Struggling to figure out which contacts in HubSpot actually count towards your bill, and which ones you can keep for free? You’re in the right place! Getting a grip on your HubSpot marketing status isn’t just about understanding a technical detail. it’s about smart budgeting, effective segmentation, and making sure your marketing efforts are hitting the right people without breaking the bank. Think of it as knowing who’s on your guest list for the big party and who’s just a friendly acquaintance you’re happy to have in your address book without sending them an invitation. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know, from the basics of marketing contacts to advanced strategies for keeping your HubSpot account lean and mean.

Table of Contents

What Exactly Is Marketing Status in HubSpot?

Alright, let’s get straight to it. In HubSpot, every single person in your CRM has a “Marketing contact status” property. This isn’t just a label. it’s a core distinction that directly impacts your subscription costs and what you can actually do with those contacts through HubSpot’s marketing tools.

Basically, there are two types:

Marketing Contacts: These are the folks you’re actively trying to reach with your marketing campaigns. We’re talking email blasts, targeted ads, automated workflows, and anything that pushes your promotional message out there. They absolutely count towards your contact tier limit, which means you pay for them. If you’re sending them a marketing email, showing them a retargeting ad, or putting them into a lead nurturing workflow, they’re marketing contacts.
Non-Marketing Contacts: These are contacts in your CRM that you don’t actively market to using HubSpot’s specific marketing tools. Think of past customers you’re not trying to upsell right now, disqualified leads, or even sales-generated cold leads that haven’t opted into your marketing yet. The huge perk? They don’t count towards your billable contact tier. You can still store all their data, use them for sales outreach via the Sales Hub, or customer service interactions through the Service Hub, but you won’t be sending them mass marketing emails from HubSpot’s Marketing Hub.

HubSpot introduced this distinction to give businesses more control over their budgets. Before this, all contacts in your CRM, even those you weren’t actively marketing to, used to count towards your bill. That meant you might be paying for thousands of contacts just sitting there, not doing much for your current campaigns. Now, you can segment your list and only pay for the contacts you’re actually engaging.

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You can easily spot a contact’s status on their individual record within your CRM. There are also specific properties like “Marketing contact status source type” and “Marketing contact status source name” that tell you how and when their status was last changed. It’s super helpful for auditing!

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The Big Picture: Why HubSpot Cares About Marketing Status And Why You Should Too

This “marketing contact” vs. “non-marketing contact” thing isn’t just some arbitrary rule. it’s fundamental to how HubSpot prices its Marketing Hub and how you manage your overall strategy. Ignoring it can seriously impact your budget and the effectiveness of your campaigns.

Impact on Billing: Your Wallet’s Best Friend or Foe

Let’s be real: one of the biggest reasons to get this right is cost. HubSpot’s Marketing Hub pricing is tied directly to the number of marketing contacts you have. As your number of marketing contacts grows, you might automatically move into a higher pricing tier, which costs more.

For example, a Starter plan might include 1,000 marketing contacts, while a Professional plan could start with 2,000. Going over these limits means you’ll pay for additional contacts, often in bundles. If you’re on a Professional plan and have 2,000 contacts, but then suddenly have 2,500 marketing contacts, you’ll be charged for the next tier of additional contacts. This tiered structure means careful management of your marketing contacts can lead to significant cost savings. Companies that effectively use non-marketing contacts can store and manage contacts without incurring extra costs.

In 2024, HubSpot generated $2.63 billion in revenue, with subscription revenue making up 97.79% of that. With over 247,939 customers across 135+ countries as of early 2024, it’s clear they’re a major player. HubSpot has a market share of 5.51% in the CRM platforms market, ranking third overall. They’re growing, and understanding their billing model helps you grow with them smartly.

Impact on Marketing Efforts: Precision and Performance

Beyond the money, proper contact status management sharpens your marketing. Unpacking the HubSpot SEO Certification

Targeted Campaigns: By only marking relevant contacts as “marketing,” you ensure your campaigns are reaching people who actually want to hear from you. This means higher engagement rates, better email deliverability, and improved ad performance. Sending emails to uninterested recipients can hurt your sender reputation.
Data Cleanliness: Designating contacts as non-marketing helps reduce “noise” in your data. You’re not cluttering your marketing reports with interactions from contacts who aren’t and shouldn’t be part of your active campaigns. This allows you to track and optimize marketing performance more accurately.
Compliance: Data privacy regulations are a big deal. By accurately categorizing contacts, especially those who have opted out or unsubscribed, you ensure you’re only sending marketing materials to those who have consented, helping you stay compliant.

