Understand objects

Objects represent your customers and business process information. Depending on your use case and HubSpot subscription, there are many objects available, such as contacts, deals, subscriptions, activities, payments, and conversations. If you're a Super Admin, you can activate additional objects, such as appointments and services. You can also create custom objects for use cases unique to your business (Enterprise only). All objects are powered by the same data platform. This allows you to associate records and create reports on them.

Learn more about how objects work with tools within HubSpot.

Please note: your account may use personalized names for each object (e.g., account instead of company). This document refers to objects by their HubSpot default names.

Before you get started

The main components of the HubSpot data model are objects, properties, and associations.

• Objects: represent your customers and business process information. They're grouped into categories: foundational, sales, marketing, and service. Several objects belong in multiple categories (e.g., services), while others are unique and fit into all depending on your use case.
• Records: single instances of an object, where you can store information in properties, track interactions, and view associations.
• Properties: the different fields where you can store information on a record. There are default properties included in your account for each object. For most objects, you can also create custom properties to reflect your business needs.
• Associations: relationships between records. Associations are always two-way (i.e., if record A is associated with record B, record B is also associated with record A). You can associate records of different objects (e.g., companies and deals) or same objects (e.g., contacts and contacts).

Foundational objects

Foundational objects are the core of your data model. These are the base of your data and you can use them in several ways. They’re deduplicated by email address for contacts and domain name for companies. This helps you maintain unique records and data quality. They can also be associated with most other objects in the data model.

Contacts

Any person who interacts with your business. On records, you can:

• Record information such as their name, email address, phone number, and job title.
• Send emails to contacts and log them to the record timeline for historical context.
• Track how contacts interact with your business through forms, feedback surveys, and ads. 

Using other HubSpot tools, you can:

• Create custom properties based on your business needs.
• Manage a contact's marketing status.
• Send marketing emails.
• Enroll contacts in workflows or sequences.

Companies

Any business with interactions related to your business. On records, you can:

• Record firmographic information such as their annual revenue, industry, and number of employees.
• Log activities to the timeline.

Using other HubSpot tools, you can:

• Create custom properties such as onboarding completed date.
• Tag existing companies as target accounts if you have an account-based marketing strategy.
• Associate and use leads during your sales qualification process.

Manage foundational objects

• List of default contact properties.
• Understand marketing contacts.
• Send marketing emails to contacts.
• Create workflows.
• Create and use sequences
  (Sales or Service Hub Professional and Enterprise only).
• List of default company properties.
• Create and edit properties.
• Create and import records.
• Use target accounts.
• Understand deduplication.

Marketing objects

Marketing events

They store events organized to promote products or services, such as webinars, trade shows, or open houses. You can plan and manage marketing events, track attendance, and measure their impact on sales and engagement.

Campaigns

They store coordinated marketing efforts to reach and engage a target audience, often involving multiple assets. You can design and execute marketing campaigns, track performance metrics, and optimize strategies for better results.

Notes

They store notes or comments added to any record with activities. For example, you can record important information and insights about contacts, ensuring that all team members have access to relevant details.

Communications

They store logged data about one-to-one communication between users and customers on SMS, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, postal mail, and custom channels. For example, you can set up HubSpot SMS (Marketing Hub Professional and Enterprise only) to automatically log messages or you can manually log them.

Manage marketing objects

• Create marketing events.
• Manually import marketing event participants.
• Create marketing campaigns.
• Create and log activities.
• Manage automatic activity associations.

Sales objects

Deals

They store the progress, ownership, and other details on a transaction with a customer or company. Deals are deduplicated by the Record ID property. You can create a pipeline that tracks the stages of your sales process. You can also set up the forecast tool to track potential revenue in your sales pipelines (Sales or Service Hub Professional and Enterprise only). For example, you can create new business and renewal pipelines, log activities such as notes, meetings, and tasks, and create invoices associated with each deal.

Leads (Sales Hub Professional and Enterprise)

They store the progress of associated contact or company through sales qualification. Leads are eventually either qualified or closed. For example, you can use the sales workspace to nurture leads through the sales funnel and automate outreach with guided actions.

Calls

They store phone calls made on any record that is associated with a contact or a company. You can also place calls from the calling tool and log details such as call duration, notes, and follow-up actions.

Meetings

They store data about in-person and virtual meetings scheduled with contacts. You can configure a meeting form or manually schedule meetings for yourself. You can also schedule on behalf of a teammate (Sales or Service Hub Professional and Enterprise only).

One-to-one emails

They store emails sent to prospects or customers as part of the sales or service process. You can report on the effectiveness of sales emails using data points such as open or click rates.

Services

They store intangible offerings provided to customers, such as onboarding and consulting, repairs and maintenance, and personal care. This object must be activated by a Super Admin in the data model tool. Services are deduplicated by the Record ID property. For example, you can log SMS or LinkedIn communications during a consultation.

Listings

They store information about a particular property or unit to be bought, sold, or rented. This object must be activated by a Super Admin in the data model tool. Listings are deduplicated by the Record ID property. For example, you can create a collection of units available for sale or rent.

Carts

They store information about e-commerce purchases and potential purchases (e.g., abandoned carts) by customers. You can sync your e-commerce platform to store cart and customer data in HubSpot. Learn more about e-commerce integration apps.

