When you’re trying to figure out how to manage your sales, marketing, or even customer service processes more effectively, one of the first things that pops up in discussions is often the idea of a “pipeline.” And if you’re working with or considering HubSpot, you’ve probably heard the term “HubSpot pipeline” thrown around a lot. So, what exactly is a HubSpot pipeline, and why should you care?

Simply put, a HubSpot pipeline is like your business’s visual roadmap for how deals, projects, or customer issues move from their initial stage all the way to completion. Think of it as a clear, step-by-step journey, where each “stop” along the way is a specific stage in your process. It’s not just a fancy diagram. it’s a powerful tool built right into HubSpot’s CRM that gives you a crystal-clear picture of what’s happening, what needs to happen next, and whether you’re on track to hit your goals. This means less guessing, more doing, and ultimately, a smoother path to success.

Many people tend to mix up “sales pipelines” with “sales funnels,” but they’re actually a bit different. A sales pipeline gives you the salesperson’s view, showing you the deals you’re actively working on and where each one stands in your sales process. On the other hand, a sales funnel looks at the buyer’s journey—the steps a potential customer takes from discovering your product to eventually making a purchase. Both are super useful, but the pipeline is your team’s action plan, focusing on your activities to move things forward. It’s how you keep deals from getting stuck and make sure your team knows what to do next to push things towards a “Closed Won” status.

This comprehensive guide will walk you through everything you need to know about HubSpot pipelines, from what they are and why they’re so important, to how you can set them up, customize them, and use them to supercharge your business. We’ll even look at some real-world examples and talk about how to keep your pipelines healthy and humming along.

Table of Contents

What Exactly is a Pipeline in HubSpot?

Alright, let’s break it down. In HubSpot, a pipeline is essentially a visual workflow that tracks records—like deals, tickets, leads, or even custom objects—through various stages of a process. Each stage represents a significant milestone or step that a deal or task needs to pass through on its way to being completed, whether that’s a successful sale or a resolved customer issue.

Imagine you’re selling a product. Your pipeline might start with a “New Lead” stage, move to “Qualified to Buy,” then “Proposal Sent,” and finally, “Closed Won” or “Closed Lost”. HubSpot displays this beautifully, often as a Kanban-style board where each stage is a column, and each “deal” or “ticket” is a card you can drag and drop between those columns. This visual clarity is a must because it gives everyone on your team an instant snapshot of where everything stands.

The core components of a HubSpot pipeline are these deal stages or ticket statuses, lead stages, etc.. Each stage isn’t just a label. it has specific objectives and often a probability assigned to it, indicating how likely a deal is to close at that point. This probability feature is huge for forecasting your revenue accurately.

You’ll find pipelines aren’t just for sales either. HubSpot extends this concept to several “objects” within its CRM, including:

Deals: This is the classic sales pipeline, tracking potential revenue from prospecting to closing.
Tickets: For your customer service team, ticket pipelines help manage customer issues from submission to resolution.
Leads: Available in Sales Hub Professional and Enterprise These pipelines help you qualify and nurture leads before they even become a formal deal.
Appointments, Courses, Listings, Services, Orders: HubSpot also offers default pipelines for these objects, each with its own set of stages to manage specific processes.
Custom Objects: Enterprise only For unique business needs, you can even create pipelines for custom objects, letting you track virtually anything important to your operations.

The beauty of HubSpot is that it gives you these foundational structures, but also lets you totally make them your own. You can create, rename, reorder, and delete stages to perfectly match your unique business processes. It’s about making the CRM work for you, not the other way around. How Much Is HubSpot Per Month? Let’s Break Down the Cost!

Why a HubSpot Pipeline is Your Business’s Best Friend

So, we know what a HubSpot pipeline is, but why is it such a big deal? Honestly, it’s about much more than just organizing your deals. A well-managed pipeline in HubSpot can seriously transform how your team operates and how much revenue you bring in. Here’s why it’s so vital:

Crystal-Clear Visibility

One of the biggest perks is that you get this amazing bird’s-eye view of your entire sales process. No more wondering where a deal stands or what the next step is. You can see every opportunity, who owns it, its value, and exactly which stage it’s in. This kind of transparency helps everyone stay on the same page and makes it way easier to spot potential issues before they become real problems.

Better Sales Forecasting

This is where the probability assigned to each deal stage really shines. By knowing the likelihood of a deal closing at each step, you can forecast your future revenue with much greater accuracy. This is super powerful for planning, setting realistic goals, and making smart business decisions. Companies with solid sales processes, which includes good pipeline management, can see up to 28% higher revenue growth.

