There’s a right and wrong way to get a meeting booked…

Done wrong (AKA without a tool), it destroys productivity — reps will waste valuable time with back and forth emails trying to lock down a meeting.

But it doesn't have to be like this.

It’s time to call it quits on the never-ending game of email ping pong and get a tool that automates the process. 

If you’re reading this, you’re probably in the market for a scheduling tool. And chances are you’re comparing Chili Piper and Hubspot Meetings. 

So, which tool is right for you?

Let’s dive in. 

First things first, what is Chili Piper?

‍Chili Piper is first and foremost an inbound conversion platform. It offers advanced routing and booking solutions for high-performing revenue teams. Companies can qualify, route, and schedule meetings directly from their web forms — instantly.

If this sounds like what you’re looking for, Chili Piper has a full suite of products to help you increase conversions and book more meetings.

Here’s a quick look.

Instant Booker

Instant Booker is a scheduling tool designed for revenue reps who want to convert leads into meetings instantly using high-powered automation and qualification rules.

Form Concierge 

Form Concierge instantly qualifies, routes, and books meetings directly from your existing forms — allowing you to double your inbound leads. 

Distro

Distro prevents leads from slipping through the cracks. Companies can quickly and easily route leads to the right rep — every time. (Currently not compatible with HubSpot CRM).

Handoff

Handoff gives your team an easy way to pass the baton from one rep to the next, connecting buyers with a sales rep immediately. 

If you’re considering Chili Piper vs. HubSpot Meetings, your next step should be to schedule a demo with a Chili Piper rep. They’ll help you answer specific questions about your situation and your needs.

For a deeper dive, here are the details.

When to use Chili Piper

You want to book meetings with no unnecessary friction

Chili Piper eliminates any point of friction between an interested buyer and your sales reps. 

How?

It enables prospects to schedule meetings with a single click, automating a sequence of reminders and emails right up until the meeting starts.  When scheduling meetings, you can also easily add your colleagues and book meetings on their behalf without needing a pre-established meeting in place. 

You can book the right people on the right meetings at the right time without building additional meeting types. This makes Chili Piper perfect for high-performing teams — sales, customer success, and more. 

Chili Piper also eliminates friction between your reps and revenue-generating activities by:

• Making sure they don't have to manually track no-shows
• Having a way to track down abandoned meetings
• Customizing the message and channel of their meeting reminder

IMPACT recently made the switch from HubSpot to Chili Piper — we talked to Nick Bennett, director of marketing, about their booking process. There was too much friction when it came to ownership and routing. 

“HubSpot is capable of doing it, but just that one function alone added a form field and two extra clicks. The ownership routing was really important for us because our inbound lead generation volume is pretty high. Being able to make sure that they got routed to the appropriate salesperson, fast, was a really big deal.”

If you want to eliminate friction, Chili Piper is the right move. 

You need complex routing and qualification

Don’t waste your sales reps’ time by letting unqualified leads schedule meetings. Did you know that anyone can book through a HubSpot meeting form?

If you want your reps to be able to make the most of their time and generate real ROI from your marketing spend, Chili Piper is the only solution. Chili Piper lets you choose which prospects see your reps’ calendar and only lets the most qualified prospects book a meeting.

HubSpot Meetings, on the other hand, is limited to one-on-one meetings, strict round robins, or general group availability. 

If you need weighted distribution, no-show calibration, vacation calibration, or any segment based routing, you won’t be able to do that with HubSpot.

You need tracking and reporting capabilities

Another reason IMPACT switched to Chili Piper from HubSpot Meetings was the lack of data. They weren’t able to track form abandonment and were losing valuable data — they had no idea how many people were starting the booking process and not finishing, or how to track the people who did abandon it.

While HubSpot Meetings does offer some limited reporting, unless you’re utilizing HubSpot’s CRM software, you might not be able to utilize the tracking and reporting features. 

If you have an interested lead who wants to book a meeting, you cannot afford to lose them. With HubSpot Meetings, there is no way of tracking those lost leads.

Chili Piper not only provides this reporting data, but also allows you to see prospects who filled out and abandoned your form, meaning that you still have a chance at converting them.

What is Hubspot Meetings

HubSpot Meetings is a scheduling tool and is a part of HubSpot’s Sales Hub platform. 

HubSpot Meetings lets potential customers book meetings from a custom link. When paired with HubSpot’s CRM, it includes reporting on how many appointments were booked, canceled, and attended.

It’s important to note that HubSpot Meetings functions best when paired with HubSpot’s CRM and Sales Hub — not as a stand-alone product. Unless you only need a very simple booking link, there is limited capability. 

When to use Hubspot Meetings

You only need basic features 

Hubspot is great for companies that have a low budget or a simple use case. If you have very few reps and just need personal one-on-one scheduling, HubSpot’s free meeting links might be the better choice. 

Likewise, if you have a low volume of leads, Chili Piper might not provide sufficient ROI to make it worth the investment (even though it has a significantly stronger functionality).

But if you need anything more complex, like routing and tracking, HubSpot probably isn’t the right fit. Adding more advanced features will increase friction and lead to a poor customer experience. 