Essentially, it’s about making every marketing dollar and effort count. Inbound marketing, which HubSpot champions, is all about attracting customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them. It’s proven to be incredibly effective. inbound marketing efforts can save up to 61% in costs compared to traditional outbound methods and generate three times more leads per dollar. Moreover, 46% of marketers say inbound marketing yields a higher ROI, and 79% of B2B marketers credit email as the most effective channel for lead generation. This kind of precision is what the marketing contact status helps you achieve.

How to Identify a Contact’s Marketing Status

Knowing where to find this crucial information is the first step in taking control.

Looking at Individual Contact Records

The most straightforward way to check is by simply pulling up a contact’s record in your HubSpot CRM. Within their profile, you’ll find the “Marketing contact status” property. It will clearly state whether they are a “Marketing Contact” or “Non-Marketing Contact.” You’ll also see properties like “Marketing contact status source type” and “Marketing contact status source name” which can tell you how that status was set, which is super useful for troubleshooting or understanding your automation.

Using Filters and Lists

For a broader view or to manage groups of contacts, HubSpot’s list and filtering capabilities are your best friends. Cracking the HubSpot Social Media Marketing Exam: Your Ultimate Guide to Acing the Certification

Create a Filtered View: Head over to your Contacts index page. You can use filters to segment your contacts based on their “Marketing contact status.” For example, you can create a view that only shows your current marketing contacts, or perhaps those marked as non-marketing. This is great for a quick overview.
Build Active or Static Lists: If you want to regularly monitor or take action on specific groups, create active or static lists.
- Active Lists: These lists update automatically as contacts meet or stop meeting certain criteria. You could create an active list for “All Marketing Contacts” or “Contacts with ‘Non-Marketing’ Status Due to Unsubscribe.” This is fantastic for ongoing management.
- Static Lists: These are fixed lists of contacts based on a snapshot in time. They don’t update automatically. You might use these for one-off campaigns or for reviewing specific segments.

Leveraging these tools helps you group contacts with similar characteristics, making it much easier to manage them in bulk.

Taking Control: Changing a Contact’s Marketing Status

Now that you know what it is and why it matters, let’s talk about how to actually change that status. HubSpot gives you a few ways to do this, depending on whether you’re dealing with one contact or a whole bunch.

Individual Changes Manual Updates

For those quick, one-off adjustments, manual updates are your go-to.

Navigate to Contacts: Log into your HubSpot account and head to CRM > Contacts.
Select the Contacts: Find the specific contact you want to change. You can also check the boxes next to multiple contacts if you need to update a small group.
Choose More Options: At the top of the table, you’ll see a More dropdown menu. Click on that.
Update Status: From the dropdown, select either Set as Marketing or Set as Non-Marketing.
Confirm: A dialog box will pop up asking you to confirm. For current marketing contacts being set to non-marketing, the change usually takes effect on your next update date typically monthly. If you’re setting non-marketing contacts to marketing, it often takes effect immediately.

It’s a pretty straightforward process, perfect for when a single lead becomes sales-qualified or an old customer signs up for your newsletter again. Salesforce vs. HubSpot: The Ultimate Cost Showdown (Which CRM Saves You More?)

Bulk Changes: Power in Numbers

When you have a large number of contacts whose status needs to change, doing it one by one is just not practical. This is where bulk changes shine, and HubSpot offers a few powerful methods.

1. Using Workflows Professional and Enterprise only

This is hands down the most efficient way to manage contact status on an ongoing basis, especially if you have a Professional or Enterprise Marketing Hub subscription. Workflows allow you to automate the process based on specific criteria.

How to set it up:

Create a Workflow: Go to Automations > Workflows in your HubSpot account.
Define Enrollment Triggers: This is the “when” of your automation. What action or property change should trigger a status update?
- Examples:
  - Lifecycle stage is Disqualified Set as Non-Marketing
  - Email hard bounce reason equals Known Set as Non-Marketing
  - Contact opts out of all email Set as Non-Marketing
  - Submits a specific marketing form Set as Marketing
  - Lifecycle stage becomes Customer You might move them to Non-Marketing if your marketing strategy shifts to focus on acquisition, or keep them as Marketing for retention/upsell campaigns.
Add an Action: In the workflow editor, click the + icon to add an action. Choose Set marketing contact status and then select Set as Marketing or Set as Non-Marketing.
Activate: Once you’re happy with your workflow, activate it. Now, any contacts meeting your criteria will automatically have their status updated on the next billing update date for non-marketing changes or immediately for marketing changes.

