The leading inbound marketing & sales platform — great for content-heavy SaaS, awkward for trade show booth builders. Exphora is the only CRM purpose-built for the trade show industry — with 30+ booth specifications, a free 3D Booth Designer, AI-generated proposals, multi-currency invoicing and a 433,000+ exhibitor signal database. All at flat $49–$399/mo, not per seat.
Switch from HubSpot in days, not months. Keep your data, drop the add-ons, ship your first AI booth proposal today. The 3D Booth Designer is forever-free with no credit card.
HubSpot is a fine general-purpose tool. For the specifics of trade show production, it leaves you filling gaps with add-ons, integrations and manual workarounds.
HubSpot ships with generic B2B sales pipelines (lead → opportunity → closed). It has zero awareness of the booth-builder lifecycle (Brief → 3D design → Approval → Fabrication → Install → Dismantle), so every booth team rebuilds the same pipeline from scratch.
HubSpot Quotes only handle simple line items. There is no native field for booth size (m²), electrical load (kW), AV rig, lighting count, hostess/translator count, render images, or fabrication materials. Most booth builders end up bolting on PandaDoc — another monthly bill.
HubSpot has no idea what a "trade show" or "exhibitor" is. There is no way to pull a list of every company exhibiting at Hannover Messe or CES so you can pitch them. Exphora ships with a 433,000+ exhibitor / 112,000+ event database baked in.
Marketing Hub Starter is $50/mo for 2 users; Sales Hub Professional is $500/mo for 5 users; Marketing Hub Enterprise tops out around $3,600/mo. Add the contact-tier upgrades at 1k / 5k / 10k contacts and a 5-person booth shop typically pays $1,500–$4,000/mo for a CRM that still does not know what a booth is.
HubSpot has no CAD, no 3D, no floorplan, no parametric stand modeller. Booth teams have to keep paying for SketchUp, Vectorworks, or Cinema 4D licenses just to show clients what they are buying.
HubSpot Payments runs on Stripe (USD-first) and multi-currency support is locked behind Pro/Enterprise tiers. Exphora supports 7 currencies (USD, EUR, GBP, TRY, AED, SAR, CNY) and 9 payment methods (PayPal, Stripe, Wise, bank, Zelle, cash, cheque, card, custom) on every paid plan.
HubSpot starts at $50/mo and tops out at $3600/mo per seat — before add-ons. Exphora is flat $49 / $199 / $399, with the 3D Designer included free.
| Tier | HubSpot | Exphora |
|---|---|---|
| Free / Starter | $50/mo (2 users, Marketing Starter) | $0 forever — Free 3D Designer, no card |
| Solo founder | $100+/mo (Sales Starter, 2 seats) | $49/mo flat — full CRM, 1 user |
| Small team (5 users) | ~$500/mo (Sales Pro, 5 seats) | $199/mo flat — Pro, 5 users included |
| Growing agency (10 users) | $1,500–$3,600/mo (Marketing+Sales+Service Pro) | $399/mo flat — Enterprise, 10 users + API |
The capabilities booth builders actually need, side by side.
| Feature | HubSpot | Exphora | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trade show booth specs (size, electrical, AV, lighting) | No | Yes | 30+ native fields in Exphora |
| Free 3D Booth Designer | No | Yes | Forever-free, no card |
| Render gallery on proposals | Partial | Yes | Up to 10 images per proposal |
| AI booth proposal generation (Claude) | Partial | Yes | Generic AI in HubSpot vs booth-aware in Exphora |
| 433k+ exhibitor signal database | No | Yes | Signal Explorer (Pro+) |
| Multi-currency invoicing (7 currencies) | Partial | Yes | Locked to higher HubSpot tiers |
| 9 payment methods (PayPal, Stripe, Wise, bank…) | Partial | Yes | HubSpot is Stripe-first |
| Flat pricing (not per-seat) | No | Yes | HubSpot per seat + contact tier |
| Multi-channel inbox (WhatsApp, IG, FB, IMAP) | Partial | Yes | HubSpot needs paid integrations |
| Predictable monthly cost for 5-person team | No | Yes | $199 flat vs $500–$1,500 on HubSpot |
Comparison data based on publicly available pricing and documentation as of April 2026. Plan names and feature gating may change — always verify on the vendor’s website.
