Case Study
View Case StudyTray.ai
Migrating hundreds of thousands of pages, re-platforming and extending for the leading composable AI integration platform
From HubSpot CMS to Framer
We are the HubSpot CMS to Framer migration experts
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Challenges with HubSpot CMS
Key pain points
HubSpot CMS has its perks, but you practically need a Mr. Moneybags subscription to keep the lights on. Pricing shoots up the moment you add seats, automations, or anything remotely “enterprise,” and you can only hope the pricing team doesn’t wake up one day and charge the equivalent of a beach-facing villa.
It’s also not winning any awards for flexibility. Deep customization is limited, the theme system is rigid, and you’re stuck learning HubL, a proprietary template language that no one dreams about using. The plugin ecosystem is tiny compared to WordPress, so advanced requirements usually mean custom builds, workarounds, or giving up. And yes, parts of the system can feel slow and clunky when you least expect it.
If you’re okay with the trade-offs, great. If not, you know where to find us.
Expensive pricing structure
HubSpot gets pricey really fast with every new seat, feature, or automation. It ends up feeling like a fresh subscription to financial pain.
Limited customization flexibility
The theme system is rigid, and anything beyond surface-level edits usually needs a developer. “Drag-and-drop” has limits… and you’ll hit them quickly.
Smaller theme and plugin ecosystem
Compared to WordPress or open-source giants, HubSpot’s marketplace feels tiny with fewer prebuilt solutions and more custom work.
Proprietary HubL language
Say hello to HubL, HubSpot’s own templating language. It works… but only in HubSpot. Enjoy the vendor lock-in.
Platform lock-in
Once you're in, getting out feels like moving out of a house with 14 years of hoarded junk. Migration isn’t fun.
E-commerce limitations
HubSpot CMS can run landing pages and lead funnels, but full-scale eCommerce? Not its game and definitely not its strength.
Benefits of Framer
Key advantages
If you live in Figma all day, Framer is the right choice for you. You can import your layouts, tweak a few interactions, hit publish, and suddenly you’ve “built a website” without ever opening VS Code. The no-code editor is fast, the animations look like you actually care about UI, and the built-in hosting + global CDN means you never have to touch a server or pretend you know what an SSL certificate is.
Multiple people can jump in, rewrite copy, adjust layouts, and preview the site instantly in real time with zero handoff pain, and “can you push this to staging?” nonsense. The SEO defaults are strong, images automatically behave, and performance is fast without you having to obsess over Lighthouse scores.
Can't knock the service, but we're here when you're looking to build something more scalable.
Ability to control layout with drag and drop
You can drag, drop, and publish without the need for any developer or having experience in website development. With Framer, you can easily turn your mockup into a working page.
Quick and cheap to build something
If you need a site yesterday (and on a budget), go ahead with Framer. You can go from a Figma-level idea to a live marketing page in a few hours without writing any code or having developers wait on stand-ups.
Some optimization comes by default
Framer quietly handles things like image compression, semantic markup, and basic SEO hygiene. You ship quickly, and the site doesn't fall apart in Lighthouse analyses.
Huge library of themes
You can pick a template, tweak a few components, and you’re basically done. Its theme library is stacked, and most of it looks “portfolio ready” right out of the box.
Real-time team collaboration
Multiple people can jump in, edit, comment, and tweak designs live like Figma. It speeds up feedback loops and kills the endless back-and-forth.
Intuitive, designer-friendly UI
If you know your way around Figma, you’ll be able to use Framer without any difficulty. Framer’s interface is simple, and keeps designers moving without begging a developer for help.
Common questions
HubSpot CMS to Framer migration FAQs
Answers to the most common questions about HubSpot CMS to Framer migration
How much does HubSpot CMS actually cost?
HubSpot CMS starts at $25/month for the Starter tier, but that's a teaser price. Most teams end up on Professional ($400/month) or Enterprise ($1,200/month) once they need features like custom reporting, smart content, or additional contact tiers. The real cost shock comes from the CRM side. HubSpot bundles CMS with its marketing hub, and adding seats or automation workflows pushes the bill up fast. We've seen mid-sized companies paying $30,000-$60,000 per year once everything is bundled. That's a lot of money for a platform that still makes you write HubL templates.
