topic Re: Marketing contacts when you upgrade from sales hub to add marketing hub starter in Tips, Tricks & Best Practices

Marketing contacts when you upgrade from sales hub to add marketing hub starter

K-ReEnergise — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 10:47:57 GMT

Hello,

We've been on the Sales Hub for a year, and are now looking to add Marketing Hub Starter.

I don't want all my contacts to be considered as marketing contacts, particularly due to the limitations <1000 but genuinely many do need to be filtered out as they are not targets. It would be good to keep them for reference only though.

What is the best way to go about this? I don't have time to sort the data fully before the contract starts and I'm aware that this is when the count is made. So if I can switch them all off and then turn them back on once I'm in the marketing hub that would be ideal.

However, I don't seem to have the option to 'set as non-marketing contact' within the sales hub, or at least not in the way that seems to be described as the way to switch them on/off for this purpose.

All help appreciated! Thank you.

Re: Marketing contacts when you upgrade from sales hub to add marketing hub starter

karstenkoehler — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 10:57:41 GMT

Hi @K-ReEnergise,

Once the marketing contact feature is enabled in your portal, you should be able to go through a wizard / step by step process to decide which contacts need to be marketing contacts.

Unless you have any specific marketing emails planned, you might as well set 0 contacts to marketing contacts - and upon your first email send, mark those recipients as marketing contacts as you go: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/records/set-contacts-as-marketing

Best regards

Re: Marketing contacts when you upgrade from sales hub to add marketing hub starter

K-ReEnergise — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 12:31:41 GMT

Thank you so much! I agree with the approach of starting with zero.

So it can only be done once the feature is enabled? Our contract end date is 31st December (but I can sign for it on Mon 8th Dec) so do I need to be available as soon as it switches on (could be midnight) in case of any unnecessary counts towards marketing contacts?

Or perhaps it will take me through that wizard at the point when I sign the contract?

I've booked a meeting with my contract manager on Mon morning (8th) and my quote expires on 8th but presumably I'll have Monday to resolve if need be?

Thank you again!

Re: Marketing contacts when you upgrade from sales hub to add marketing hub starter

karstenkoehler — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 12:33:50 GMT

@K-ReEnergise as far as I know, yes, you can only do it once on the subscription. The feature is called "eligibility flow" and you would go through it once you're on the new subscription 🙂 You can confirm with your contract manager.

Re: Marketing contacts when you upgrade from sales hub to add marketing hub starter

K-ReEnergise — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 12:45:08 GMT

Looking at this info on https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-contacts it seems that the non-marketing contacts are limited to 1,000 - is that right? So if on starter, would be max 2,000 (1k marketing 1k non-marketing) contacts?

I then need to reduce our contact database before Monday.

Re: Marketing contacts when you upgrade from sales hub to add marketing hub starter

karstenkoehler — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 12:46:52 GMT

@K-ReEnergise I'd recommend you familiarize yourself with how marketing contact billing works first: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/account/understand-marketing-contacts-billing

You can have more contacts than are set as marketing contacts.

You choose who becomes a marketing contact once you're on the marketing hub subscription.

Re: Marketing contacts when you upgrade from sales hub to add marketing hub starter

K-ReEnergise — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 12:58:17 GMT

Thank you! I think I should be able to sort on Monday with my contract manager. Really appreciate your help 🙂