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Annual billing, minimum seats and onboarding

The price on a vendor's card is the annual-billing price for one seat, before any minimum seat count or onboarding fee. Three published conditions turn it into the three-year effective cost per seat shown on every provider page under d/.

Every provider page on this site shows two prices for the same plan. One is the figure the vendor prints in large type. The other is what a team of 3, 10, or 25 pays per seat per month over 36 months, once the vendor's own small print is applied. The gap comes from three numbers. The provider list shows all of them side by side, and what a CRM costs explains why 36 months is the period I use.

Why is the annual price the one on the card?

Because it is the smaller number, and every vendor in the dataset that offers both terms leads with it. The card price is what you pay per seat per month if you commit to a year up front. Paying month to month is a different price, and the size of that difference varies by vendor and by tier.

HubSpot Sales Hub Starter is the widest case in the dataset: $7 per seat per month on annual billing against $20 on monthly billing, a 2.86× gap (checked 2026-08-25). Close Solo is $9 annual against $19 monthly, a 2.11× gap. At the other end, Salesforce Starter Suite is $25 either way, a 1.00× gap, because the page states "Billed monthly or annually" against a single figure. Across the 43 US plans in the dataset that publish both prices, the median gap is 1.25× (checked 2026-08-25). The typical monthly-billing surcharge is therefore a quarter on top of the card price.

PlanAnnual priceMonthly priceGap
HubSpot Sales Hub Starter$7$202.86×
Close Solo$9$192.11×
Nutshell Foundation$7$131.86×
monday CRM Basic$12$181.50×
Salesforce Starter Suite$25$251.00×

^ Per seat per month, USD. Source: each vendor's pricing page as listed in data.json, checked 2026-08-25.

Some vendors publish no monthly price at all. Salesforce Pro Suite, Enterprise, and Unlimited are marked "Billed annually" with no alternative. Insightly's page says "All prices USD, billed annually". SugarCRM says the same. For those plans the card price is the only price, and the effective cost on this site assumes a 12-month commitment because the vendor offers nothing shorter. The Method page lists which plans are flagged annual-only.

What does a minimum seat count do to a small team?

It depends on which side of the floor your team sits. The effective price per seat rises for any team smaller than the minimum, and nothing changes for a team at or above it. Three vendors in the dataset publish a floor. monday CRM says "Plans start from 3 users" on Basic, Standard, and Pro. Salesflare Enterprise carries a "Minimum 5 users" line. SugarCRM's Sugar Sell plans state a "15 user minimum" (all checked 2026-08-25).

For a 3-seat team the arithmetic differs sharply between the three. On monday CRM's page the minimum equals the team size, so the effective cost at 3 seats is the card price: $12, $17, or $28 depending on the plan. On Salesflare's page the Enterprise plan bills 5 seats to a 3-person team, so $99 becomes $165 per used seat. On SugarCRM's page the Standard plan bills 15 seats, so $59 becomes $295 per used seat at 3 seats and $88.50 at 10 seats. Only at 25 seats does SugarCRM's effective price fall back to the $59 on the card.

SugarCRM Standard, 3 seats used, 15-seat minimum: $59 × 15 seats × 36 months = $31,860 $31,860 ÷ 3 seats ÷ 36 months = $295.00 per used seat per month

That $295 figure is why the 3-seat column on the provider list looks so different from the 25-seat column for a handful of vendors. The number on the card is not wrong. It describes a team you may not have. The calculator lets you enter your own headcount and see where the floor stops mattering.

The 1-seat case is a related trap. Close Solo is "Limited to 1 user", so it has no 3-seat, 10-seat, or 25-seat figure on this site at all. A plan with a maximum is the mirror image of a plan with a minimum, and article 04 covers the seat caps in the dataset.

Where does an onboarding fee go in the arithmetic?

Only into the total, once, before dividing by seats and months. Only one vendor in the dataset publishes a required onboarding fee with an amount attached to a standalone CRM plan. HubSpot's pricing page says: "Cost shown does not include the required, one-time Professional Onboarding for a fee of $1,500." The Enterprise tier carries the same sentence with $3,500 (both checked 2026-08-25).

A one-time fee is spread across every seat-month in the period. The fewer seats, and the shorter the period, the more each seat carries. For HubSpot Sales Hub Professional at the $90 annual price, the $1,500 fee lifts the effective figure to $103.89 for a 3-seat team but only to $94.17 for a 10-seat team (checked 2026-08-25).

HubSpot Sales Hub Professional, 3 seats, annual billing: $90 × 3 seats × 36 months + $1,500 = $11,220 $11,220 ÷ 3 seats ÷ 36 months = $103.89 per seat per month Same plan, 10 seats: $90 × 10 seats × 36 months + $1,500 = $33,900 $33,900 ÷ 10 seats ÷ 36 months = **$94.17** per seat per month

At 25 seats the same fee brings the effective figure to $91.67. The fee never disappears, but it stops being the headline. HubSpot's page shows all three columns.

The Enterprise tier is different in kind. HubSpot prints "Starts at $150/mo/seat" and a "Talk to Sales" button, with no monthly price shown. A "Starts at" figure is a floor, not a price, so I compute nothing for it. Insightly lists "Guided product onboarding – required: $1,500" for its All-in-One bundle only; its standalone CRM plans list no onboarding fee, so they carry $0 here. Workbooks in the UK lists implementation options at £2,100 and £3,675 but does not say whether they are mandatory. Whether that fee is required is not stated on the provider's published page (checked 2026-08-25), so it is left out. Article 03 goes through the fees that are mentioned but not priced.

The formula, in one block

Every provider page under d/ applies the same three steps to the same inputs. The inputs are the card price, the minimum seats, and the required onboarding fee, all taken from the vendor's page on the date shown.

billed seats = max(your seats, minimum seats) total cost = card price × billed seats × 36 months + onboarding fee effective cost = total cost ÷ your seats ÷ 36 months

A plan with no minimum and no fee produces an effective cost equal to the card price at every team size. That is why most rows in the dataset show the same number three times. When a row does not, one of the three conditions is at work, and the provider page quotes the vendor's own sentence that triggered it. Article 04 shows how the figure moves between 3, 10, and 25 seats for the plans where it moves.

Where the answer changes

Who this article is not for

If you are choosing between two plans that both show identical figures in all three seat columns, this article will not separate them. Neither has a minimum, an onboarding fee, or a billing-term surcharge that matters at your size. The decision then comes down to what the plans do, which this site does not assess.

Sources

How this article was made. Written by Kaz, an independent publisher with no commercial relationship with the companies named unless listed on the Disclosure page. All figures come from the companies' own published documentation or regulator publications; each figure carries the date it was last checked. I have not used these products, and nothing here is a personal test result. The arithmetic is shown so you can recalculate with your own numbers. Found an error? Use the contact form; corrections are logged on the Editorial policy page.

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Written by Kaz (pen name). Figures are copied from providers' published pricing pages on the dates shown. We have not used these products. Corrections: contact form.