Automating status changes with workflows can save a ton of time and ensures your contact list stays optimized. Many marketers use automation for tasks like email marketing 71% and content planning 78%, and HubSpot is the leading marketing automation provider with a 29.51% market share. Automation can boost productivity by 20% and increase qualified leads by 451% with video automation.

2. Via Imports

If you’re importing a fresh batch of contacts maybe from a trade show or an external list, you can set their marketing status during the import process. Salesforce vs HubSpot CRM: Which One Wins for Your Business?

Prepare your import file.
Start the import process in HubSpot.
In the Details step, you’ll usually see an option like “Set these contacts as marketing contacts.” Check this box if you want them to be marketing contacts from the get-go.
Confirm the estimated number of marketing contacts and complete the import.

3. From Segments Lists

Similar to individual updates, you can make bulk changes directly from your contact lists or segments.

Navigate to CRM > Segments or Contacts > Lists and select the list you want to work with.
Select the checkboxes next to the contacts you want to set as marketing or non-marketing.
Click the More dropdown menu at the top of the table and choose the appropriate Set as marketing contacts or Set as non-marketing contacts option.
Confirm the change.

When to Change Status

Deciding when to change a contact’s status is a strategic move:

New Leads: When someone fills out a lead magnet form, subscribes to your newsletter, or otherwise shows clear marketing intent, they should become a marketing contact.
Disengaged Contacts: If a contact hasn’t opened an email in months, hasn’t visited your website, or has explicitly unsubscribed, consider moving them to non-marketing. You retain their historical data but stop paying to market to them.
Past Customers: After a purchase, a customer’s marketing needs might change. If you’re not actively running upsell or cross-sell campaigns through the Marketing Hub for them, moving them to non-marketing can save you money while keeping them in your CRM for service or sales.
Sales-Owned Contacts: Sales teams often have contacts they’re working without any current marketing engagement. Keeping these as non-marketing contacts avoids inflating your marketing bill.

Important Considerations

30-Day Delay: When you change a contact from marketing to non-marketing, the change isn’t always instant for billing purposes. They might still count towards your marketing contact totals for about 30 days until the next update date. This is something to factor into your budgeting and strategy.
Permissions: By default, users can change contact statuses. However, you can restrict this permission for specific users in your HubSpot settings under Users & Teams.
Data Privacy: Always respect opt-out preferences. If someone unsubscribes, it’s good practice to mark them as non-marketing to avoid accidental sends and ensure compliance.

The “Non-Marketing Contact” Advantage: Getting More for Less

The ability to designate contacts as “non-marketing” is a powerful feature that many businesses underutilize. It’s not just about saving money. it’s about making your CRM work smarter for you.

Who Should Be a Non-Marketing Contact?

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Disqualified Leads: If a lead doesn’t fit your ideal customer profile or has explicitly stated they’re not interested.
Unsubscribed Contacts: People who’ve opted out of your marketing emails should definitely be non-marketing contacts to respect their preferences and avoid issues.
Historical Data: Old leads, past customers, or even partner contacts that you want to keep in your CRM for record-keeping or future reference, but aren’t actively marketing to.
Sales-Only Outreach: Contacts that your sales team is working on directly, but who haven’t yet engaged with or opted into your marketing content.
Service-Only Contacts: Existing customers who primarily interact with your customer service team and don’t need ongoing marketing emails.

What You Can and Cannot Do with Non-Marketing Contacts

It’s a common misconception that “non-marketing contact” means you can’t communicate with them at all. That’s not true!

What you CAN do:

Store their data: Keep all their valuable information, activity history, and notes in your CRM.
Use them in Sales Hub: Your sales team can still send one-to-one sales emails, log calls, create tasks, and manage deals for these contacts. HubSpot’s CRM is a central repository for all contact information.
Engage with Service Hub: Provide customer support, track tickets, and engage in service-related communications.
Internal Communication: Send internal notifications or use them in workflows for internal processes.
Reporting non-marketing: You can still run reports on their activity, just not typically on their engagement with Marketing Hub tools.
Re-engage manually: If a non-marketing contact shows renewed interest e.g., visits your pricing page, a sales rep can manually reach out.