Identifying and Removing Bottlenecks

Ever feel like deals just get stuck? Your pipeline makes those sticking points obvious. If you notice a lot of deals piling up in the “Proposal Sent” stage, for example, it might signal that your proposals need to be clearer, or your follow-up process needs a tweak. Pinpointing these bottlenecks helps you refine your sales process, making it more efficient and boosting your conversion rates. Mastering HubSpot: Essential Tips and Tricks for Business Growth

Improved Team Collaboration and Accountability

A shared pipeline means everyone on the sales team and even marketing and service teams is working from the same playbook. It fosters better communication and makes it easier for managers to coach their reps. Plus, with clear stages and assigned owners, everyone knows their responsibilities, which really ups the accountability game.

Streamlined Processes and Automation

HubSpot isn’t just about tracking. it’s about automating. You can set up workflows that automatically update deal stages, send follow-up emails, assign tasks, or notify team members when a deal moves to a new stage. This automation saves your team tons of time on repetitive tasks, letting them focus on what they do best: building relationships and closing deals.

Data-Driven Insights for Optimization

With everything tracked in your pipeline, HubSpot can generate powerful reports. You can track conversion rates between stages, average deal size, and the time deals spend in each stage. This data is gold for continuously refining your sales strategy, identifying best practices, and improving overall sales efficiency. For example, by analyzing deals that close unusually quickly or slowly, you can gain insights into what’s working and what’s not.

Basically, a HubSpot pipeline helps you manage your leads, track progress, identify and nurture issues, and close deals faster, often all from the free CRM plan for smaller businesses. It’s about turning a complex, often chaotic, process into a structured, visible, and manageable journey.

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HubSpot Pipeline Examples: Seeing It in Action

One of the coolest things about HubSpot pipelines is how flexible they are. While there’s a standard sales pipeline everyone starts with, you can totally customize them or create entirely new ones to fit different parts of your business. Let’s look at some common and innovative HubSpot pipeline examples.

1. The Standard Sales Pipeline Deals Pipeline

This is probably what most people think of when they hear “pipeline.” It maps out the typical journey a potential customer takes when buying your product or service. HubSpot usually gives you a default one to start, which is a great baseline.

Common Stages and what happens there:

Appointment Scheduled 20% probability: A meeting with the prospect is set.
Qualified to Buy 40% probability: You’ve assessed the lead maybe using BANT – Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline and they seem like a good fit. HubSpot’s lead scoring tools can help here.
Presentation Scheduled 60% probability: You’re ready to showcase your product or service in detail.
Decision Maker Brought In 80% probability: For bigger deals, the key decision-makers are now involved in the conversation.
Contract Sent 90% probability: The proposal or contract is officially out for review.
Closed Won 100% probability: Success! The deal is signed, and they’re a customer.
Closed Lost 0% probability: Unfortunately, this one didn’t pan out. It’s important to track why so you can learn from it.

You can absolutely tweak these default stages to make them reflect your actual sales process. For example, a SaaS company might have a “Demo Requested” or “Trial Usage” stage, while a real estate company might include “Property Listing” or “Viewing” stages.

2. Service/Ticket Pipelines

It’s not all about sales! Your customer service team can use pipelines to manage incoming support requests. This ensures no customer query falls through the cracks and helps your team provide timely support. Quick Overview of HubSpot: Your All-in-One Growth Platform Explained

Typical Stages:

New: A new ticket has just been submitted.
In Progress: A support agent is actively working on the issue.
Awaiting Customer Response: The team is waiting for more information from the customer.
Resolved: The issue has been fixed and confirmed by the customer.
Closed: The ticket is officially completed.

Having this visual flow helps managers see the workload, identify common issues, and make sure customer satisfaction stays high.

3. Lead Pipelines Sales Hub Professional & Enterprise

Sometimes, you need to qualify leads before they even become a “deal.” Lead pipelines are perfect for this, especially if your sales cycle involves a lot of nurturing.

Example Stages for a “Content Download Pipeline”:

Content Downloaded: Someone just grabbed your e-book or whitepaper.
Follow-up Email Sent: An automated email goes out with more resources.
Engaged with Content: They opened the email, clicked a link, or watched a video.
Qualified BDR/SDR: A Business Development Representative BDR or Sales Development Representative SDR has further qualified the lead as a potential fit.
Disqualified: Not a good fit right now, but maybe later!

