Struggling to keep your sales pipeline organized and your team on the same page? Getting your lead statuses in HubSpot just right is one of the most effective ways to streamline your sales process and make sure no hot prospects fall through the cracks. Think of it like this: if you don’t have a clear way to track where each lead stands, your sales reps might be trying to connect with someone who’s already had a demo, or worse, completely missing a follow-up with a highly engaged prospect. It’s a common challenge, with some reports suggesting that a significant portion of marketing leads never convert into sales due to poor lead status management. By understanding and optimizing your HubSpot lead statuses, you’re not just updating a field. you’re building a more efficient, collaborative, and ultimately, more successful sales machine.

This guide is going to walk you through everything you need to know about changing, customizing, and automating lead statuses in HubSpot. We’ll even clear up some common confusion, like the difference between lead status and lifecycle stage, so you can make HubSpot truly work for your business. Let’s get your sales team rocking!

Table of Contents

Understanding HubSpot Lead Status: More Than Just a Label

So, what exactly is “Lead Status” in HubSpot? At its core, lead status is a contact property in HubSpot that helps your sales team track exactly where a prospect is in their qualification or outreach process. It’s a sub-stage, primarily used within the Sales Qualified Lead SQL lifecycle stage, to give granular detail about the immediate next steps or current interaction level with a lead.

Imagine you have a bunch of potential customers. The lead status tells your sales rep, at a glance, if they’re brand new, if someone’s tried to call them, if they’re actively talking, or if they’re just not a good fit. This insight is incredibly useful for managing active leads before they turn into customers, helping sales teams prioritize, organize, and track their daily activities.

HubSpot comes with a set of default lead status options, which are a good starting point for many businesses. You’ll typically see statuses like:

New: These are recently added leads that haven’t been contacted by sales yet.
Open: Leads assigned to a rep, but there’s been no activity recorded yet.
In Progress: The sales team is actively working with or preparing to contact these qualified leads.
Attempted to Contact: Sales has reached out, perhaps with an email or call, but is waiting for a response.
Connected: The lead has responded and is engaged in an active conversation.
Open Deal: A deal has been created and associated with this lead, indicating clear interest.
Unqualified: This lead isn’t a good fit, or they’ve lost interest.
Bad Timing: The lead is interested, but external factors prevent them from moving forward right now.

While these defaults are handy, the real power of lead status comes from customizing them to truly reflect your unique sales process. Every business has its own flow, its own steps, and its own language. Tailoring these statuses means your CRM actually mirrors how your team works, making it easier for everyone to track progress and collaborate effectively.

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Lead Status vs. Lifecycle Stage: Clearing Up the Confusion

This is probably one of the most common points of confusion for HubSpot users, and honestly, I get it! “Lead Status” and “Lifecycle Stage” sound similar, and they both track a contact’s journey, but they serve different, distinct purposes. Think of it like this:

Lifecycle Stage: This is the big picture of a contact’s overall journey with your company, from a complete stranger to a loyal customer. It’s a broad, high-level view that helps align your marketing, sales, and service teams on where a contact stands in the entire customer journey. HubSpot’s default lifecycle stages include:
- Subscriber: Someone who’s opted in to hear from you, perhaps a newsletter signup.
- Lead: A contact who has shown more interest, like downloading content or filling out a form, but isn’t necessarily ready for sales yet.
- Marketing Qualified Lead MQL: Your marketing team has qualified this contact as ready for sales engagement, often based on specific engagement behaviors or a lead score.
- Sales Qualified Lead SQL: Your sales team has vetted this contact and confirmed they are a potential customer, a good fit for your product or service. This is where Lead Status often comes into play!
- Opportunity: The contact is associated with a deal, meaning they’re actively considering a purchase.
- Customer: They’ve made a purchase and are now a client.
- Evangelist: A happy customer who actively promotes your business.
- Other: For contacts who don’t fit the other categories.
Lead Status: This is the granular detail within a specific lifecycle stage, most commonly the “Sales Qualified Lead” SQL stage. It describes the specific actions your sales team is taking with that contact and their immediate progress within the sales process. It’s more sales-rep focused and can change frequently.

Here’s a simple way to remember the difference:

Lifecycle Stage: Where is this person in their overall relationship with my company? e.g., Are they just a visitor, a lead, a customer?
Lead Status: What are we doing with this Sales Qualified Lead right now? e.g., Have we called them? Are they responding? Are they unqualified?

