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Act-On Software vs HubSpot Marketing Hub vs Marketo comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Marketing Automation category, the mindshare of Act-On Software is 1.8%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HubSpot Marketing Hub is 10.0%, up from 9.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Marketo is 10.4%, down from 14.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Marketing Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Marketo10.4%
HubSpot Marketing Hub10.0%
Act-On Software1.8%
Other77.8%
Marketing Automation
 

Featured Reviews

it_user82449 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Systems Manager at a consultancy with 501-1,000 employees
The adaptive nurturing, segmentation, multiple lead scoring rules, and simple CRM integration stood out the most.
The CRM integration with Act-On is better with Salesforce and had more value for sales representatives than it did with Microsoft Dynamics CRM; that was MS CRM's downfall. Act-On Anywhere is a nice feature for general users, but the tracking in CRM is lost, and Marketing team subject lines do not carry over on the email templates.
Xx Ee - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Content Marketing Strategist at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Has supported marketing and sales alignment while leaving room for better customization options
I have recommendations for making it easier to customize. I used to work in a tech company, so it's very easy to do that in-house, and our team did that. It's not easy to customize for a regular user though. In the world of generative AI where it's easy for you to connect different tools, APIs, etc., HubSpot Marketing Hub still requires some customization. For example, if you want to make sure it's connected with a custom CRM or some other CRM, there is some fair bit of modification that's required. Some main differences in my experience between HubSpot Marketing Hub and Salesforce are that Salesforce is a bit un-user-friendly. I have to be fair, I haven't used Salesforce too much, but I think HubSpot Marketing Hub is much more user-friendly.
Anika Gaur - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Digital Solutions Analyst at Rich Products
Effective lead management and useability with room for reporting improvements
Customer support could be more helpful. The reporting could be better, with more engaging reports and the ability to collaborate more objects, like opportunities. Incorporating AI features similar to tools like HubSpot and Salesforce account engagement would be beneficial. Additionally, Marketo should work on automating tools and updating the product since it looks similar to how it did five years ago.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It is now much easier for us to send and segment emails, analyze our results and make smarter decisions."
"Act-On has an outstanding customer support team and they escalate issues to their technical teams before the frustration level."
"Before I joined, my company used a larger, more expensive but more popular software, and after switching to this, my team can still do everything it needs to for cheaper."
"Act-On is simple to use and it makes campaign development a breeze."
"Our organization was operating blindfolded before implementing Act-On."
"There are customizable templates and we can easily make the templates more dynamic."
"The most valuable aspect for us is email marketing because it provides us with a powerful tool and allows us to create email workflows for follow-ups, which is crucial for building relationships with potential customers."
"Customer Service: Pretty good and very responsive support. Technical Support: Very good"
"The most valuable features are the reports, overall usability, and ease of use."
"Marketing Hub does an incredible job of tracking and updating client records. The reporting has been enhanced, so you can do just about any type of reporting with it and export to Excel if necessary. They just came out with a considerable upgrade a few months ago, which really helped on the reporting side."
"HubSpot Marketing Hub has positively impacted our organization by getting our message out there, having the designs look nice, and also just increasing our brand awareness."
"Absolutely, hands-down the best platform of its kind that we've experienced."
"I use HubSpot Marketing Hub for various tasks. It's easy to use and adaptable. After a little training, anyone can handle it efficiently. We use it for drip campaigns, social media, and marketing automation. We're not fully using marketing automation yet for smart content. I like the drag-and-drop feature for editing images and content in email templates. I don't need a developer to create designs. I can quickly test how emails look on different devices.4"
"The most valuable feature is the scoring."
"Automated customer outreach from sign up to upgrade"
"The most valuable features of Marketo are its ease of use and flexibility."
"Marketo is excellent in terms of hands-on usability and lead database management."
"The most valuable features are the Marketo emails, both sending and tracking."
"This solution gives me a qualified lead, it will drive your sales even faster."
"This is the best marketing automation solution out there, for the ease of use, the amazing metrics, the integration to SFDC, and the price."
"The product has been stable and scalable, the custom support is great, it's easy to set up campaigns, events, and objects, there are a lot of custom solutions from Marketo, it can be integrated well in various ways, and everything can be found in the solution."
 

