to 2 users | $20 a seat on Starter | About $1,400 on Professional (estimate) | About $3,000 and up on Professional (estimate) | Seats plus marketing contacts, and Professional has a $3,000 onboarding fee |
| monday.com | No free plan, 14-day trial | $50 for 2,000 contacts on campaigns Pro (billed annually) | Custom quote | Custom quote | Campaigns by contacts, plus CRM seats at $12 to $28 each in packs of three |
Keep the client newsletter in monday.com, and graduate to HubSpot when it needs to make pipeline.
If the newsletter's job is keeping current and past clients warm, send it from the tool your team already opens. Referrals and repeat work come from staying in touch, and monday.com handles that just fine. If you need the newsletter to create new pipeline, you'll want HubSpot or a publishing platform synced to your CRM. monday.com will hold the deals, but it won't go out and get them.
Read the other comparisons.
beehiiv vs HubSpot
One grows an audience and sells ads to it. The other turns every reader into a record your sales team can work. Most growing businesses end up wanting both.
beehiiv vs Kit
The two newsletter-first platforms. beehiiv earns from sponsors and grows through referrals, and Kit earns from your products through very good automations.
HubSpot vs ActiveCampaign
Both back up a sales team. HubSpot runs the whole revenue operation, and ActiveCampaign runs the automations for a lot less money.
Brevo vs ActiveCampaign
Both run newsletters, follow-up and a simple pipeline. Brevo is the bargain at size, and ActiveCampaign is the automation powerhouse.