Unlike lifecycle stages, which are pretty standardized and don’t allow for much modification in their default progression, the Lead Status property is highly customizable. This flexibility is why many businesses use it to create a detailed map of their unique sales interactions. How to Easily Log In to Your HubSpot CRM (and Why You Absolutely Should!)

It’s crucial to use both properties together for a holistic view. For example, a contact might be an “SQL” Lifecycle Stage, and their “Lead Status” could be “Attempted to Contact” after an initial outreach, then “Connected” once they respond, and eventually “Unqualified” if they decide not to proceed. The lifecycle stage moves generally forward, but lead status can move back and forth as interactions unfold.

How to Manually Change Lead Status in HubSpot

Alright, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of how to actually update that lead status. Sometimes, you just need to make a quick change for one contact, or maybe you’ve got a list of leads that all need the same update. HubSpot makes both pretty straightforward.

For a Single Contact

This is probably the most common way you’ll change a lead status. It’s super simple and usually takes just a few clicks.

Go to your Contacts section: In your HubSpot account, navigate to CRM > Contacts in the main navigation bar.
Find and open the lead record: Click on the specific contact you want to update.
Locate the “Lead Status” property: On the contact’s record page, you’ll usually find the “Lead Status” property in the “About” section on the left-hand side.
Click the current status value: It’ll look like a dropdown menu. Click on it to see the available options.
Select the new status: Choose the status that accurately reflects where the lead is right now in your sales process e.g., “Connected,” “Open Deal,” “Unqualified”.
The change saves automatically: That’s it! HubSpot will typically save the change instantly.

For Multiple Contacts Bulk Update

When you’ve got a group of leads that all need the same status change—maybe after a big outreach campaign or cleaning up your database—doing them one by one is a pain. HubSpot has a bulk editing feature that’s a lifesaver. HubSpot and LinkedIn: Your Ultimate Guide to Supercharging Sales and Marketing

Navigate to Contacts: Again, head to CRM > Contacts in your HubSpot account.
Filter your contacts optional but recommended: This step helps you find only the leads you want to update. Use the filters on the left sidebar to narrow down your list based on criteria like “Owner,” “Creation Date,” or even existing “Lead Status.”
Select the relevant contacts: Use the checkboxes next to each contact’s name to select them. You can select up to 100 contacts at once in the Contacts view. If you need to select all contacts in a filtered view, you can usually click the checkbox at the top of the table and then select “Select all contacts in this view.”
Click “Edit” or “More” then “Edit properties”: After selecting your contacts, a banner will appear at the top of the table. Click on the Edit button. Sometimes this is under a “More” dropdown.
Find the “Lead Status” field: In the bulk edit window that pops up, scroll or search for the “Lead Status” property.
Choose the new status: Select the appropriate new lead status from the dropdown menu.
Click “Update” or “Apply”: This will apply the chosen status to all the selected contacts. HubSpot will process the updates, and you’ll see the changes reflected in your contact list.

Customizing Your Lead Status Options: Tailoring HubSpot to Your Business

The default lead statuses are a starting point, but every business has unique sales processes. To truly make HubSpot work for you, you’ll want to customize your lead status options. This means adding new statuses that fit your specific steps, renaming existing ones for clarity, or even removing options that don’t apply.

It’s actually quite easy to do, but you’ll need the right permissions in HubSpot, typically administrative access.

Accessing the Lead Status Settings

To get to the place where you can tweak your lead statuses:

Log in to your HubSpot account.
Click on the settings icon a gear in the top right corner of your main dashboard.
In the left-hand sidebar menu, look for “Properties” under the “Data Management” section. Click on it.
Use the search bar to find “Lead Status.” It’s a contact property, so make sure “Contact properties” is selected if you’re filtering by object.
Click on “Lead Status” to open its settings page.

Adding New Lead Statuses

Once you’re on the “Lead Status” property page, you can add new options that align with your sales process: Is there a hubspot desktop app

Click “Add option” or “Add a new option” the wording might vary slightly.
Enter a clear label for your new lead status. This is what your team will see in the dropdown menu e.g., “Demo Scheduled,” “Proposal Sent,” “Nurturing – Re-engage”.
An internal value will often populate automatically. This is used for reporting purposes and usually matches the label, but you can adjust it if needed.
Click “Save” to apply the changes.

Pro Tip: Before you start adding a ton of new statuses, sit down with your sales team. What are the clear, actionable steps they take with an SQL? Keep the names obvious and easy to understand, and try to avoid creating too many statuses, as it can get overwhelming. Aim for a manageable number that truly reflects distinct stages or actions.

Editing Existing Lead Statuses

Maybe one of the default statuses isn’t quite right for your team, or you want to refine a custom one.

