HubSpot vs Marketo: enterprise automation

Adobe names Marketo Engage for HIPAA, then leaves it off its FedRAMP list

Adobe holds SOC 2 Type 2, SOC 3, and ISO 27001, and calls itself “HIPAA ready,” but its FedRAMP Tailored authorization names only Analytics and Campaign, not Marketo Engage, while its own HIPAA list names Marketo Engage by name; a business associate agreement is available only through a sales rep or CSM, at no stated tier. HubSpot hosts on AWS US East, holds SOC 2 Type 2 and SOC 3 as its own certifications, and its HIPAA BAA tier is itself contradicted, Enterprise-only per its help center against Starter, Professional, and Enterprise per its own product catalog. Scope compared, criterion by criterion. Checked 7 September 2026.

Book a call

Free Intro Call

Last Update:

2026

Marketo

VS

HubSpot

Marketo vs HubSpot: scope compared, criterion by criterion — checked September 7, 2026
Marketo	HubSpot
What each one covers
Its core job
Enterprise B2B marketing automation: orchestrating multichannel campaigns, scoring leads and personalizing buyer engagement at scale to build predictable pipeline.	Building pipeline and closing deals from one shared customer database that every module of the vendor sits on
What it also does, more lightly
Landing pages and forms, web personalization, conversational chat and sales tooling. Flexible analytics is not included: it requires the paid Advanced BI Analytics add-on.	The free CRM bundles stripped-down marketing and service tools on that same database: chat, bots, HubSpot-branded email
What it does not do at all
No proprietary CRM: Marketo plugs bi-directionally into a third-party CRM. No CMS or sales pipeline management in the integrations list published as of 2026-09-02.	No on-premise or self-hosted deployment at any tier: the entire infrastructure runs exclusively on Amazon Web Services
If you only take this one
What you give up
Without a third-party CRM, no native account and opportunity repository. Premium attribution rides on Marketo Measure, placed in the Ultimate tier by the pricing page.	Quotes and e-signature: since June 2026 they left Sales Hub for Revenue Hub, which bills separately
The workaround, and what it costs
Published add-ons — packs of ten thousand API calls, packs of five marketing users, Advanced BI Analytics, Marketo Measure. No price is published for any of them	No native Looker Studio connector: the third-party marketplace app starts at $79 per month on top of the subscription
The point where it stops being enough
Documented ceilings: 1 million rows per visualization, 700 reports maximum, two concurrent extracts, 25 months of activity history, 50,000 daily API calls.	Five hundred sequence emails per user per day on Professional. Past that, you move up to Enterprise
If you take both
What it exposes to connect
REST API (50,000 calls/day, 1 MB payload), asynchronous Bulk Extract API in CSV/TSV/SSV, and the legacy SOAP API — the latter withdrawn after March 31, 2026.	A REST API from the free tier, 250,000 daily calls and one million on Enterprise. The quota add-on can be bought twice
Which one becomes the source of truth
Adobe calls the CRM sync “bi-directional” without designating a system of record. No publisher page tested states who arbitrates a write conflict.	The Salesforce sync runs both ways and needs Professional, yet the vendor never names which system holds authority
What the tool answers
What it measures or produces
B2B campaign automation: lead generation and scoring, personalized multichannel journeys, and multi-touch attribution tying every marketing touchpoint to pipeline and revenue.	The deal, sorted into forecast categories running from not forecasted through to closed won
The job it equips
The “Marketing User”: B2B marketing automation or marketing operations manager. This is Adobe's billed seat unit, with 25 marketing users included per instance.	The sales rep and their manager: finding accounts, mapping the buying committee, running personalized outreach
What it cannot tell you
Anything beyond a rolling 25 months of activity, and high-volume web activity beyond 90 days: past those windows the data is gone from the Marketo UI.	Which marketing channel produced the revenue: multi-touch attribution lives entirely inside Marketing Hub Enterprise
Day-to-day sales work
Pipeline structure
Qualified absence. Marketo does not manage deals: opportunities flow one-way from the CRM. Its equivalent is analytical, a revenue cycle model with six default stages.	One pipeline free, two on Starter, fifteen on Professional, one hundred on Enterprise. The help centre gives other numbers
Data capture and enrichment
Qualified absence for enrichment: Adobe points to third-party platforms. Native capture relies on self-declared data, forms and progressive profiling, plus inbound CRM data.	The Chrome extension logs Gmail messages on every plan. Automatic company enrichment starts at the Starter tier
Sequences and follow-ups
Present via Sales Insight Actions: sales campaigns are sequences of emails and tasks, with view, click and reply tracking, and creation of Email, Call, InMail and Custom tasks.	Professional and an assigned seat required: 5,000 sequences per account, ten templates each, LinkedIn only as a task reminder
Automations
Present and central: trigger or batch smart campaigns, with native CRM flow steps (change owner, alert, sync). Published constraint: tokens do not work in a batch campaign.	Workflows only unlock at Professional, across every Hub. No Starter plan gives access to them at all
Forecasting and reporting
Rich marketing reporting — four journey analysers plus advanced BI — but a qualified absence of sales forecasting: no quota, commit or weighted forecast in the official list of report types.	Forecasting and custom reports start at Professional. Revenue attribution demands a separately billed Marketing Hub Enterprise licence
Calling and meetings
