Understanding Marketing Contacts in HubSpot
Learn the difference between Marketing Contacts and regular contacts, as well as how manage and convert contacts in your HubSpot Marketing Hub.
Marketing contacts are the only contacts that count toward your Marketing Hub subscription and can be engaged through emails, ads, and workflows. Non-marketing contacts do not affect your billing and cannot receive marketing communications.
Check If You Have Marketing Contacts
- Click your account name (top right) > Account & Billing.
- Under Products & Add-ons, check if "Marketing Contacts" is listed.
If you don’t see this option, contact HubSpot support or your Customer Success Manager to enable it.
Managing Your Marketing Contacts
Billing & Contact Limits
- If you exceed your contact tier, your account automatically upgrades to the next tier.
- If you reduce marketing contacts, your tier won’t downgrade until renewal.
- You can monitor your marketing contacts count in Account & Billing or via a dashboard report.
Setting Contacts as Marketing or Non-Marketing
- Marketing contacts can be engaged through emails, ads, and marketing workflows.
- Non-marketing contacts do not count toward your tier and won’t receive marketing communications.
- If a contact is set as marketing, it counts for that month—even if changed to non-marketing later.
HubSpot Tools That Require Marketing Contacts
Marketing contacts are required for:
Marketing emails (including follow-ups after form submissions).
Ads audiences in HubSpot.
Marketing workflows (e.g., sending emails or adding contacts to ads).
Non-marketing contacts can still receive sales emails, transactional emails, and support communications.
Key Marketing Contact Properties
- Marketing contact status: Shows if a contact is currently marketing or non-marketing.
- Next update status: Indicates if a contact will change to non-marketing at the next update.
- Status source: Shows which tool or user last updated the contact’s marketing status.