Only Pay for the Contacts You Market To
Many of our clients and other inbound marketers have benefited from HubSpot’s powerful and easy-to-use CRM and marketing tools, but paying for individual contacts even when they’re not used for marketing purposes has always been a pain point. As a HubSpot Platinum Solutions Partner, we’re excited to tell our clients about their new option for marketing contacts, which allows you to pay only for the contacts that you have marketing interactions with.
If you want HubSpot’s take on the update, visit their website, but we’ll give you the download on new pricing plans and the benefits of using marketing contacts by answering the questions you might have below.
What Are Marketing Contacts and What Do They Mean for HubSpot Users?
Marketing contacts are a new way of categorizing your contacts in HubSpot so you’re only charged for the high-quality contacts that you want to target for marketing efforts like ads or emails. Previously, HubSpot Marketing Hub users paid for every contact they stored in the CRM regardless of whether those contacts were used for marketing purposes.
This means no more paying for email bounces or unsubscribes, your partners or employees, sales contacts, or one-off support tickets! Get free storage for up to a million non-marketing contacts.
Reap the Benefits of an All-In-One CRM Solution
Marketing contacts allow HubSpot to be your all-in-one platform because you’ll no longer need another system for storing the non-marketing contacts you don’t want to pay for. Having all of your contacts for different purposes clearly labeled and stored on one platform will increase your efficiency, remove friction from your daily workflow, and improve the connections and communications between different departments within your business.
Simplify Your Software Purchasing Decisions
Contact pricing won’t hold you back — your decision to buy HubSpot Sales, Service, or Marketing Hub (or a combination of the three) is more straightforward now. If you currently use HubSpot’s CRM for free or the Sales or Service Hubs, the transition for adding on Marketing Hub will be easier since you won’t have to worry about paying for every contact you already have stored in the CRM. If you currently use Marketing Hub, the transition for adding on the Sales or Service Hubs will be easier since you won’t have to worry about paying for new contacts that you add into the CRM for non-marketing purposes.
Increase Your Contacts and Email Sends
Numbers of included contacts, contacts between tiers, and email sends per marketing contact have increased for specific Marketing Hub plans, allowing you to worry less about managing contact numbers or avoiding hitting limits and focus more on creating and sending the high-quality marketing materials that will connect you with potential customers. Here is an overview of the changes for different subscription types:
- The number of included contacts has increased for Professional users — now 2,000, previously 1,000
- The number of contacts between tiers has increased for both Professional and Enterprise users — now 5,000 for Pro and 10,000 for Enterprise, previously 1,000
- Allowed email sends are now 20x the number of marketing contacts for Enterprise plans, up from 10x contacts
The new marketing contacts dashboard also provides you with more detailed insights into where your new marketing contacts are coming from, informing future decisions and marketing efforts and making consistent tracking of the number of marketing contacts you have easier.
That All Sounds Great — But How Do I Get and Use HubSpot Marketing Contacts?
Getting the new Marketing Hub that includes marketing contacts is simple! If you’re not a current HubSpot Marketing Hub user, the Marketing Hub that includes marketing contacts is the default product being sold to new users. If you currently use Marketing Hub, you can choose to keep your current subscription, or switch over — it’s up to you. As a HubSpot Platinum Solutions Partner, NgageContent can help both new and existing Marketing Hub customers implement marketing contacts.
We know what you’re thinking — no, you won’t have to go through every contact in your CRM one-by-one and decide whether they should be marked as a marketing contact (this change is supposed to make your life easier, after all!).
For existing customers:
- HubSpot provides a marketing contacts eligibility flow that automatically generates lists of email bounces and unsubscribes so you can mark all of them as non-marketing at once
- You can also add custom filters and lists of your own to separate marketing contacts from non-marketing contacts
For new HubSpot users:
- You can mark contacts as marketing as you add them in or afterward
- All contacts will automatically be categorized as non-marketing until you mark them as marketing contacts to avoid extra charges as you set up your account and learn how to use HubSpot
For everyone:
- Update your settings or create simple workflows to automatically categorize new contacts coming in from forms and integrations as marketing contacts
- You can change your marketing contacts each month to stay up to date as aspects of your contact lists change
You can manually mark contacts as marketing or non-marketing at any time, but marketing statuses formally change all at once — either at the beginning of the month or at contract renewal depending on which one comes first.
An extremely important note: If you’re anywhere near your contact tier limit and don’t want to pay for the next tier up, clean up your contacts! If you accidentally go over your contact tier limit during any month, HubSpot will automatically upgrade you to the next tier level and won’t let you downgrade your tier again until it’s time to renew.
Here are the contact tiers based on your Marketing Hub plan for quick reference:
| SUBSCRIPTION | INCLUDED MARKETING CONTACTS | # OF MARKETING CONTACTS BETWEEN EACH TIER |
| Marketing Starter | 1,000 | 1,000 |
| Marketing Professional | 2,000 | 5,000 |
| Marketing Enterprise | 10,000 | 10,000 |
Okay, Let’s Talk Pricing
Here is HubSpot’s pricing sheet for reference, with the changes summarized in the chart below. One notable pricing change is that scaled contact pricing (previously only available for Marketing Hub Starter customers) is now available for all Marketing Hub plans — meaning the price per contact will decrease as you purchase more contact storage.
| SUBSCRIPTION | WHAT YOU PAY | WHAT YOU GET |
| HubSpot Marketing Starter | Same as before:
|
Mostly the same, with the addition of non-marketing contacts:
|
| HubSpot Marketing Professional | Was $800 per month and didn’t include scaled pricing for higher contact tiers:
|
More included marketing contacts and larger number of contacts between tiers, plus the addition of non-marketing contacts:
|
| HubSpot Marketing Enterprise | Same as before, with the addition of scaled pricing for higher contact tiers:
|
Larger number of contacts between tiers and more email sends, plus the addition of non-marketing contacts:
|
NgageContent Can Ease the Implementation Process
If you have any questions about the updates or you’re ready to save money and streamline your CRM use by implementing marketing contacts, reach out. We’re HubSpot experts here to help you succeed.