Cons

"The CRM integration with Act-On is better with Salesforce and had more value for sales representatives than it did with Microsoft Dynamics CRM; that was MS CRM's downfall."
"One area of improvement would be ability to use dynamic content fields. It is available, but not to the fullest extent where it would help me."
"It can be disorienting when they put out a new release/beta test without informing us. It can be a bit disorienting to have to figure out how to access and adjust things in a new layout unexpectedly."
"It would be ideal if there was a way to forward a notification or create notifications for non-HubSpot users."
"In terms of drawbacks, I've found that it lacks in-depth analytics and reporting features."
"While HubSpot Marketing Hub has shown increased functionality, there is still room for improvement, particularly in workflows."
"They should integrate a bot, as it would be easier to get the status to the management team without logging into the CRM to get all the required details."
"There are some issues with HubSpot Marketing Hub with receiving notifications. It was too difficult to understand, and it requires a lot of effort. Configuration could be simplified."
"HubSpot is mainly for enterprise clients and there is a lot of competition. There are better solutions, such as Eloqua and Marketo. This solution needs to improve the analytics for social media monitoring to a level that it can compete with other solutions available in the market. There are some limitations with the features compared to other solutions."
"They've inserted new modules over time, but they're add-ons and require additional licenses depending on packages."
"Adobe, the parent company, needs to improve on getting more information published to allow users to educate themselves on how to use the solution."
"Some modern Marketo features could be improved."
"I had an issue while integrating JavaScript with forms. When you embed JavaScript, you can either embed it in a landing page or some other self-contained management system like WordPress. Currently, it provides you access to CSS, where you can customize your form design, but there is no option for JavaScript modification for a particular form. This area needs to be improved where you can integrate JavaScript, and it has the JavaScript functions for that particular form. There are a lot of other areas of improvement. In the design area, they can give us more testing options instead of relying on email testing alone. It would be great if they can provide responsive testing where email clients can be tested within Marketo. It would be also helpful if they can implement some in-built options for users or forms for blocking a generic email ID such as Yahoo or Gmail. Similarly, it would be helpful to have JavaScript features and forms as well as the option to add Google analytics and a header and footer for the landing pages."
"This solution also doesn't scale for the large enterprise - a huge downside for them."
"Its APIs need to be more flexible because there are some things that are not available in the API."
"Marketo's reporting and dashboarding features could be better. Compared to other tools, the visualization options with charts and graphs seem somewhat limited."
"I have encountered issues when I had to use filters repeatedly. It would have been helpful if I could duplicate them directly, instead of dragging them. Also, having an option to save filters for future use would have saved a lot of time, especially when dealing with multiple filters."
"Pricing. It is NOT cheap, given the functionality of the product. Feels like I could be paying less."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Regarding pricing and licensing, I haven't directly handled it, but I assume Zoho might be cheaper. However, I would still prefer HubSpot due to its cleaner and more user-friendly interface."
"We are on an annual license for this solution. There have many different versions to meet the needs of their customers, such as professional enterprise and basic versions. They charge for the particular feature or components which are available in the license you have."
"The solution is cheaper than its competitors."
"For our organization, HubSpot was pretty affordable compared to Google Analytics."
"The platform itself will typically cost anywhere from $50,000 to $80,000 per year."
"The licensing costs are around $4,800 per month. Initially, there's an onboarding fee of around $10,000 or $5,000, but after that, it's just the licensing fee."
"I believe an individual license costs $50 per month."
"HubSpot Marketing Hub provided me with the startup package with 90% off, but it's still hundreds of dollars a month instead of thousands of dollars a month. There is an additional cost for training and onboarding which is hundreds of dollars. It is expensive and should be reduced."
"I'm not sure about the cost because I don't get into this aspect. Clients normally take care of that. I only know that it is costly, and I don't think there are any additional costs to the licensing."
"The pricing is not cheap, but it's not that expensive either."
"The solution is expensive compared to others."
"The licensing cost usually depends on the users."
"Marketo is too expensive for a small-sized company but more affordable for a larger-sized company."
"Marketo's pricing depends on the number of contacts and the level of features you need. Compared to other platforms like Oracle Eloqua and Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Marketo is generally more affordable. Like other platforms, it offers different packages based on your needs."
"The initial pricing was excellent, but the pricing for renewals is not as good."
"It is expensive. We have a yearly license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

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What needs improvement with HubSpot Marketing Hub?
The biggest thing HubSpot Marketing Hub needs to improve is to keep up with trends and continue innovating around AI ...
What is your primary use case for HubSpot Marketing Hub?
My main use case for HubSpot Marketing Hub is primarily for our website and all of our demand generation. A specific ...
What advice do you have for others considering HubSpot Marketing Hub?
HubSpot Marketing Hub has positively impacted our organization by allowing us to execute more targeted campaigns, as ...
What needs improvement with Marketo?
The user interface could be improved. I would like to see an updated UI for 2025.
What is your primary use case for Marketo?
As a seasoned Marketo Expert with a decade of experience and a deep understanding of Adobe's ecosystem, I can confide...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Marketo?
The solution is cheaper than Alacor. That said, I do not know the exact price.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NYU, Tableau, Xerox, ASPCA, Lego Education, Hoopla, Avery Dennison and SolarWorld.
Emyth, CRS, ClearPivot, Stitch Live, SoldOut, Waterfall, SnapEngage, Duo
Marketo has a customer base of thousands of companies, including Sony, Citrix, BrightTALK, Curves International, HootSuite, Hyundai, SanDisk, and Samsung Electronics.
Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce, Adobe, HubSpot and others in Marketing Automation. Updated: May 2026.
896,099 professionals have used our research since 2012.