Telephony present: dialer embedded in the CRM via Sales Insight Actions. Meetings a qualified absence: no scheduling or calendar sync in the official feature list.	Five hundred calling minutes on Starter, three thousand on Professional, twelve thousand on Enterprise. Scheduling pages ship everywhere
Quotes and signature
Qualified absence, unambiguous. No quoting, no CPQ, no e-signature in either of Adobe's two official dated lists. These functions belong to the connected CRM or CPQ.	Out of Sales Hub since June 2026: they live in Revenue Hub, billed separately, with 25 monthly signatures per user
Duplicate handling
Automatic de-duplication on entry, but explicitly not on the Salesforce or Dynamics sync, nor on manual entry. Merging is permanent, with no undo.	Duplicate management starts at Professional, excludes Starter entirely, and caps at ten thousand detected pairs
What comes out of it
Export formats
Standard reports to Excel. Advanced BI Analytics exports a full report to PDF and PPT, a single visualization to XLS and CSV. The Bulk Extract API outputs CSV, TSV, SSV.	CSV, XLS and XLSX on every plan, capped at three hundred exports per rolling twenty-four hours
Shareable reports
Email subscriptions: the report goes to several comma-separated addresses, with an Excel attachment you can uncheck. Advanced BI Analytics adds subscriptions delivering a PDF export.	Recurring dashboard emails on every plan, but sending to an address outside the account is one-off and Professional-only
API access
REST: 50,000 calls per day for most subscriptions, resetting daily at 12:00 AM CST, 100 calls per 20 seconds, 10 concurrent calls. 1 MB payload.	Present from the free tier in the quota table, with no price line. The quota add-on can be bought twice at most
What it connects to
Native integrations
Native bi-directional integrations with Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics and Veeva. The LaunchPoint catalog is billed as “hundreds of tools”, with no published count.	No total announced. The three most-installed apps in its marketplace are Gmail, Google Calendar and Outlook
Google tools it connects to
Google Ads as a LaunchPoint service pushes offline conversion data, uploaded daily or weekly, over a 90-day window. Google Customer Match and list sending are also documented.	Gmail, Calendar and Sheets have HubSpot-built connectors. For Looker Studio, only a paid third-party connector exists
Bringing your existing data across
CSV file import, 100MB limit, UTF-8, UTF-16, Shift-JIS or EUC-JP encodings. Column headers are case-sensitive for field auto-mapping.	Smart Transfer migrates from Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zoho, Dynamics 365, Copper, Keap and roughly a dozen other applications
Getting started, and the fine print
Support
Elite tier: first response P1 in 15 minutes 24x7, P2 30 minutes 24x5, P3 one hour, P4 one business day. Phone, chat, portal. English and Japanese only.	Free users get the knowledge base only. Chat opens at Starter, phone at Professional, and phone is English-only
Where the data is hosted
Data hosted on AWS, within a single AWS region with no cross-region replication, replicated six ways across three availability zones. No country or region named.	Real European residency in Germany, yet customer phone numbers stay on US servers held by its telephony provider
What happens if you leave
On written request before term end, Marketo keeps the data up to sixty days and provides a copy in the format then available in the service, then irretrievably destroys it.	No mid-contract cancellation, no refunds, and five business days of notice before the renewal date
Minimum seats billed
Growth: 10 users. Select, Prime and Ultimate: 25 users. Adobe's product description states 25 “Marketing Users” included per Marketo Engage instance.	The free tier stops at two users. A minimum commitment exists on paid tiers, but the vendor never states the figure
Data residency and regulated cloud
Adobe assigns SOC2 Type2, SOC3, ISO 27001 (plus 4 more ISO/CSA standards), “HIPAA ready” — but excludes Marketo from FedRAMP Tailored (Analytics/Campaign only). BAA via sales rep or CSM, no tier. No US region named.	HubSpot hosts on AWS “US East”. Own certs: SOC 2 Type 2, SOC 3; ISO 27001 = the host's. FedRAMP, StateRAMP, GovCloud absent. HIPAA BAA tier contradicted: Enterprise-only (help center) vs Starter/Pro/Enterprise (catalog).
What it costs
The entry price and what it includes
No price is published, in no currency or billing period: the pricing page routes to a quote. Growth is the entry offer, with ten users and twenty thousand daily API calls	$7 per seat per month on annual commitment for Starter, $20 month to month: two pipelines, no workflows and no sequences
What pushes the bill up
The contact database size: the license is metered “Per 1,000 Contacts”, the customer being responsible for keeping the database within the volume on the Sales Order.	Onboarding is mandatory and billed separately: $1,500 on Professional, $3,500 on Enterprise, one time only
Sales tax and nexus
Adobe charges US sales tax by billing address (updated 2025-06-18), no state named. Terms (§2.4): tax excluded from prices, exemption required before ordering, refunded within 5-10 days. No nexus owner; no per-state calculation.	HubSpot's fees are exclusive of tax, added by address. Automated calc (Revenue Hub Pro/Enterprise, US/Canada) is state-level only, no local tax. Nexus stays with the customer despite a HubSpot alert at the registration threshold.
Procurement and invoicing
Marketo Engage is bought via negotiated contract, no standard term (Sales Order, §2.1); late fee = 1%/month or legal max. Buyer's PO void without dual signature (§14.7). Adobe Store (not Marketo): POs from $2,500. No ACH or W-9.	Net-30 is named in the ToS (§3.4). ACH is US-only, Starter/Pro/Enterprise (3-5 days). PO accepted at quote stage, though ToS reject customer PO clauses (§12.8). No threshold or W-9 published; invoicing needs a Contract Manager.

