How do you migrate from Freshsales to HubSpot?

Part of our HubSpot guides.

What does a Freshsales to HubSpot migration involve?

A Freshsales to HubSpot migration is the planned transfer of your CRM records, activity history and sales process from Freshsales into a HubSpot portal that has been set up to receive them. Moving the data is one part of it. The other part is deciding how your pipelines, properties and lifecycle stages should work in HubSpot, because copying the Freshsales structure across unchanged tends to bring the old problems with it.

In the migrations we run, the work splits roughly into three parts:

• Design. Deciding which Freshsales fields, pipelines and stages are worth keeping, and what they become in HubSpot.
• Data. Exporting, cleaning, mapping and importing records and activity history.
• Rebuild. Recreating the automation, sequences, reports and views your team relies on day to day.

When we moved a Sydney financial services company from Freshsales to HubSpot in 2025, their five sales reps were using Freshsales to call and qualify leads in a single pipeline. We brought across around 20,000 leads with their call details and notes, into a HubSpot portal already set up for that work. Workflows, reporting dashboards and team training were delivered alongside.

What are the steps to migrate from Freshsales to HubSpot?

There are six steps, and the order matters. Importing before the HubSpot structure is designed is the most common reason a migration has to be redone.

1. Audit Freshsales. List every module, custom field, pipeline, stage, user and automation in use. Note which fields are actually filled in. Fields nobody completes are usually best left behind.
2. Design HubSpot. Map each Freshsales field to a HubSpot property, each pipeline to a HubSpot pipeline, and decide how leads and contacts fit HubSpot's lifecycle stages. Create users in HubSpot first so record owners can be matched by email.
3. Export from Freshsales. Run the full account export from Admin Settings. Freshsales only lets you export the full time range once, so it's worth getting the record types right the first time. See how to export all your data from Freshsales.
4. Clean and map. Deduplicate contacts, standardise company domains, convert tags into HubSpot properties, and add the Freshsales record IDs as a column so every record can be traced back.
5. Import in order. Companies first, then contacts, then deals, then activities. Each layer needs the one before it to exist so associations hold.
6. Test and switch over. Spot-check records against Freshsales, confirm associations and owners, run a short parallel period, then set a cut-off date and stop using Freshsales.

How long does a Freshsales to HubSpot migration take?

A Freshsales to HubSpot migration combined with HubSpot onboarding typically takes 12 to 16 weeks. The data transfer itself is a smaller share of that. Most of the time goes into designing the HubSpot structure, rebuilding automation and getting the team trained and using it.

The main things that stretch a timeline:

Will we lose any data moving from Freshsales to HubSpot?

Some Freshsales data doesn't have a direct equivalent in HubSpot, and some history can only come across in part. We plan migrations around what Freshsales can actually hand over, so it's worth knowing the gaps before you start.

The usual gaps are:

• Tags. HubSpot doesn't use tags on CRM records. Tags are converted into a multi-select property instead.
• Territories. These become HubSpot teams, owner rules or a territory property.
• Sequences and workflows. Automation logic doesn't export. It's rebuilt in HubSpot sequences and workflows.
• Attachments. Freshsales' account export doesn't list attachments, so files usually need the API or a migration tool, or are left behind.
• Original activity dates. If the date column isn't mapped, HubSpot stamps imported activities with the import date. This is fixable, but only if it's planned for.
• Freddy AI scores. These are Freshsales-specific and are replaced by HubSpot lead scoring.

For the full object-by-object mapping, see what data you can move from Freshsales to HubSpot.

Should you clean your Freshsales data before migrating?

Yes. Cleaning before you migrate is faster than cleaning inside HubSpot afterwards, and it stops duplicates and dead records counting toward your HubSpot contact tier. Marketing contacts in HubSpot are billed by tier, so importing thousands of stale records has a real cost.

A pre-migration clean usually covers:

• Merging duplicate contacts and accounts
• Removing bounced, unsubscribed or long-inactive records you don't need to market to
• Standardising company domains, which HubSpot uses to match contacts to companies
• Closing out or archiving deals that have sat open for years
• Retiring custom fields that are empty or no longer used

Can you migrate from Freshsales to HubSpot yourself?

You can migrate a simple Freshsales account yourself using the Freshsales export and HubSpot's import tool. It works well for small teams with mainly contacts, accounts and open deals. It gets harder once you have years of activity history, email conversations, custom modules or several pipelines.

Signs a DIY migration is likely to be enough:

• Fewer than a few thousand contacts
• One sales pipeline
• Activity history you're happy to leave behind or summarise
• Minimal automation in Freshsales

Signs it's worth bringing in help:

• You need notes, calls and emails attached to the right records with their original dates
• You use custom modules, products or CPQ
• Several teams or regions share the account
• Freshsales is connected to other systems that need reconnecting

That second group is where our HubSpot migration services come in.