Use line items

Line items are individual instances of products or custom line item entries created when configuring credit memos, deals, invoices, payment links, quotes, legacy quotes, and subscriptions. Use the line item editor to configure details for product-based line items and custom line items, such as price, discount, and billing terms.

Developer resources

Learn more about building custom solutions using the Line items API.

Line item behavior

When using line items, keep the following behaviors in mind:

• Adding products: when a product is added from the product library to a deal, invoice, payment link, quote, legacy quote, or subscription, it becomes a line item specific to that record, with its own line item record ID.
• Custom line items: when adding a custom line item, it's unique to the record you're adding it to, and it has its own line item record ID.
• Line item conversions: line items are unique to each deal, invoice, payment link, quote, legacy quote, or subscription. Any time there's a conversion between tools (e.g., deal to quote or invoices automatically created from a payment link, quote, or subscription), the line items are cloned to the new record. The cloned line items keep the same details, but become their own line item instances, with their own record IDs. For example, if you add a line item to a deal and create a quote from it, the line item is cloned to the quote. The deal line item record ID will be different from the quote line item record ID.

Discount, fee, and tax rounding

When you enter discounts, fees, and taxes in HubSpot, the number of decimal places that can be stored depends on the value type. HubSpot also uses different rounding methods depending on where the value is applied. The following table summarizes the maximum precision, rounding method, and stored value for each discount, fee, and tax type.

Rounding methods

• Banker's Rounding: rounds to the nearest value. If the discarded digit is exactly 5, the value rounds to the nearest even digit.

• HALF_UP: rounds to the nearest value. Digits 5 or greater round up.

• Two-step rounding: rounds to three decimal places using Banker's Rounding, then rounds to two decimal places using a 0–5 down and 6–9 up rule.

Discount types

Order in which discounts, fees, and taxes are applied

When processing in HubSpot, the discounts, fees, and taxes are applied as follows:

• Discounts applied first (unit discounts, one‑time discounts).
• Fees apply next.
• Taxes are finally applied.

At each relevant step:

• Discounts obey the currency precision rounding rule.
• This order means small differences vs external systems can occur, depending on when those systems round (e.g., if an accounting tool rounds after each line vs only at the end).

Line items for deals

Learn how to add line items to deals.

Line items for quotes

How you add line items to quotes depends if you're using quotes, part of HubSpot CPQ, or legacy quotes. 

• Learn how to add line items to quotes.
• Learn how to add line items to legacy quotes.

Line items for invoices

Learn how to add line items to invoices.

Line items for credit memos

Learn how to add line items to credit memos.

Line items for payment links

Learn how to add line items to payment links.

Line items for subscriptions

When a buyer uses a payment link or quote to purchase a line item with a regular billing frequency (also known as a recurring line item), or you create a subscription manually, HubSpot creates a subscription record to automatically charge or invoice the buyer at the specified frequency. This means that you don't need to manually create multiple payment links, quotes, or invoices to charge a buyer for products or services that renew regularly.

• Learn how to add line items to subscriptions.
• Learn how to add recurring line items to payment links.
• Learn how to add recurring line items to quotes.

Please note: if the Automatically create contracts from accepted quotes setting is turned on, and you're enrolled in the Connected CPQ, Billing, and Payments beta, ongoing billing is managed through contracts. Learn more about the setting.

Line items for custom objects

Line items can be added to custom objects in the same way they are added to other objects:

• Add line items directly from the custom object record using the Line items card in the right sidebar. If the Line items card isn't appearing on the custom object record by default, you can manually add the card to the record.

• Associate custom objects with line items using the data model builder.

Learn more about custom objects. 

Edit the columns of the line item editor

You can edit which columns display in the line item editor for credit memos, deals, invoices, payment links, quotes, legacy quotes, and subscriptions. Super Admins can define a default set of columns to display to all users of the account, across all tools.

To edit the columns:

1. Navigate to a credit memo, deal, invoice, payment link, quote, legacy quote, or subscription.
2. In the upper right of the line item editor, select an option:
   • Edit columns: edit the columns for the tool you're using, for your own account. Changes made won't affect other users.
   • Edit default columns for everyone: if you're a Super Admin, set the columns to display to all users. Users will still be able to select Edit columns to customize their own views.

Please note: setting default columns for all users in one tool will apply the changes to all tools. For example, if you set the column defaults from the credit memos line items editor, the changes will apply to credit memos, deals, invoices, payment links, quotes, legacy quotes, and subscriptions.

3. In the dialog box, select the checkboxes next to properties you want to add.
4. To remove columns, click the X to the right of the property in the Selected columns section.
5. To reorder columns, drag a property using the dragHandle drag handle.
6. To move a column to the top, hover over the property in the Selected columns section and click Move to top.
7. To restore the columns to their default state, click Restore default columns.
8. To freeze columns, so they always display when scrolling the line items table, in the upper right, click the Frozen columns dropdown menu and select the number of columns to freeze. You can freeze up to three columns.
9. After making your changes, in the bottom left, click Apply.

Next steps

Learn more about creating products in the product library.

Learn more about reporting on line items using the report builder.