Can you move a HubSpot site to a headless CMS setup?
Yes, and we've done it multiple times. The migration typically takes 6-10 weeks depending on how many pages, forms, and CRM integrations are involved. The trickiest parts are replicating HubSpot's form-to-CRM pipeline (which most teams replace with a dedicated form handler plus CRM API integration) and extracting blog content from HubSpot's proprietary format. Design preservation is straightforward if you're rebuilding in a modern framework. We usually rebuild the frontend in Next.js with a headless CMS for content, which gives you better performance and full design control without HubL's limitations.
Will I lose my HubSpot CRM data if I migrate the CMS?
No. HubSpot's CRM is a separate product from the CMS, and you can keep using it even if you move your website elsewhere. We typically set up the new site to push form submissions directly into HubSpot CRM via their API, so your sales team's workflows stay intact. The only thing you lose is HubSpot's native smart content features (content that changes based on CRM data), but those can be rebuilt with a personalisation layer or server-side logic. Most teams find the trade-off worthwhile because the CMS limitations were holding them back more than smart content was helping.
What are the main reasons companies leave HubSpot CMS?
The top three reasons we hear from clients are design limitations, HubL frustration, and pricing escalation. HubSpot's theme system restricts what you can build visually, and the moment you need something custom, you're writing HubL, a templating language that only works inside HubSpot. Developers hate it because it's a dead-end skill. Then there's cost. Teams start on a reasonable plan, add features over 18 months, and suddenly they're paying enterprise prices for what is still a fairly rigid website builder. Moving to a headless CMS removes all three problems at once.
How much does Framer cost for a real website?
Framer's free plan is heavily restricted (2 pages, framer.site subdomain, Framer branding). The Mini plan is $5/month (billed yearly), Basic is $15/month, and Pro is $30/month. Where costs escalate is the CMS. The basic CMS plan limits you to 1 collection, and adding more collections pushes you into $20-$40+ per collection per month. For a site with a blog, case studies, and a team directory (three collections), you're looking at $90-$150/month before any custom domain or analytics add-ons. That's not cheap for what is essentially a visual website builder. Compare that to a headless CMS on a free tier plus $20/month Vercel hosting, and the math starts working against Framer quickly.
Can you move a Framer site to a headless CMS without losing the design?
Yes, and we've done this for several clients. The design itself translates well to a modern frontend because Framer sites are essentially CSS layouts with animations. We rebuild the visual design in Next.js (or whatever framework fits), which usually produces a faster, more performant version of the same site. CMS content exports from Framer's collections through their API, though the data structures are simple so the migration is straightforward. Animations need manual recreation using a library like Motion for React, but the results are typically better than Framer's output. The whole process takes 4-8 weeks for a typical marketing site.
What are the best alternatives to Framer for a growing company?
It depends on what you're outgrowing. If you want to keep the visual editing experience, Webflow offers more CMS depth and ecommerce capabilities, though it has its own scaling limitations. If you want full control, a headless CMS (Sanity is our pick) paired with Next.js gives you unlimited flexibility in content modelling, design, and performance. Builder.io is worth considering if your marketing team needs to build pages independently, though the vendor lock-in is a concern. For most growing companies, we recommend the headless CMS plus custom frontend route because it scales without platform ceilings and your design is never limited by what a visual builder supports.
When should you stop using Framer and switch to something else?
Three signals tell you it's time. First, your CMS needs exceed what collections can handle. If you need relational content, structured data beyond flat lists, or more than a handful of collection types, Framer's CMS will hold you back. Second, performance. Framer sites can get sluggish with heavy animations and large pages, and you have limited control over optimisation. Third, development workflows. If your team includes developers who want version control, CI/CD pipelines, and the ability to write custom logic, Framer's no-code environment becomes a constraint. We've migrated Framer sites for companies that hit all three of these walls simultaneously, usually around the 20-30 page mark with 3+ content types.
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