Suite or Stack? The Freelancer Client Call
Objective: Given a real SMB client's budget, team size, and existing tools, apply the lesson's data-gravity and ops-maturity test to recommend an all-in-one suite or a best-of-breed stack, and defend the call in writing.
You're a freelance marketing consultant. A Squarespace-based DTC brand with a 2-person generalist marketing team, no CRM, $2,500/month tool budget, and a growing list of Mailchimp + a separate landing-page tool + a spreadsheet CRM has asked you: 'should we just get HubSpot?'
Score the client against the lesson's data-gravity and ops-maturity criteria, then write a one-page recommendation with the actual monthly cost comparison.
Before you start
What you'll need
Free path (everything below is enough to finish)
Free, no account setup, easy to hand to the client as a deliverable
Paid upgrades (optional, faster/deeper)
You don't need a paid HubSpot account to complete this project, published pricing pages are sufficient for the comparison.
Reference real published tier pricing instead of estimating
The process
1 step
Step 01 of 01
The lesson's playbook says to map the data of record and score operational maturity before anything else: teams with no CRM and generalist staff are the profile a suite's all-in-one contact record is built for, not the profile that needs Marketo-grade complexity.
The client has no CRM (data lives in a spreadsheet), a 2-person generalist team with no dedicated ops hire, and a single-funnel DTC business (no multi-brand, multi-region journeys). Does that profile match 'buy a suite' or 'stay best-of-breed'?
Procedure
- List the client's current tools and monthly spend: Mailchimp ($20), a separate landing-page tool ($99), and an hour a week reconciling a spreadsheet CRM by hand
- Score data-of-record: no CRM in place scores as a point in favor of a suite (removes a migration project later)
- Score ops maturity: 2 generalists with no dedicated admin scores against Marketo-tier complexity and in favor of HubSpot's easier setup
- Score journey complexity: single DTC funnel, no multi-region or multi-brand need, scores against needing Salesforce Marketing Cloud
- Price out HubSpot Marketing Hub Starter/Professional against the client's $2,500/month ceiling and compare to the current $119/month tool spend
SCORECARD Data of record: No CRM -> favors suite (+1) Ops maturity: 2 generalists, no admin -> favors HubSpot over Marketo (+1) Journey complexity: single DTC funnel -> favors suite over Salesforce MC (+1) Budget: $2,500/mo ceiling vs current $119/mo spend -> HubSpot Starter ($20-100/mo) fits with huge headroom; Professional ($890/mo) still fits RECOMMENDATION: HubSpot Marketing Hub Starter now, revisit Professional at 2,000+ contacts
Healthy
The recommendation names a specific starting tier and monthly price the client can actually afford, not just 'get a suite.'
Unhealthy
Recommending HubSpot Enterprise ($3,600/month) to a client with a $2,500/month ceiling because the sales rep pitched the top tier.
What this means
A suite recommendation without a tier and a real number attached is not a recommendation, it's a vendor referral.
So what do I do about it?
| Symptom | Action | Effort |
|---|---|---|
| Client asks 'which tier do we actually need' and you don't have an answer | Re-run the scorecard against each tier's feature list, not just the brand name | 30 min |
Final deliverable
A one-page client memo: the 4-row scorecard, a monthly cost comparison table, and a named tier recommendation with the reasoning.
See a reference example
Freshworks client memo (excerpt) RECOMMENDATION: Stay best-of-breed for now. Data of record: CRM already exists (Freshworks CRM) -> no migration benefit from a suite Ops maturity: 1 dedicated ops hire -> can run point-tool integrations without breaking Journey complexity: 3-region B2B funnel -> needs segmentation a $99/mo landing tool can still handle Budget: $800/mo ceiling -> HubSpot Professional ($890/mo) doesn't fit Verdict: revisit at 5,000+ contacts or when a second region launches.
Success criteria
You're done when you can:
- Scorecard covers all four criteria from the lesson's playbook, not just budget
- Recommendation names a specific tier and a real monthly price, not a vendor name alone
- Memo states the condition under which the recommendation would flip