People move from ActiveCampaign to HubSpot for the CRM and the reporting, not for the email. ActiveCampaign has the deeper automation builder; HubSpot has the better shared record across marketing, sales, and service, plus attribution reporting a leadership team actually reads.
That makes this migration different from most. You are not just moving a list — you are moving a pipeline. Deals, companies, owners, and activity history all have to land in the right place with their associations intact, and that is where migrations go wrong.
Before you start, be clear-eyed about cost. Serious HubSpot automation lives on Marketing Hub Professional, and marketing-contact pricing rises quickly. If your reason for switching is purely email automation, you are trading down for more money.
How long this takes
3–5 hours
Most of that time goes into rebuilding automations and repointing forms, not the import itself.
Why switch from ActiveCampaign to HubSpot?
Switch if…
- You need one customer record shared across marketing, sales, and support.
- Leadership wants attribution reporting that ActiveCampaign cannot produce.
- Your sales team refuses to work in the ActiveCampaign CRM.
- You are consolidating a separate CRM, helpdesk, and email tool into one platform.
- You want workflows that act on deals and tickets, not just email sends.
Stay put if…
- Your automation is genuinely complex — ActiveCampaign’s email logic is deeper than HubSpot’s.
- Budget is tight; the equivalent HubSpot tier usually costs considerably more.
- You have no sales process to speak of, in which case you are paying for a CRM you will not use.
ActiveCampaign vs HubSpot: the key differences
| What changes | ActiveCampaign | HubSpot |
|---|---|---|
| Core strength | Email automation depth | Unified CRM and reporting |
| Pricing basis | Contacts plus feature tier | Marketing contacts plus hub and seats |
| Automation | Deeper conditional email logic | Broader: deals, tickets, tasks, rotation |
| Reporting | Functional | Attribution and dashboards across teams |
| Sales tooling | Built-in CRM, lighter | Full sales hub with sequences and forecasting |
| Learning curve | Steep builder, small surface | Large surface, real onboarding project |
Before you switch, have this ready
- A HubSpot portal with an admin seat and the hubs you intend to use.
- Exports from ActiveCampaign: contacts, deals, accounts, custom fields, and tags.
- A documented map of ActiveCampaign deal stages to your intended HubSpot pipeline stages.
- A decision on which contacts are marketing contacts — this drives your bill.
- Screenshots of every automation you intend to rebuild, with triggers and conditions.
- A list of every form, integration, and API consumer touching ActiveCampaign.
Step-by-step: ActiveCampaign to HubSpot
Step 1: Export contacts, deals, and custom fields from ActiveCampaign
In ActiveCampaign, export contacts from Contacts → Export, and deals from the Deals list view. Export accounts too if you use them — they become HubSpot companies.
Record every custom field with its type, and every tag with what it means. Tags are the part people underestimate: HubSpot has no direct tag equivalent, so each meaningful tag becomes either a property value, a list, or nothing at all.
Export a copy of your automation list with triggers and steps visible. You are going to be looking at this constantly while rebuilding.
Screenshot
ActiveCampaign contacts export screen
Step 2: Build HubSpot properties and your deal pipeline first
In HubSpot, go to Settings → Properties and create a property for every ActiveCampaign custom field you are keeping. Match the data type carefully — a date imported into a text property cannot be used in a workflow condition later.
Build the deal pipeline next, with stages that mirror your ActiveCampaign stages. Do not redesign your sales process in the middle of a migration; move it as-is, then improve it once data is in.
Decide your tag strategy now. A tag like "webinar-attendee-march" is better as a static list; a tag like "customer-type-enterprise" is better as a property value.
Screenshot
HubSpot deal pipeline settings with stages mapped
Step 3: Import in the right order: contacts, companies, then deals
HubSpot resolves associations by email and company domain, so order matters. Import contacts first. Import companies second. Import deals last, with columns identifying the associated contact email and company domain.
Use HubSpot’s multi-file import for deals if you want associations created during import rather than patched afterwards. Patching associations later on a few thousand deals is a genuinely miserable afternoon.
Set marketing contact status deliberately during import. Every contact marked as a marketing contact is billable — old leads, unsubscribes, and closed-lost records usually should not be.
