“Can HubSpot become the SMB revenue operating system by embedding commerce, payments, and financial workflows natively into its CRM platform?”
HubSpot started in 2006 as an inbound marketing platform and expanded into CRM, sales, and service hubs over the following decade. In the early 2020s, the company moved deliberately into embedded commerce by launching HubSpot Payments (now Commerce Hub), embedding Stripe as a sub-processor for payment processing directly within deal and quote workflows. This represents HubSpot's entry into embedded finance — using third-party infrastructure rather than building its own regulated stack — to make the CRM the revenue-collection layer for SMBs.
Hubspot integrates with QuickBooks Online and Xero.
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 3 layers in Hubspot's stack: Payments / PSP (Stripe and Mollie); Unified APIs (Apideck); Accounting (QuickBooks Online and Xero).
Hubspot was founded by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah and is founded in 2006, headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
Get a read on where your own stack stands against Hubspot and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.