This helps marketing and sales work hand-in-hand, making sure only the most promising leads get passed to the sales team. Mastering Your Sales Flow: A Deep Dive into HubSpot Pipelines

4. Custom Pipelines for Specific Processes

The beauty of HubSpot is that you’re not limited to sales or service. With a paid HubSpot plan Starter, Professional, or Enterprise, you can create multiple pipelines for various processes or even different product lines.

Examples:

Onboarding Pipeline: For new customers, tracking their journey from sign-up to full product adoption.
Project Management Pipeline: To manage stages of internal projects, from “Initiation” to “Completion”.
Event Planning Pipeline: From “Concept & Budget” to “Event Live” and “Post-Event Follow-up.”

The key is that your pipeline stages should always mirror your actual workflow, making it simple and clear for everyone involved.

How to Create and Customize a Pipeline in HubSpot

Ready to build your own awesome pipeline in HubSpot? It’s not as daunting as it sounds, and you’ll find that customizing it to fit your unique business makes a huge difference. Mastering Project Management with HubSpot: Your Ultimate Guide

Setting Up Your First Pipeline or a New One

HubSpot makes this pretty straightforward. Here’s a general path, though exact clicks might vary slightly with updates:

Log in to HubSpot: Head to your HubSpot account.
Go to Settings: Look for the gear icon in the top right corner of your dashboard and click it.
Navigate to Objects: In the left sidebar, find “Objects” and click on it.
Choose Your Object: Select the object for which you want to create or edit a pipeline. For sales, you’ll choose “Deals”. For tickets, you’d choose “Tickets”.
Click the ‘Pipelines’ Tab: This tab is where all the pipeline magic happens.
Create Pipeline: If you want a new pipeline, click the “Select a pipeline” dropdown menu and then choose “Create pipeline”. Give your new pipeline a clear, descriptive name e.g., “Wholesale Sales Pipeline,” “Inbound Deals Pipeline” and hit “Create”.

Important Note: If you’re using HubSpot’s free platform, you generally get one default pipeline. To create multiple pipelines which is super useful if you have different sales processes or product lines, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid Sales Hub Starter, Professional, or Enterprise or Service Hub Professional or Enterprise plan.

Customizing Deal Stages

Once you’ve created your pipeline, HubSpot will often give you some default stages. But here’s where you truly make it your own:

Edit Stages: From the “Pipelines” tab Settings > Objects > Deals > Pipelines, select the pipeline you want to edit from the “Select a pipeline” dropdown.
Add/Rename Stages:
- To add a new stage, click “+ Add stage” below the existing stages.
- To rename an existing stage, simply click on its name and type in your desired title.
- Pro Tip: Your stage names should be clear and action-oriented. They should reflect a tangible step in your sales process, like “Proposal Sent” rather than just “Middle Stage”.
Set Deal Probability: For each stage, you can and should! set a “Deal probability”. This is a percentage that tells HubSpot how likely a deal is to close successfully if it’s in that stage. This is crucial for accurate forecasting and helps your team prioritize.
Reorder Stages: Easily drag and drop stages to put them in the correct sequence for your process.
Add Required Properties: This is a big one! For any stage, you can specify certain properties that must be filled out before a deal can move to the next stage. For example, you might require the “Deal Amount” and “Expected Close Date” to be filled before a deal can move past “Qualified to Buy.” This ensures your data is complete and accurate, and prevents deals from moving forward prematurely. To do this, click on the stage, then click “Manage properties” or “Edit properties” the exact wording might vary.
Delete Stages: If a stage isn’t working for you, you can remove it. Just be careful, especially if deals are currently in that stage.

When you’re customizing, really think about your unique sales process. Map out the buyer’s journey and translate those milestones into your pipeline stages. The more your digital pipeline reflects your real-world process, the more effective it will be.

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HubSpot Pipeline Management: Keeping Things Flowing

Setting up your pipeline is a fantastic first step, but the real magic happens in how you manage it day-to-day. Effective HubSpot pipeline management is about keeping your deals moving, your data clean, and your team aligned.

Drag-and-Drop Simplicity

One of the most user-friendly features of HubSpot’s deal pipeline is its visual “board view.” This lets your sales reps literally drag and drop deals from one stage to the next as they progress. It’s intuitive, fast, and gives an immediate visual update on the deal’s status.

Automation, Automation, Automation!