What you CANNOT do with HubSpot’s Marketing Hub tools:

Send them marketing emails mass emails, automated nurture sequences.
Include them in HubSpot-managed ad audiences for retargeting campaigns.
Enroll them in marketing-focused workflows that use email sends or other marketing actions.

Cost Savings Strategy

This distinction is a must for budget optimization. By intelligently moving contacts to non-marketing status, you’re only paying for the contacts that are actively contributing to your marketing ROI. This means you can store as many non-marketing contacts as you want without adding to your monthly costs. Businesses that take the time to classify contacts correctly can benefit from reduced marketing costs and better email deliverability.

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HubSpot’s Marketing Hub: A Quick Tour of What It Does

While we’ve focused heavily on contact status, it’s worth remembering that the “Marketing” in “Marketing status HubSpot” refers to the powerful HubSpot Marketing Hub. This isn’t just a billing mechanism. it’s a comprehensive platform built on the inbound marketing philosophy.

Inbound Marketing Philosophy

HubSpot practically coined the term “inbound marketing” back in 2005. It’s all about attracting customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them, rather than interrupting them with traditional ads. The goal is to build meaningful, lasting relationships. This methodology revolves around three core stages:

Attract: Drawing in the right people with valuable content like blogs, videos, SEO, social media that positions you as a trusted advisor. Inbound marketing tactics generate 54% more leads than traditional outbound.
Engage: Building relationships by providing insights and solutions that align with their goals. This includes personalized email marketing, chatbots, and lead nurturing. 91% of customers want to hear from companies via email.
Delight: Providing outstanding support and help to empower customers to succeed, turning them into promoters of your brand.

Core Features of Marketing Hub

HubSpot’s Marketing Hub which includes a robust CRM at its core offers a suite of tools designed to execute this inbound strategy efficiently.

Email Marketing: Create, send, and track personalized marketing emails with easy-to-use drag-and-drop builders and templates. Email is still a powerhouse, with 79% of B2B marketers crediting it as the most effective channel for lead generation.
Landing Pages and Forms: Build high-converting landing pages and customizable forms to capture leads.
Marketing Automation Workflows: Automate repetitive tasks, lead nurturing, email sequences, and internal notifications, saving time and scaling personalization. 79% of companies use automation for marketing.
Ads Management: Connect your ad accounts Google, Facebook, LinkedIn to track performance, create audiences, and report directly within HubSpot.
Social Media Management: Schedule posts, monitor mentions, and analyze performance across various social platforms from one place.
SEO Tools: Get recommendations to optimize your content for search engines, helping you attract organic traffic.
Analytics and Reporting: Gain insights into your marketing performance with built-in dashboards and custom reports that pull data across all your hubs. HubSpot recently launched an all-new custom report builder in open beta for more powerful reporting.
CRM Integration: The Marketing Hub is deeply integrated with the HubSpot CRM, providing a unified view of every customer interaction across marketing, sales, and service. This unified data is crucial for personalized experiences.

Its Role in the Modern Marketing Stack

HubSpot Marketing Hub essentially acts as a central command center for your digital marketing. It provides the tools to attract, engage, and delight customers, all while keeping your data organized and your budget in check through features like marketing contact status. This integrated approach is why HubSpot continues to be a top choice for businesses worldwide, with its revenue soaring to $3.07 billion in 2025 and a market share reaching 35% in July 2024.

They are also continuously innovating with AI. New AI-powered capabilities in Marketing Hub include Marketing Studio turns a brief into a full campaign, AI-powered email for personalized content, and an AI-powered space for audience segmentation. They’re even integrating with AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude to analyze CRM data using natural language prompts. Social Media Marketing with HubSpot: Your All-in-One Guide to Growing Your Brand

Advanced Tips for Managing Your Marketing Contacts

Once you’ve got the basics down, you can level up your contact management to really optimize your HubSpot portal.

Automating Status Changes with Workflows

We touched on this, but let’s emphasize its power. For Marketing Hub Professional and Enterprise users, workflows are invaluable. Don’t just set up one or two. think strategically about the entire contact lifecycle.

Disengagement Workflows: Create workflows that automatically change a contact to “non-marketing” if they haven’t opened an email in X months, haven’t visited your site in Y months, or have a low engagement score. This keeps your active marketing list healthy and prevents you from paying for dormant contacts.
Re-engagement Campaigns: Before moving someone to non-marketing, you might trigger a short re-engagement workflow. If they respond, they stay marketing. if not, then they become non-marketing.
Lifecycle Stage Transitions: When a contact moves from, say, “Lead” to “Customer” or “Evangelist,” consider if their marketing status should change based on your strategy for that lifecycle stage.
Form Submissions: If someone fills out a “contact us” form or a high-intent form, automatically make them a marketing contact if they aren’t already and have given consent.

