We are implementing HubSpot for a service company where the sales process includes a POC (Proof of Concept) before the final production contract.
The pricing model is different in each phase:
• POC runs for ~30 days with a higher price per call
• Production contracts run for 12–36 months with a lower price per call
Currently we manage this using two deals:
POC deal
Production deal (automatically created when the POC is successful)
The customer is asking if we should instead use a single pipeline and a single deal for both phases.
My concern is that this may complicate revenue calculations and forecasting, since POC and production pricing are different.
From a HubSpot best-practice perspective, is it better to:
• keep two deals (POC → Production), or
• manage both phases within one deal?
I personally always gravitate to using just 1 deal if at all possible. Because the cost changes explicitly when they move from POC into Production, my thought is that you should have a “POC Amount” property, and a “Prod Amount” property. Then two workflows.
POC Amount workflow:
triggers when amount is unknown AND POC amount is known AND stage != production
sets deal amount to POC amount
Prod Amount workflow:
triggers POC amount is known AND stage == production
sets deal amount to Prod amount
In my experience having 2 deals for the sake of reporting is almost never worth the admin cost of having two deals.
Hi Arsath, interesting scenario—POC → Production phases come up quite often with service companies.
Chris’s single-deal setup with separate POC and Production amount fields is a nice way to keep the pipeline simple.
Another approach some teams use is keeping POC and Production as two linked deals, especially when the pricing model and contract length are very different. That way reporting and forecasting stay clearly separated, and a simple workflow can create the Production deal once the POC is approved.
So it usually comes down to priorities: single deal for simplicity, or two linked deals for cleaner revenue reporting.