topic Re: Ideas/Tools to clean up Hubspot in Data Hub

Ideas/Tools to clean up Hubspot

WhitneyLM — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 14:41:41 GMT

Hey there—I am fairly new to a team that had an existing Hubspot account that was set up before I started. Our Hubspot is huge, and we have lots of employees adding, updating, and generally managing our account. To say things are a mess is an understatement.

I have been trying to clean up and organize, but it feels like everything I do makes no real headway. I spend hours cleaning, and then the next day, it's back to a mess. Does anyone have any tips or ideas for how to reign it all in and maximize our Hubspot for our company?

Re: Ideas/Tools to clean up Hubspot

karstenkoehler — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 14:44:27 GMT

Hi @WhitneyLM,

There is unfortunately no tool that does it all for you automatically – but a good starting point with recommendations is HubSpot Audits from Portal-iQ by @Mike_Eastwood: https://portal-iq.com/

This will generate insights for you and you'll know where to start.

Hope this helps!

Re: Ideas/Tools to clean up Hubspot

Mike_Eastwood — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 18:57:36 GMT

Hi @WhitneyLM

As a HubSpot Partner we've found most organizations – to put it politely – have a mess in HubSpot.

So, as @karstenkoehler mentioned (thank you Karsten) we created Portal-iQ a tool to help audit the Setup, CRM data and Hubs with recommendations to help clean up your HubSpot Portal and implement best practices.

And I can make some suggestions to tighten up the permissions, implement rules and business processes to help keep your system CRM tidy.

If you'd like to meet on Zoom please use this Meeting link.

Cheers

Mike

Here to learn more about HubSpot and share my HubSpot Knowledge. I'm the founder of Webalite a Gold HubSpot Partner Agency based in Wellington, New Zealand and the founder of Portal-iQ the world's first automated HubSpot Portal Audit that helps you work smarter with HubSpot.

Re: Ideas/Tools to clean up Hubspot

RNoll — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 17:38:53 GMT

For me, the answer depends on what kind of cleaning you're doing. What actions are are you taking each day, and are those same efforts being undone by others? If so, maybe implementing a Procedure Guide could work. Or are you working every day and cleaning up one thing, only to find a mess somewhere else?

Re: Ideas/Tools to clean up Hubspot

WhitneyLM — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 18:16:16 GMT

It's a little bit of both really. For example, I will spend time de-duplicating contacts and get the list down from 3,000 or so to zero. Then a week later due to multiple factors, the number is huge again. I have tried to set some standard guidelines but we are a 100+ people org and nothing we have tried has worked yet. The above is just an example, we have the same issue with companies - lots of duplicate companies, missing info, etc. We also have a bajillion properties that are so so confusing as well! Like I said, a big ol mess

Re: Ideas/Tools to clean up Hubspot

Mike_Eastwood — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 20:35:35 GMT

Hi @WhitneyLM

Have you seen https://koalify.io it automatically de-duplicates. If you have any questions talk to @Jonas_De_Mets he's the expert!

Mike

Re: Ideas/Tools to clean up Hubspot

RNoll — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 21:04:59 GMT

Oh yeah, dupes are horrible. Do you have a third party integration that could be causing them? We literally had 10,000 that we got down to zero and they're all back, too. Most of ours can be ignored (former and active clients with the same name), there are only some we need to be aware of. I ended up buying a tool called Koalify to help me ID and merge duplicates that only match in certain unique ways. If you can afford it I would recommend it, and it's continually improving. There are some other dedupe tools out there you could consider, also.

Properties Maintenance is a bear, too. I'm lucky, we only have a small handful of us who are allowed to make properties. If you go to Settings > Properties the final column will show you if a property is not being used, but I'd be cautious deleting anything without some inverstigation. You could potentially sort each object's properties by user and have each person vet the properties they made, starting with the people who make the most.

Do you happen to have Operations Hub Pro?

Robyn

Re: Ideas/Tools to clean up Hubspot

RNoll — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 21:03:59 GMT

Koalify has done wonders for us, and Jonas is terrific to work with.

Re: Ideas/Tools to clean up Hubspot

Jonas_De_Mets — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 15:52:41 GMT

Thanks for recommending Koalify @Mike_Eastwood & @RNoll 🙏
@WhitneyLM you can try Koalify for free, or feel free to book a time with me if you'd like to learn more! Here’s a quick 4-minute video that highlights our main features:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhDQnGi6Meg

Re: Ideas/Tools to clean up Hubspot

PJudge — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 16:17:56 GMT

@WhitneyLM I am using Insycle for duplicates and data cleanup and so far it's been great.

Re: Ideas/Tools to clean up Hubspot

KaranHarii — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 02:57:50 GMT

Hey @WhitneyLM — I’ve dealt with this exact cycle and it’s genuinely one of the most frustrating things in HubSpot.
The reason your duplicates keep coming back after you clean them is that deduping is treating the symptom, not the cause. Here’s what actually worked for me:
Find the source first. Go to a batch of your newest duplicates and check the “Original Source” property on each one. You’ll usually find one of three things: a leaky form that’s not deduping properly, an integration (like a Zapier or event tool) that’s creating new contacts instead of updating existing ones, or team members manually creating contacts without searching first.
Quick wins to stop the bleed:
∙ Create a workflow that lowercases and trims whitespace on the Email property at contact creation. You’d be surprised how many “new” contacts are just john@company.com vs John@Company.com
∙ If you have Ops Hub, set up a formatting action on the contact create trigger to standardise phone numbers and names too
∙ Lock down property creation permissions so not everyone on your 100+ person team is adding custom fields. That’s where property bloat spirals
For the existing mess:
The tools mentioned above (Koalify, Portal-iQ) are good for the merge side. But before you start merging, export a backup first — I’ve seen teams accidentally merge the wrong master record and lose activity history.
For ongoing monitoring:
Set up a simple active list filtered by “Create date is less than 7 days ago” AND “Associated company is unknown.” Review it every Monday. Takes 5 minutes and catches problems before they snowball again.
The properties cleanup is a separate beast — I’d suggest exporting all properties to a spreadsheet, sorting by usage count, and archiving anything with zero usage in the last 6 months. Scary but effective.

Re: Ideas/Tools to clean up Hubspot

MarkM1G — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 05:43:44 GMT

That 'clean today, messy tomorrow' loop means the input side isn't governed. You can break the cycle by adding validation on the way in, plus a nightly enrichment/cleanup flow that either fills in the missing fields on its own or pings the record creator to improve the record