Orders

They store confirmed purchases or requests for products or services. You can sync your e-commerce order data and build custom HubSpot reports.

Manage sales objects

• List of default deal properties.
• Set up deal pipeline automation.
• Set up the forecast tool.
• List of default lead properties.
• Set up leads.
• Set up calling.
• Make calls.
• Set up a meeting scheduler.
• Log meetings manually.
• Send and manage one-to-one emails.
• Activate services or listings.
• Manage cart records.
• Manage your order pipeline and records.

Service objects

Tickets

They store information about customer support requests. By default, you can view details such as: ticket status, priority, and logged communication. Tickets are deduplicated by the Record ID property. For example, you can track customer support requests by company or contact, log communication or notes, and separate requests into pipelines.

Conversations

They store threads of communication with contacts, including emails, messages, and other interactions. They can be associated with tickets and managed in help desk. You can centralize and manage all support communications with contacts, ensuring a comprehensive history of interactions.

Appointments

They store information about an encounter or service for an individual. This object must be activated by a Super Admin in the data model tool. Appointments are deduplicated by the Record ID property. You can schedule and manage appointments with clients and log calls.

Courses

They store educational courses or training programs that can be offered to customers. This object must be activated by a Super Admin in the data model tool. Courses are deduplicated by the Record ID property. You can track students enrolled in courses, and provide access to course materials.

Services

They store intangible offerings provided to customers, such as onboarding and consulting, repairs and maintenance, and personal care. This object must be activated by a Super Admin in the data model tool. Services are deduplicated by the Record ID property. For example, you can book onboarding meetings or log emails to the record.

Manage service objects

• List of default ticket properties.
• Set up tickets.
• Set up ticket pipeline automation.
• Use tickets through help desk.
• Configure help desk and conversations (Service Hub Professional and Enterprise only).
• Activate appointments, courses, or services.

Commerce objects

Products

They store items or services that your business sells in a library. Use products as templates for individual sales. When you add a product to objects such as quotes, subscriptions, or invoices it becomes a line item. The product does not change when you customize a line item. For example, you can add your signature blend product to a quote. On that quote, you can apply a discount to the line item, and this change will not impact the price on the product.

Invoices

They store digital bills sent to customers for products or services provided. You can generate and send a personalized link or PDF to customers, track payments, and manage billing cycles.

Quotes

They store formal estimates of the cost of products or services. Quotes are always associated with deal records. For example, you can add line items from your product library, select from recurring or one-time billing, add a form of acceptance (e.g., e-sign, print and sign), and send it through a personalized link.

Subscriptions

They store recurring payments for ongoing services or products. You can track online payments using HubSpot or Stripe payments or offline payments (e.g., paper check), automate recurring payments, provide refunds, and report on recurring revenue.

Manage commerce objects

• Configure your product library.
• Use line items.
• Set up the invoices tool.
• Create and send quotes.
• Set up quotes, including branding.
• Set up the subscriptions tool.

Other objects

These objects are unique because they can fit into many categories depending on your business needs. These objects include:

Projects

They store information about project management processes. This object must be activated by a Super Admin in the data model tool. You can use default properties such as Pipeline, Type, and Status to track the progress of a project. You can also create and assign tasks associated with a project. Learn more about using projects with the gantt index page view (BETA). 

Tasks

They store to-do items or actions that need to be completed. You can assign and track tasks manually, configure a workflow to automatically create tasks when a form is submitted, or set up a task queue.

Custom objects (Enterprise only) 

They are objects that meet niche business needs. Super Admins can create these objects, and they function similarly to the other objects. 

For example, you own a coffee roastery and want to track how your various roast batches are performing. You create a custom object named Roast Batch, along with custom properties that suit your needs (e.g., Roast date, Green lot #, and Quality score). When a customer orders a specific Roast Batch, the appropriate record can be associated with their contact record. When the contact purchases a large quantity of a certain batch, a deal can be created and associated with the specific batch record and contact record. If a customer has a question or issue with a particular batch, a ticket can be created and associated with the batch and contact record. The ticket communication is logged as a conversation on the ticket and contact.

Manage other objects

• Create a project-based workflow.
• Create a project-based segment.
• Create a project report.
• Create tasks.
• Set up custom objects.
• Create custom object records.
• Use APIs to manage custom objects.

Object and tool compatibility table 

Associations

Associations are relationships relationships between two records. Associating records allows you to visualize the relationships and quickly access relevant data (e.g., Nick Halden is associated with the company F.B.I. and can be accessed from the company record). You can associate different objects (e.g., deals and services) or same objects (e.g., tickets and tickets) and visualize all associations using the data model tool.

An association can be unlabeled or labeled. A label is an additional descriptor you can add to define the relationship between two records. For example, you label Nick Halden's association with the F.B.I. as Informant.  

Please note: for custom objects, you must first configure association settings.

Possible object associations are as follows:

Manage associations

• Visualize relationships with the data model tool.
• Build relationships with data model templates.
• Associate records together.
• Create and use custom association labels (Professional and Enterprise only).
• Associate activities with records.
• Automatically associate contacts and companies via domain name and email.