Screenshot
HubSpot import screen showing contact-to-deal association mapping
Step 4: Rebuild automations as HubSpot workflows
Nothing transfers. Rebuild in order of business value: lead follow-up, lifecycle stage progression, internal notifications, then nurture. Anything that has not fired in six months does not get rebuilt.
Expect to simplify. ActiveCampaign’s conditional branching and goals are more granular than HubSpot’s, so some workflows collapse into fewer branches, and a few need splitting into two workflows to express the same logic.
Use the migration to move logic to the right object. Deal-stage automation and lead rotation belong on deals in HubSpot, not on contact-level email workflows — that is the reason you switched.
Enrol a test contact and walk each branch before turning anything on for real records.
Screenshot
HubSpot workflow editor with a lifecycle workflow
Step 5: Repoint forms, integrations, and tracking
Install the HubSpot tracking code site-wide first — without it, form submissions, page views, and attribution reporting have nothing to work with.
Replace ActiveCampaign forms with HubSpot forms, reconnect Zapier or Make scenarios, update any API integrations, and reconnect ad accounts so lead ads flow into HubSpot.
Check calendar, meeting-booking, and helpdesk connections too. These are the integrations teams forget until someone books a meeting that never appears on a record.
Screenshot
HubSpot tracking code and forms setup
Step 6: Run both platforms in parallel, then cut over
Turn off ActiveCampaign automations rather than deleting the account, and let HubSpot handle new sends. Watch for records still being created in ActiveCampaign — each one points at an integration you missed.
Send your first HubSpot campaign to an engaged segment, confirm deliverability, then widen. Authenticate your sending domain in HubSpot before that first send.
After two clean weeks, export a final archive from ActiveCampaign and cancel. Keep the export — you will want the historical automation logic more than you expect.
Screenshot
HubSpot campaign performance dashboard after cutover
Integrations you need to update
Every one of these is a place contacts or data currently flow into ActiveCampaign. Work through the list before you stop watching the old account — a missed form is invisible until someone complains they never got your email.
| Integration | What to do |
|---|---|
| Website tracking | Install the HubSpot tracking code before anything else. |
| Forms and landing pages | Rebuild as HubSpot forms; retire ActiveCampaign embeds. |
| Calendar and meeting links | Switch to HubSpot meetings so bookings attach to records. |
| Zapier / Make | Rebuild every scenario on the HubSpot connector and test each one live. |
| Helpdesk | Connect to HubSpot Service Hub or sync tickets to the contact record. |
| Ad platforms | Reconnect Google and Meta so lead ads and audiences sync to HubSpot. |
| Billing or subscription tools | Repoint so revenue data lands on the deal, not in a spreadsheet. |
| Data warehouse or BI | Update connectors and field mappings to HubSpot object schemas. |
Troubleshooting: common post-migration problems
Deals imported without contacts attached
The association column was missing or the email did not match exactly. Re-import deals with an association file rather than fixing records by hand.
Your HubSpot bill is far higher than quoted
Too many records are flagged as marketing contacts. Bulk-set non-marketing status for closed-lost, unsubscribed, and dormant contacts.
Workflows are not enrolling anyone
HubSpot enrolment triggers only fire on records that meet criteria after activation unless you choose to enrol existing records. Re-enrol deliberately.
Custom field data imported as text
The property type did not match. Create a correctly typed property and re-import that column; workflow conditions will not work against the text version.
Email performance dropped after cutover
New sending setup. Confirm domain authentication in HubSpot and rebuild volume from your engaged segment outwards.
Sales team says records are missing activity history
Historical ActiveCampaign activity does not migrate. Import a summary property or attach the export as a note rather than promising full history.
Should you make the switch?
The migration itself is rarely the hard part — it is the automations you rebuild and the forms you forget. If the reasons in the "switch if" list above describe your situation, HubSpot is worth the afternoon. If you are only moving because you are frustrated with an interface, fix the emails first and keep the platform.
Read both reviews before you commit: our ActiveCampaign review covers what you would be giving up, and our HubSpot review covers what you are buying, including current pricing and where it falls short.