Regular List Cleanup and Audits

Even with automation, it’s smart to do periodic manual checks or audits.

Quarterly Review: Schedule a quarterly review of your contact database. Look for anomalies, duplicates, or contacts whose status seems incorrect.
Segment by Engagement: Use HubSpot’s segmentation tools to identify segments of highly engaged vs. completely disengaged contacts. This can inform both your status changes and your content strategy.
Remove Duplicates: HubSpot has tools to help you identify and merge duplicate contacts, ensuring you’re not paying for the same person twice.

Leveraging CRM Data for Smarter Segmentation

Remember, the CRM is the heart of HubSpot. Use all the rich data you’re collecting to make smarter decisions about marketing status. What is an ROI Calculator?

Custom Properties: Create custom contact properties that help you understand contact intent or qualification. These can then be used as triggers in your workflows to automate status changes.
Lead Scoring: Implement lead scoring to assign values to contacts based on their engagement and demographic information. Contacts with a very low lead score after a certain period could automatically be moved to non-marketing.
Sales Feedback: Encourage your sales team to provide feedback on lead quality. If a lead is consistently unqualified, it’s a good candidate for non-marketing status.

By taking a proactive and automated approach to managing your marketing contacts in HubSpot, you’re not just saving money. you’re building a more efficient, compliant, and ultimately more effective marketing operation. You’re ensuring your valuable marketing efforts are focused on the people who are most likely to convert and engage, keeping your business growing strong.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the main difference between a marketing contact and a non-marketing contact in HubSpot?

The biggest difference is billing and marketing eligibility. Marketing contacts are the ones you actively market to using HubSpot’s tools like marketing emails and ads, and they count towards your subscription costs. Non-marketing contacts are stored in your CRM but don’t receive marketing communications from HubSpot’s Marketing Hub tools, and crucially, they don’t impact your billable contact tier. You can still use them for sales and service activities.

Can I change a contact’s marketing status instantly?

When you set a non-marketing contact to a marketing contact, it often takes effect immediately. However, if you change a contact from marketing to non-marketing, the billing impact might not be immediate. HubSpot typically queues this change, and it will take effect on your next update date, usually a monthly cycle. So, you’ll still be billed for them for about 30 days after the change. Hubspot Reporting Tools: Unlocking Your Business Data for Smarter Growth

How do I bulk change marketing contact status in HubSpot?

The most effective way to bulk change marketing contact status is by using workflows if you have a Professional or Enterprise Marketing Hub subscription. You can set triggers based on criteria like Lifecycle stage is Disqualified or Contact unsubscribes, and then set an action to Set marketing contact status to Set as Non-Marketing. You can also make bulk changes from your Contacts or Segments page by selecting multiple contacts and using the More dropdown menu. During an import, you can also select an option to set all imported contacts as marketing or non-marketing.

What tools in HubSpot require a contact to be a marketing contact?

Contacts need to be marked as “marketing” to be included in activities that fall under HubSpot’s Marketing Hub billing. This primarily includes sending marketing emails both one-off and automated via workflows, including them in HubSpot-managed ad audiences for retargeting, and typically, any marketing-specific workflows that involve outbound communication.

What are the benefits of using non-marketing contacts?

Using non-marketing contacts offers several key benefits. First, it helps you save money by only paying for the contacts you’re actively marketing to. Second, it keeps your marketing data cleaner and more focused, leading to better reporting and campaign performance. Third, it helps with compliance by ensuring you’re not accidentally sending marketing materials to unsubscribed or unengaged individuals. You can still store their data, use them for sales outreach, and provide customer service.

Can I still send emails to non-marketing contacts?

You cannot send mass marketing emails or enroll non-marketing contacts in marketing-specific email workflows directly from the Marketing Hub. However, your sales team can still send one-to-one sales emails via the Sales Hub, and your service team can send service-related emails via the Service Hub. It’s important to differentiate between these types of communication.

How does HubSpot define inbound marketing?

HubSpot defines inbound marketing as a business methodology that attracts customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them, rather than interrupting them with traditional advertising. It focuses on building meaningful, lasting relationships by valuing and empowering people to reach their goals throughout their journey with your company. HubSpot on Reddit: The Real Talk from Users

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