From the “Lead Status” property page, you’ll see a list of all your current lead statuses.
Click the “Edit” icon often a pencil next to the status you want to modify.
You can change the label to something more fitting for your business.
Click “Save” to confirm your changes.

Deleting Lead Statuses

If a lead status becomes obsolete or was created by mistake, you can remove it.

On the “Lead Status” property page, find the status you want to delete.
Click the “Delete” icon often a trash can next to it.
HubSpot will usually prompt you with a warning. Deleting a lead status might affect existing contact data if contacts are currently assigned to that status. It’s always a good idea to ensure any contacts using that status are updated to a different, relevant status before you delete it, to maintain data integrity.
Confirm the deletion.

Automating Lead Status Changes with HubSpot Workflows: Work Smarter, Not Harder

Manually updating lead statuses is fine for a few contacts, but when you’re dealing with dozens or hundreds of leads every week, it quickly becomes a time sink. This is where HubSpot’s automation features, specifically workflows, come into play. Automating lead status updates can significantly enhance your lead management efficiency, ensuring consistency, saving your team valuable time, and making sure no leads are forgotten. Cracking the Code: How to Master Landing Page Analytics in HubSpot

The goal here is to set up rules that automatically change a contact’s lead status based on their actions or other property changes. This frees up your sales reps to focus on what they do best: building relationships and closing deals.

Setting Up a Basic Workflow for Lead Status

Let’s walk through setting up a simple workflow. For example, we can create a workflow that automatically changes a lead’s status to “Connected” when they reply to a sales email.

Navigate to Workflows: In your HubSpot account, go to Automation > Workflows.
Create a New Workflow: Click “Create workflow” in the top right, and choose “Contact-based” as the workflow type.
Choose a starting trigger: This is the action or condition that enrolls a contact into your workflow. For our example, we want to enroll contacts when they reply to an email.
- Click “Set up triggers.”
- Search for and select “Contact property” or “Marketing email activity” if you want to be specific about sales emails, you might use “Sales email replied date is known”.
- Set the criteria: For instance, if you’re using “Sales email replied date is known,” that would be your trigger. Or, you could use “Recent sales email open date is known” and set the lead status property to “Connected” if your sales process defines “Connected” as opening an email.
- Choose if you want contacts to re-enroll if they meet the criteria again e.g., reply to another email later.
Add an Action: Once the trigger is set, you need to tell HubSpot what to do.
- Click the “+” icon to add an action.
- Select “Set a contact property value.”
- Choose the “Lead Status” property.
- Select the new status from the dropdown, for example, “Connected.”
Review and Activate: Look over your workflow to make sure it makes sense. Give it a clear name.
- Click “Review and Publish” and then “Turn on” to make it live.

Now, whenever a contact meets your trigger criteria like replying to a sales email, their lead status will automatically update to “Connected,” without your sales rep lifting a finger!

Advanced Automation Ideas

Once you get comfortable with basic workflows, you can get creative:

Move to “Attempted to Contact”: When a sales rep sends an initial email or logs a call, a workflow can automatically update the lead status to “Attempted to Contact.”
Set to “Unqualified”: If a contact unsubscribes from all emails, or a specific “Unqualified Reason” property is manually updated by a rep, a workflow can set their lead status to “Unqualified.” You could even prompt the sales team to add a reason why with another field.
“In Progress” from CRM Activity: When a sales rep logs a meeting or a new task is created for a lead, automatically update the status to “In Progress.”
“Bad Timing” with a Re-engagement Date: If a rep manually sets the status to “Bad Timing,” a workflow could then set a reminder task for them to follow up in 3 or 6 months.
Aligning with Lifecycle Stages: While Lead Status handles the granular sales process, workflows can also be used to automatically update the broader Lifecycle Stage property based on specific Lead Status changes. For example, if a Lead Status becomes “Open Deal,” you might automatically move their Lifecycle Stage to “Opportunity.”

Automating these changes keeps your HubSpot data accurate, reduces manual work, and provides consistent tracking across your entire team. Level Up Your Career: Mastering HubSpot Courses and Shining on LinkedIn

Best Practices for Effective Lead Status Management

Implementing lead statuses is one thing. making them genuinely useful and impactful for your sales process is another. Over the years, I’ve seen a few key best practices emerge that really make a difference.

Keep it Simple and Clear

Resist the urge to create dozens of lead statuses. Too many options can lead to confusion, inconsistent usage, and ultimately, less accurate data. Each status should represent a clear, distinct stage or action. As one expert mentioned, having over 30 lead statuses can become incredibly cumbersome. Think about the most critical steps in your sales process and create statuses that directly reflect those.

