Comparing LastWorker and HubSpot Service Hub

HubSpot Service Hub is a strong choice for businesses already using HubSpot CRM because support tickets sync automatically with contact records. However, the free tier limits you to two users and adds HubSpot branding to your chat widget. LastWorker provides free, unlimited chat and email support for any number of teammates, charging only for AI usage or phone minutes.

When I ran operations for a regional dental practice, we had eleven different front desks. Each desk had a receptionist who needed to see every patient interaction. If we had used a system that charged per seat, our software bill would have tripled the moment we opened our fourth location. That is the primary lens I use when I look at support tools: how much does it cost me to let my staff do their jobs?

HubSpot is a massive, capable platform. If your sales team lives in HubSpot and your marketing team sends every email through their servers, Service Hub is the logical next step. Having a ticket sit right next to the contact record without any manual data entry is a luxury that saves hours of clicking between tabs. I have spent many nights at 2am trying to figure out why a lead from a website form did not show up in a CRM. With HubSpot, that problem generally does not exist.

But there are trade-offs for that convenience. I want to look at those trade-offs from the perspective of a service business trying to keep overhead low while still answering every customer.

What do you get for free with HubSpot Service Hub?

The free tier of HubSpot Service Hub is a generous starting point for a solo founder or a very small team of two. It includes live chat, email ticketing, and a basic knowledge base. You also get 500 macros, which are essentially saved replies for common questions. For a small shop, 500 is plenty.

The most restrictive part of this tier is the seat limit. You get two users. In the service businesses I have managed, two users is never enough. Even a small two-location restaurant group needs more than two people looking at customer feedback. You have the owner, the general manager, and the shift leads. If you want everyone to be able to jump in and help a customer, you quickly outgrow those two free seats.

Another factor is the branding. The HubSpot free chat widget has a "Powered by HubSpot" badge on it. For some businesses, this is fine. For others, it feels a bit like wearing a borrowed suit that is one size too big. It looks a little less permanent than a custom-branded tool.

LastWorker takes a different approach. We believe the tools to talk to your customers should be free. Live chat and email support are free forever. There are no limits on the number of conversations or the number of teammates you can add. We do not charge for seats because I know from experience that the person best equipped to answer a customer's question might be a technician in the field or a chef in the kitchen who only logs in once a week. You should not have to pay $20 a month for that person to have an account.

How does the pricing scale as you grow?

HubSpot pricing is built on seats. Their entry-level paid plan, called Starter, begins at approximately $20 per seat per month. Because pricing can change, you should check their official pricing page at https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/service to verify the current rates.

If you have five people handling support, you are looking at $100 a month. That is a fair price for the depth of features HubSpot provides, but it is a fixed cost that stays the same whether you have a busy month or a slow one.

The jump from Starter to Professional is where many small businesses hit a wall. HubSpot Professional includes advanced features like help desk automation and custom reporting, but it also comes with a one-time onboarding fee that is usually around $1,500. For a local service business, $1,500 is a lot of money to pay before you even send your first automated reply.

LastWorker does not have a subscription or a per-seat fee. We only charge when you use our AI or our phone system. If you want a human to answer every chat and email, your bill is zero. If you want the AI to handle a chat, it costs $0.04 only when it actually generates a response. This means if you have a slow month in January, you aren't paying for a "Professional" tier that you aren't fully utilizing.

What is the difference in how they handle AI?

AI is a standard part of the conversation now, but the two platforms handle it differently. HubSpot bundles AI credits into their tiers. On the Starter plan, you might get 500 credits. On Professional, that might go up to 3,000. This is convenient because you know exactly what your bill will be every month.

However, bundled credits can be frustrating if you only need a little bit of help. You might find yourself paying for a higher tier just to get more AI credits, even if you do not need the other features in that tier.

At LastWorker, AI is off by default. We do not believe in generating responses for the sake of it. When you do turn it on, you pay for exactly what you use. A chat or email reply from the AI is $0.04. A phone call answered by the AI is $0.01 per minute, which includes the carrier cost.

I have watched good leads die in a voicemail box because my staff was too busy to pick up the phone. In my dental practice days, a missed call was often a $200 cleaning or a $1,000 crown walking away to the dentist down the street. Paying $0.01 for a three-minute AI call to book that appointment is a trade I would have made every single day.

Which platform is better for phone calls?

HubSpot Service Hub focuses heavily on chat and email. While they have calling features, they are primarily designed for outbound sales or basic tracking. They are not a full replacement for an answering service or a front desk receptionist.

LastWorker was built with the phone in mind. I have spent years writing phone scripts at 2am, trying to make sure our receptionists sounded professional. I know that for many service businesses, the phone is still the most important channel. We provide a phone number for $1 a month. Inbound SMS is free. Outbound SMS is $0.03 per segment.

If you are a contractor or a plumber, you might not care about a fancy chat widget as much as you care about someone answering the phone when a basement is flooding at 11pm. LastWorker allows you to have a human answer during the day and an AI answer at night, all within the same inbox where your emails and chats live.

Is the CRM integration worth the cost?

I will be the first to admit that HubSpot’s CRM is excellent. Of the twelve major support tools we track, HubSpot is one of only eight that offers a functional free tier. Many competitors, like Zendesk or Intercom, do not have a free entry point at all.

If you are already committed to the HubSpot ecosystem, the integration is likely worth the price of the seats. Having your marketing, sales, and support all under one roof prevents data silos. I have seen businesses struggle when the sales team uses one tool and the support team uses another. Nobody knows who is talking to whom, and the customer ends up getting two different answers to the same question.

However, if you are not using HubSpot for your whole business, paying for Service Hub seats can feel like paying a "tax" just to talk to your customers. If you use a different CRM, or if you just need a simple way to manage tickets and chats, the overhead of HubSpot might be more than you need.

How many support tools actually offer free tiers?

It is common to think that most software has a free version, but that is not the case in the support world. Out of the twelve tools in our comparison table, only eight offer a free tier. Tawk.to, Crisp, Chatwoot, Freshdesk, HubSpot, Zoho Desk, Tidio, and Help Scout all have some form of free entry.

But "free" means different things to different companies. For example, Zoho Desk's free version only covers email ticketing and has no live chat at all. Tidio limits you to 50 conversations a month before the widget simply stops working. Crisp limits you to two seats and 100 customer profiles.

When I look at those numbers, I think about a busy Saturday at a restaurant. If you have a hundred people checking your menu and asking about reservations through a chat widget, a "free" plan that stops at 50 conversations is useless by lunchtime.

LastWorker is free for unlimited conversations and unlimited seats because I don't think you should be penalized for being popular. We make our money when our AI provides actual value by answering a call or a message for you. If you prefer to have your own staff handle the volume, we are happy to provide the platform for free.

How do you decide which one to use?

The choice comes down to where your customer data lives.

Choose HubSpot Service Hub if you already use HubSpot CRM for your sales and marketing. The $20 per seat for the Starter plan is a reasonable fee to keep all your data in one place and avoid the headache of trying to link two different systems together. Just be prepared for the two-user limit on the free plan and the $1,500 onboarding fee if you eventually need the Professional tier.

Choose LastWorker if you want a tool that grows with your team without increasing your monthly fixed costs. If you need more than two people to access your inbox, or if you want to integrate phone calls and SMS into your support workflow, our usage-based model is more flexible.

I have spent eighteen years trying to find the balance between great service and a healthy bottom line. I have hired receptionists and I have let them go when the numbers didn't work. My goal with these articles is to help you find a setup that doesn't force you to make those hard choices just because your software bill got too high.