HubSpot credits: Are they really worth it? | Prices, use cases, tips

In today's digital world, efficiency in customer service is crucial to your success. HubSpot has introduced an exciting innovation in the form of HubSpot Credits and AI agents that can take your company to the next level. But what exactly is behind it, how can you use it and what benefits does it bring you? Let's take a look behind the scenes together!

What are HubSpot Credits and how do you get them?

HubSpot Credits are a type of currency within your HubSpot portal that are used for certain consumption-based functions. The best thing about it: You don't have to buy them separately!
Every HubSpot user with a Starter, Professional or Enterprise plan already has credits integrated into their portal. The number varies depending on the plan and is renewed monthly - so they do not add up:

• Starter customers: 500 credits per month included.
• Professional customers: 3,000 credits per month included.
• Enterprise customers: 5,000 credits per month included.

If you need more credits, you can book additional packages at any time. For example, a small package with 5,000 credits costs 45 euros per month, while a large package with 100,000 credits is available for 540 euros per month. One unit corresponds to a value of 0.01 US dollars or 0.01 cents. It is important to know that the credits always expire at the end of the month and therefore do not carry over to the next month. For more information on the individual HubSpot licenses, listen to our separate podcast episode.

What can you use your HubSpot credits for?

The credits are intended for specific, consumption-based features. Currently, they are mainly used in three cases:

1. the Customer Agent: your AI-driven customer service assistant

This is probably the most exciting feature that makes use of credits. The Customer Agent is one of HubSpot's AI agents that can start and conduct customer conversations independently.

• Costs: Each conversation started and answered by the Customer Agent uses 100 credit units. This corresponds to approximately one dollar or euro per request.
• How it works: The agent accesses a knowledge database, your website and stored documents to answer inquiries. For example, it can solve simple support queries such as "My device has stopped working" independently by providing predefined troubleshooting steps.
• Efficiency: HubSpot itself estimates that the customer agent can answer around 50 percent of queries directly without the need for a human service employee to intervene. Imagine you have 2,000 support requests a month; the customer agent could handle 1,000 of them independently.
• Advantages for you :
  • Shorter response times: Customers receive immediate help, which significantly increases customer satisfaction.
  • Relief for your team: Your human employees can concentrate on more complex cases that require strategic thinking.
  • Round-the-clock availability: The AI agent can also provide support at night or at weekends if your team is not available.
• Practical tip: Use trigger words! To avoid unnecessary credit costs, you can store trigger words. If, for example, the agent detects the word "cancel" in an email, they can immediately forward the ticket to a human employee without using any credits and without having to reply themselves. This is crucial, as even a simple request for "more information" would already cost 100 credits.

2. data enrichment: enriched contact data for your CRM

Another area of application is data enrichment. HubSpot has acquired Clearbit, a data enrichment tool, and integrated it into its huge database (with around 200 million contacts and company data).

• Cost: 10 credit units per data record are used for the enrichment of company or contact data records.
• Benefit: You can enrich your existing data records with additional, valuable information.
• Quality: The data quality is particularly good for the American market. There are also good local providers for German-speaking countries, but testing with the credits integrated in HubSpot is a good starting point.

3. smart properties

Credits are also used for so-called smart properties.
Important to know: Everything you know from the generative AI in HubSpot, such as text creation for social media, blog articles or landing pages as well as AI-generated image creation, does not currently consume HubSpot credits. These are still free "cherries on the cream cake" that can already save you a lot of work!

Is the use of customer agents worthwhile for your company? A cost-benefit analysis

The first impression that 100 credits per inquiry is a lot can be deceptive. You need to take a close look at your individual business case.
For example, if the customer agent answers 1,000 inquiries per month, that would be 100,000 credits, which equates to around 1,000 dollars or euros. Calculate this against the salary costs for a human service employee who would have to process these inquiries. The time saved, the faster response time and the resulting increase in customer satisfaction are further priceless advantages.

CIXON flood protection: your strategy for predictable AI costs

To prevent your credit consumption from exploding and costs from becoming unpredictable, we at CIXON have developed flood protection. This concept helps you to comply with HubSpot limits and strategically control the use of credits.
We store alerts and automations in your HubSpot portal that inform you when your credits are 80% used up (a standard HubSpot alert), or monitor even more detailed thresholds.

With CIXON flood protection, we can work together to develop a concept for when and where the service agent should step in:

• On which days or at what times (e.g. at weekends or at night)?
• For which service mailboxes or chatbots does the deployment really make sense?

Conclusion - HubSpot Credits

HubSpot Credits and AI agents offer enormous potential to optimize your customer service and relieve your team.

If you would like to find out how these new features can specifically help your company, don't hesitate to book a free appointment with us. Let us answer your questions together and show you the functions in the demo portal!

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