Define Each Status Clearly

This is non-negotiable. For every single lead status you create, have a written definition. What does “In Progress” really mean for your team? When should a lead be moved to “Connected”? Document these definitions and make sure everyone on your sales and marketing teams understands them. This ensures consistent usage and avoids misinterpretations.

Align with Your Sales Process

Your lead statuses should be a direct reflection of your actual sales process. If your sales team has a “discovery call” stage, create a “Discovery Call Scheduled” or “Discovery In Progress” status. Don’t try to force your process into HubSpot’s default statuses if they don’t fit. customize them! This alignment makes the CRM a true tool for your team, not just a data entry chore. Learn HubSpot CRM Free: Your Ultimate Guide to Mastering Customer Relationships Without Spending a Dime!

Train Your Team Thoroughly

Having perfectly defined statuses means nothing if your team doesn’t know how or when to use them. Invest time in training your sales reps and any other relevant team members on what each status means and the specific actions they should take at each stage. Show them how to manually change statuses, explain the automated workflows, and emphasize why accurate status updates are so important for their own success and for team-wide reporting.

Leverage Reporting

Lead status isn’t just for tracking. it’s also a goldmine for insights. Use HubSpot’s reporting tools to create dashboards that show:

Lead progression: How many leads are moving from “New” to “Connected” to “Open Deal”?
Bottlenecks: Are leads getting stuck at a particular status? This could indicate a problem with your sales process or a need for more coaching.
Sales team performance: Which reps are most effectively moving leads through the pipeline?
Conversion rates: How many leads in each status ultimately convert?

By tracking how leads move through different statuses, your sales and marketing teams can spot issues in the sales funnel and fix them quickly. HubSpot offers robust reporting capabilities, allowing you to create custom reports, filter by “Lead Status,” and visualize data to represent progression.

Avoid “Status Creep”

“Status creep” happens when you keep adding new statuses for every minor variation or temporary need. This can quickly make your dropdown menu unwieldy. For example, instead of creating “New 2024 Campaign Leads” and “New 2025 Campaign Leads,” consider using a separate custom property called “Campaign Name” to segment leads, while keeping a simpler “New” lead status. This keeps your lead status focused on the action and progression, not the source or campaign.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is the primary difference between HubSpot Lead Status and Lifecycle Stage?

The main difference is scope: Lifecycle Stage describes a contact’s overall journey with your company e.g., Lead, MQL, SQL, Customer, providing a high-level view of their relationship. Lead Status, on the other hand, describes the granular sub-stages within a particular lifecycle stage most commonly the Sales Qualified Lead stage, detailing the specific actions and progress of your sales team’s interactions with that lead e.g., New, Attempted to Contact, Connected.

Can I use Lead Status in HubSpot’s Free CRM version?

Yes, you can use the Lead Status property in HubSpot’s free CRM version. While the free version might have some limitations compared to paid plans like fewer advanced reporting features or custom automations, the essential functionality of lead status and the ability to customize its options are available.

How many Lead Statuses can I create in HubSpot?

HubSpot allows you to create multiple custom lead statuses to accommodate various stages of your sales funnel, and there isn’t a strict technical limit on the number you can create. However, best practice suggests keeping your lead statuses manageable and aligned with your sales process. Too many statuses can lead to confusion and inconsistency among your team, so aim for clarity and necessity.

Can I automate Lead Status changes in HubSpot?

Absolutely! HubSpot’s workflows are a powerful tool for automating lead status changes. You can set up workflows to automatically update a contact’s lead status based on various triggers, such as an email reply, a form submission, a specific property change, or even a certain amount of time passing without activity. This helps streamline your sales process and ensures data accuracy. Unlocking Growth: Your Ultimate Guide to HubSpot Academy

What are some common default Lead Status options in HubSpot?

HubSpot typically includes eight default lead status options: “New,” “Open,” “In Progress,” “Open Deal,” “Unqualified,” “Attempted to Contact,” “Connected,” and “Bad Timing.” These provide a general framework for tracking leads as they move through your sales process, but they can and often should be customized to fit your specific business needs.

How do I customize the Lead Status options in HubSpot?

To customize your lead status options, you need to access your HubSpot settings. Click the gear icon in the top right, go to “Properties” under “Data Management,” then search for and click on “Lead Status.” From there, you can add new options, edit existing labels, or delete statuses to align with your unique sales process. You’ll generally need administrative permissions to make these changes.

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