Key takeaways

Marketo Engage gets named for HIPAA, and left off the FedRAMP list

Adobe assigns itself SOC 2 Type 2, SOC 3, ISO 27001, and four further ISO and CSA standards, calling itself “HIPAA ready” — and its own HIPAA list names Marketo Engage explicitly. Its FedRAMP Tailored authorization, by contrast, covers only Analytics and Campaign; Marketo Engage does not appear on it at all, though no page states why one list includes the product and the other excludes it.

HubSpot’s own two pages don’t agree on which tier gets the BAA

HubSpot hosts on AWS “US East,” holding SOC 2 Type 2 and SOC 3 as its own certifications, with ISO 27001 belonging to its host rather than to HubSpot itself. Its HIPAA business associate agreement is Enterprise-only according to its help center, yet its product catalog lists it as available on Starter, Professional, and Enterprise alike — two pages, two different tier lists, neither one withdrawn.

Getting a HIPAA agreement at either vendor means asking a person, not checking a box

Adobe makes its BAA available only through a sales representative or customer success manager, with no tier named as a prerequisite. HubSpot’s own contradiction over which tier even qualifies means a buyer can’t answer the question from the pricing page alone at either vendor, and has to ask directly regardless of which one it turns out to be.

Adobe’s tax exemption has to arrive before the order, not after it

Adobe charges US sales tax by billing address, with its Terms stating the price excludes tax and requiring an exemption certificate before the order is placed rather than after; a refund on an already-taxed order takes five to ten days. No nexus owner or per-state calculation is published. HubSpot’s own fees are likewise exclusive of tax, with an automated calculation on Revenue Hub Pro or Enterprise limited to the state level, no local tax included, and nexus still resting with the customer even when HubSpot’s own alert flags a registration threshold.

One contract needs a dual signature to accept your own purchase order

Marketo Engage is bought through a negotiated Sales Order with no standard term; a buyer’s own purchase order is void unless it carries a dual signature, per section 14.7. HubSpot names net-30 directly in its own Terms, offers US-only ACH taking three to five days, and accepts a purchase order at the quote stage — even though its own Terms separately reject any purchase-order clauses the customer tries to attach, per section 12.8.

Marketo’s own entry price isn’t a price, it’s a routing decision

Marketo publishes no price in any currency or billing period at all; its pricing page routes straight to a quote, with Growth as the named entry offer, ten users and twenty thousand daily API calls included. HubSpot’s Starter tier costs seven US dollars per seat per month on an annual commitment, or twenty dollars month to month, for two pipelines with no workflows and no sequences included.

Frequently asked questions

Can't find what you're looking for ? Contact us here

jordan@bulldozer-collective.com

Is Marketo Engage included in Adobe’s FedRAMP scope?

No: Adobe assigns Marketo Engage SOC 2 Type 2, SOC 3, ISO 27001 and four more ISO/CSA standards, and calls it HIPAA ready, yet explicitly excludes it from FedRAMP Tailored, which covers only Analytics and Campaign; a BAA is available only through a sales rep or CSM, with no published tier, and no US region is named. HubSpot hosts on AWS US East with its own SOC 2 Type 2 and SOC 3, but its HIPAA BAA tier is itself contradicted between Enterprise-only and Starter/Pro/Enterprise.

Does HubSpot’s ToS actually name net-30 payment terms?

Yes: HubSpot’s Terms of Service name net-30 in section 3.4, with ACH open to US customers on Starter, Professional and Enterprise within three to 5 days, and a purchase order accepted at quote stage — though the same Terms reject customer PO clauses in section 12.8. Marketo Engage instead runs on a negotiated Sales Order, and only the separate Adobe Store accepts purchase orders, starting at 2,500 US dollars, with no ACH or W-9.

Does HubSpot alert customers when they cross a tax nexus threshold?

Yes, but the responsibility stays with the customer: HubSpot fees are exclusive of tax added by address, with automated calculation offered only on Revenue Hub Professional or Enterprise for the US and Canada, at the state level with no local tax, and nexus remains the customer’s despite the alert. Marketo Engage’s parent Adobe instead charges US sales tax by billing address with no state named, and requires exemption before ordering.