Create and customize lifecycle stages

Lifecycle stages categorize your contacts and companies while providing context about where they are in your sales and marketing processes. If your business processes involve categories beyond the default lifecycle stages, you can create custom lifecycle stages. If you previously created a custom property to keep track of your unique lifecycle stages, learn how to migrate from using the custom property to the lifecycle stage property.

Customize lifecycle stages

1. In your HubSpot account, click the settings settings icon in the top navigation bar.
2. In the left sidebar menu, navigate to Objects, then select Contacts.  
3. Click the Lifecycle Stage tab.
4. Click Add stage.
5. In the right panel, enter a name for the stage, then click Create lifecycle stage to confirm. Your custom stage will now appear as an option when editing a contact’s or company's Lifecycle stage property and calculated properties will be automatically created for the stage.

To edit lifecycle stages for contacts and companies:

1. In your HubSpot account, click the settings settings icon in the top navigation bar.
2. In the left sidebar menu, navigate to Objects, then select Contacts.  
3. Click the Lifecycle Stage tab.
4. In the table, you can manage the following:
   • Edit stage: hover on a row and click Edit.
     • In the dialog box, click Confirm.
     • In the right panel, enter a new name and click Edit lifecycle stage.
   • Rearrange stages: click the dragHandle handle and drag a stage to a new location.
   • Delete stage: hover over the stage and click Delete. If the stage you’re trying to delete contains records or is used in other HubSpot tools, you'll need to move the records to a new stage and/or remove the stage as a reference in the HubSpot tools. You cannot delete a stage if it's used as a default for connected apps.
   • View where the stage is used: in the Used In column, click the number. In the right panel, review where the stage is being used (e.g., lists, reports, saved view).
5. When you're finished, click Save.

Use lifecycle stages

Once you've set up lifecycle stages to fit your business' needs, you can:

• Update a record's lifecycle stage.
• Turn on settings to automatically set lifecycle stages for new records and based on associations (e.g., set a contact's lifecycle stage based on the associated company's stage).
• Segment contacts and companies based on their Lifecycle stage value in saved views, lists, workflows, ads, chatflows, and reports, including both standard and custom reports.
• Sync custom stage data via HubSpot data sync. 

Learn more about using lifecycle stages.

Move from a custom property to the lifecycle stage property

If you've been using a custom property to track lifecycle stages, it is recommended to migrate back to using the default Lifecycle stage property. To move back to using the default property:

1. Set up custom lifecycle stages for the default Lifecycle stage property.
2. Set values for your records' Lifecycle stage property using the custom stages. You can set the property in bulk in any of the following ways: edit from the contact or company index page, export then re-import the records with a column for the Lifecycle stage property, or use the Set a property action in a workflow (Professional and Enterprise only).
3. Clear values from the custom property you were previously using to track stages. You can clear the property values in bulk in any of the following ways: edit from the contact or company index page, export then re-import the records with a blank column for your custom property, or use the Clear a property action in a workflow (Professional and Enterprise only).
4. Delete the custom property that you were previously using.

Once you've migrated to using the default Lifecycle stage property, you can customize automation for setting lifecycle stages and use the property in other HubSpot tools.