Six reasons booth shops pick the industry-specific tool over the generic one.
30+ booth specification fields native to proposals, contracts and invoices. Free 3D Booth Designer with parametric editing and 6 CAD export formats — included in every plan, even Free.
No per-seat tax. No contact-tier extortion. The Pro plan covers 5 users for $199/mo flat — about a quarter of HubSpot Sales Hub Professional for the same team size, with industry depth HubSpot will never ship.
Exphora’s Claude-powered AI turns "10x6 modular booth, IFA Berlin, hospitality lounge, two meeting rooms" into a full multi-page proposal with 30+ specs, render images and pricing — in under 60 seconds.
112,000+ trade shows, 433,000+ verified exhibitor profiles, 632,000+ contacts. Filter by country, sector, event date — push qualified leads to your CRM in one click. HubSpot has nothing comparable.
Proforma + final invoices, 7 currencies (USD, EUR, GBP, TRY, AED, SAR, CNY), 9 payment methods. Booth shops billing exhibitors across continents stop juggling Stripe + bank wire + PayPal in three apps.
WhatsApp, Instagram DM, Facebook Messenger, IMAP email and AI chat all feed one inbox. Branded client portal lets exhibitors review the 3D model, approve renders and e-sign — no extra DocuSign / PandaDoc bills.
Most booth shops migrate in under a week. Here is the path.
Use HubSpot’s native CSV export for Contacts, Companies and Deals. Map lifecycle stages to Exphora opportunity stages with our import wizard — no Zapier needed.
Tag each open opportunity with the trade show event (CES, Hannover Messe, IFA, IDEF, Tüyap…). Add booth size, hall, electrical load and a render — none of which fit in HubSpot.
Replace HubSpot forms with Exphora’s embed or AI chat widget. Inbound leads land directly in the booth-builder pipeline, scored 0–100 by AI.
Drop PandaDoc, DocuSign, Mailchimp, Calendly and ChatSpot — all replaced by Exphora natively. Most teams cut $400–$1,200/mo of overlapping SaaS.
Everything booth builders ask before switching from HubSpot.
Yes — and arguably the only one. Exphora replaces HubSpot Sales Hub (pipelines, deals, proposals), HubSpot Service Hub (tickets, client portal), and the relevant parts of Marketing Hub (forms, sequences, multi-channel inbox), then adds 30+ booth specs, a free 3D Booth Designer, AI proposals and a 433k+ exhibitor database that HubSpot will never ship.
A 5-person booth team typically pays $500–$1,500/mo on HubSpot (Sales Pro + Marketing Starter + add-ons). The same team on Exphora Pro is $199/mo flat — a 75–90% saving — while gaining booth specs, 3D Designer and Signal Explorer.
Yes. Many booth builders run a hybrid setup at first: keep HubSpot CMS/Marketing Hub for content marketing, send leads via webhook into Exphora, then run all sales, proposals, contracts, invoicing and production inside Exphora. Most teams eventually drop HubSpot entirely.
Yes. Export Contacts, Companies and Deals to CSV. The Exphora import wizard maps owner, stage, amount and close date, then preserves notes and email history per record. Typical 5,000-contact migration takes 2–4 hours.
For most booth builders, yes. Exphora ships email campaigns, sequences, multi-channel inbox (WhatsApp, IG, FB, IMAP), AI chat widget and form/landing-page builders. If you publish a 100+ post content blog with full SEO tooling, you may keep HubSpot CMS and pipe leads into Exphora.
Most booth shops are live on Exphora within 3–5 business days. The 3-day free trial is enough to import contacts, set up your first booth pipeline, and run a proposal end-to-end. Run HubSpot and Exphora in parallel for one billing cycle, then cancel HubSpot.
Yes — forever free, no credit card required. Sign up, design unlimited booths, export DAE/STL/OBJ/GLB/DXF/PNG. Paid Exphora plans add the CRM, AI proposals and Signal Explorer on top.
Absolutely. Exphora ships in 10+ languages (EN, DE, FR, ES, IT, PL, ZH, TR, AR, RU), supports 7 currencies and is used by booth shops from Berlin to Dubai. The Turkish market just happens to be one of the strongest verticals.
Start free. Import your contacts in minutes. Ship your first AI-generated booth proposal today — and try the 3D Booth Designer with no credit card.
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