You’re already using HubSpot’s full platform

HubSpot’s meeting tool has a free plan but can also be bundled into HubSpot’s Sales Hub. If you’re already using HubSpot, their meeting scheduler could be easy and affordable to implement. 

But if you’re not already using HubSpot’s full platform, there isn’t much functionality with their free plan.

Pricing

Chili Piper

Chili Piper offers fair and competitive pricing for all of our products. Our prices start at:

• Instant Booker: $15 per user/per month
• Form Concierge: $150+ per month platform fee + $30 per user/per month
• Distro: $20 per user/per month
• Handoff: $25 per user/per month

Note: We don’t offer a free option because Chili Piper pays for itself many times over. We provide companies with a competitive advantage, a better user experience, more opportunities to scale, and more time back for reps to focus on revenue generating activities.

You can check out our transparent pricing page here.

Hubspot 

HubSpot Meetings is technically free to get started, but it’s designed to be used with your existing HubSpot account. Any advanced features to help you automate and scale your sales operations will require an upgrade. 

If you're a small company that only needs a single booking link, the free plan should be enough for your scheduling needs. However, if you’re an organization with any kind of revenue team, you’ll likely need to upgrade to a non-free version. 

• Free: (only 1 meeting link) 
• Starter: $45/month (2 users) 
• Professional: $450/month (5 users) 
• Enterprise: $1,200/month (10 users) 

‍

All plans after Free have 1,000 personal and team meeting links and have customizable branding.

Here’s the full pricing.

Features breakdown

Ease of use and UI comparison

While both Chili Piper and HubSpot are fairly simple to use, Chili Piper has a better overall user experience. According to G2, Chili Piper scored higher on five out of seven criteria:

Chili Piper

Chili Piper offers a simple and highly intuitive UI experience. Users can easily schedule meetings with prospects by suggesting available times over email or book instantly from Salesforce, Outreach, SalesLoft, and more.

Every single one of Chili Piper’s tool are powerful and have robust features that are incredibly easy to use. Plus, it’s not just for sales teams  — all departments can benefit from intelligent lead qualification, routing and distribution.

Chili Piper is built for any team who wants to get the most out of their marketing spend and provide prospects with the best possible experience. And it’s the only platform that can unite a team through the entire sales process.

‍

Hubspot 

If you're already using HubSpot, you're probably familiar with the interface and how to use it, making it an easy learning curve. However, if you are not familiar with HubSpot, getting used to the interface might take a little time.

The pros: 

Integrating your current email marketing software is straightforward and can be used to create meeting invitations, track RSVPs, and even record meetings. 

‍The cons:

Many of the features are lacking and could use significant improvement:

1. Scheduling 

At its core, HubSpot is a CRM platform and wasn’t built for scheduling — this is pretty clear in their product and use case limitations. 

For basic, one-on-one scheduling where users don't mind extra form fields and steps in the booking process, HubSpot can be a passable solution. But for revenue teams looking to increase their revenue from ad spend, provide a better user experience, capture useful reporting data, and spend less time on manual tasks, Chili Piper is the only option.

“We still use a separate calendar scheduler because [HubSpot’s] is extremely inflexible and lacks a lot of basic features.”  — G2 review

3. Booking flow

HubSpot Meetings often makes prospects fill out duplicate information that it doesn't capture from the form, making it an annoying and friction-filled booking process — with increased likelihood of dropoff. It also takes you away from the branding of the site and onto a HubSpot booking page.

We use Gong to listen to sales calls with potential Chili Piper customers, and HubSpot's clunky booking flow is something that comes up time and again. 

With HubSpot meetings, you can't control what users see on each page or the booking experience. And you end up losing a lot of people throughout the process.

For example, prospects will enter their email address on your form. And then they have to put their email address in AGAIN to get through the HubSpot booking flow.

"[HubSpot's booking link] launches you off of our website and onto a HubSpot page. It can't be built into our website, so we lose all tracking. That’s one of the big issues.” — Chili Piper prospect call

What are customers saying?

Chili Piper

Hubspot 

The bottom line

The major difference between Chili Piper and HubSpot Meetings is that Chili Piper is built for revenue teams. HubSpot Meetings was built as an add-on to their marketing automation solution and is designed to be used with their CRM. Otherwise, it’s inflexible and lacks basic features needed to support high-growth teams.

HubSpot Meetings:

🚫 Doesn’t qualify leads

🚫 Wastes sales reps' time on unqualified meetings 

🚫 Can’t handle complex routing scenarios

🚫 Loses a lot of reporting data

While “free” sounds great, if you’re not already using HubSpot’s CRM, you may find its features to be very limited. If you want more features, you’ll need to spring for a higher tier. 

Chili Piper is your best choice if you’re looking for an intuitive and affordable way to route any object in Salesforce to the appropriate rep. 

Chili Piper:

✅ Has affordable solutions for every size team

✅ Is easy to implement and use

✅ Offers advanced qualification and instant routing

✅ Has excellent customer support

Scheduling can be painful — but it doesn’t have to be. Book a call with our team to learn how Chili Piper can help.