Understand marketing contacts billing

If your Marketing Hub subscription includes marketing contacts, you can choose which contacts you'll be billed for by setting their marketing status. Marketing contacts are contacts that you’ll engage with through HubSpot’s marketing tools each month (e.g., marketing emails, ads). Marketing contacts will count toward your contact tier and will affect the cost of your HubSpot subscription. Non-marketing contacts are contacts you don’t plan on marketing to; you’re not charged for these contacts.

This article outlines billing information related to marketing contacts. Learn more about gaining access to and using marketing contacts. 

Please note: the following information applies only to Marketing Hub Starter, Professional, and Enterprise accounts with marketing contacts. Legacy Marketing Hub accounts may not have marketing contacts. Learn how to check if your HubSpot account has access to marketing contacts or request marketing contacts for your account.

Key terms

• Contact tier: the limit on the number of contacts you can actively engage with using HubSpot's marketing tools each month. Your contact tier will determine how many marketing contacts will be counted toward your subscription cost.
• Marketing contacts: contacts that you’ll engage with through HubSpot’s marketing tools each month. They will count toward your contact tier and will affect the cost of your HubSpot subscription.
• Renewal date: the date your HubSpot subscription renews. The date of your purchase and the commitment term determines your renewal date. 
• Update date: the date each month that setting any contacts from marketing to non-marketing will take effect. For monthly subscriptions, the update date will be the date of your renewal each month. For example, if you purchased your subscription on April 15th, the update date for your account will be the 15th of every month. For yearly subscriptions, the update date will be the first day of each month. 

Automatic contact tier upgrades

If you add marketing contacts and exceed your current contact tier, you'll be immediately upgraded to the next contact tier and charged accordingly until your next renewal date. The cost of the tier upgrade will depend on the contact tier and subscription term. 

Once you’ve exceeded your contact tier limit, you'll continue to be billed for the higher contact tier until your subscription’s next renewal date. Even if the number of marketing contacts in your database goes below your current tier, your account will not be automatically downgraded and will stay in the upgraded tier until your next renewal. Your renewal date varies depending on if you have a month-to-month or yearly contract.

For example, you purchased a 1-year Marketing Hub Starter subscription on March 15th, 2025 with a tier of 1,000 marketing contacts. You start with 998 contacts, all set as marketing contacts. On March 28th, you add five more contacts set as marketing contacts, bringing your total to 1,003. This will trigger an automatic upgrade to the 2,000 marketing contact tier. You’ll be billed for the higher tier until your subscription’s next renewal date on March 15th, 2026. 

The contact tier update date is when changing contacts from marketing to non-marketing will take effect. In the example above, let’s say you want to prevent a tier upgrade because there are some contacts in the original 998 that you no longer need to engage. You set five of them as non-marketing contacts to make room for the additional contacts you do want to market to. This change will take effect on your next update date, which in this example would be April 1, 2025. On the update date, you now have 993 marketing contacts and can add your additional marketing contacts without going above your tier. 

To prevent an automatic contact tier upgrade: 

• Regularly review your marketing contacts: keep track of your next update date and your current contact tier limit.

• Change contacts to non-marketing: if you don't intend to market to certain contacts in the next billing period, change their status to non-marketing before your next update date.

• Delay setting new contacts as marketing: unless you’re sure you want to market to new contacts the following month, wait until after your update date to set their status as marketing. 
• Check tool settings: understand which tools automatically set contacts as marketing. You can adjust your settings for certain tools to stop them from creating marketing contacts.
• Manage user permissions: prevent certain users from setting contacts as marketing by adjusting their user permissions.

If you have additional questions about managing marketing contacts, reach out to your Customer Success Manager.

Review your marketing contacts

To avoid accidental tier upgrades, regularly monitor your marketing contacts and be aware of the update date for your HubSpot account. You can review all of this in Account & Billing.