I can’t stress this enough – leverage HubSpot’s automation capabilities. You can create workflows triggered by deal stage changes:

Automatic Tasks: When a deal moves to “Presentation Scheduled,” automatically create a task for the sales rep to “Prepare presentation materials.”
Email Notifications: Notify a sales manager when a high-value deal enters the “Contract Sent” stage.
Property Updates: Automatically update a property like “Lead Status” when a deal reaches a certain stage.
Internal Notifications: Send a Slack or email notification to the marketing team when a deal is “Closed Won,” so they can celebrate!

This not only saves time but ensures consistency in your sales process.

Maintaining a Healthy Pipeline: Best Practices

Just like a garden, your pipeline needs regular care to thrive. Here are some best practices: Unlocking Sales & Clarity: Your Ultimate Guide to Org Chart Hub and Modern Organizational Charts

Keep it Clean and Up-to-Date: Regularly review your pipeline. If a deal is stalled or clearly not going to close, move it to “Closed Lost” or remove it if it’s no longer relevant. Clutter obscures visibility and skews your forecasts.
Define Clear Entry and Exit Criteria for Each Stage: Your team needs to know exactly what actions or achievements qualify a deal to move from one stage to the next. For example, a deal can’t move to “Proposal Sent” until the “Needs Assessment” property is completed. This prevents deals from jumping stages prematurely and ensures a consistent process.
Regular Pipeline Reviews: Sales managers should hold regular one-on-one or team meetings to go over deals in the pipeline. Discuss what’s working, what’s stuck, and strategize next steps. This is also a great opportunity for coaching and identifying areas for improvement.
Leverage Deal Properties: Use custom deal properties to capture specific information relevant to your sales cycle, like product interest, budget, or key decision-makers. These properties help you gain deeper insights and can be used for reporting and automation.
Align Sales and Marketing: A healthy pipeline starts with quality leads. Make sure your sales and marketing teams are on the same page about what constitutes a “qualified lead” MQL vs. SQL and how leads are handed off. HubSpot’s lifecycle stages and lead status properties are great for this.
Analyze Pipeline Metrics: Keep an eye on key metrics like conversion rates between stages, average deal size, and the time deals spend in each stage. HubSpot’s reporting tools can help you generate pre-built or custom reports to track this data. This helps you understand where your process is strong and where it might need some tweaking.
Train Your Team: Make sure everyone on your sales team understands how to use the pipeline effectively, including how to update deals, log activities, and leverage automation. Consistent training improves adoption and overall efficiency.

HubSpot vs. Pipedrive: A Quick Comparison

While we’re talking about pipelines, a common question that pops up is “HubSpot vs. Pipedrive.” Both are popular CRM tools, but they have different strengths.

Pipedrive is often seen as a simpler, more sales-focused CRM, particularly strong in visual pipeline management. It’s known for its intuitive interface, making it easy for sales teams to quickly get up and running and track deals with a drag-and-drop interface. If your main need is a straightforward, highly visual tool primarily for managing sales pipelines, Pipedrive might be a good fit.

HubSpot, on the other hand, is a much more comprehensive, all-in-one platform. While it has robust sales pipeline management, it also integrates marketing automation, customer service tools, a content management system CMS, and operations features all under one roof. This makes HubSpot a better choice for businesses looking for an integrated solution that supports multiple departments and is designed to scale with growth. HubSpot also offers more advanced AI features and deeper automation capabilities across its various hubs. So, if you’re looking for an ecosystem that can handle everything from lead generation to post-sale support, HubSpot is often the more powerful long-term investment.

What is HubSpot API and How Does It Relate to Pipelines?

You might also hear about the “HubSpot API” and wonder what that has to do with pipelines. API stands for Application Programming Interface, and it’s essentially a set of rules and tools that allows different software applications to talk to each other. Why Organizational Charts Are a Game-Changer for Your Business

For pipelines, the HubSpot API is incredibly powerful for developers and businesses that need advanced customization or integration with other systems. Here are a few ways it relates:

Programmatic Pipeline Management: Using the Pipelines API, developers can create, retrieve, edit, and delete pipelines and pipeline stages programmatically. This is super useful for automating complex setup processes or managing pipelines from an external application.
Syncing with External CRMs or Systems: If you’re using another CRM or a specialized tool alongside HubSpot, the API allows you to sync pipeline data between them. This ensures all your systems have the most up-to-date information, preventing data silos.
Custom Integrations and Workflows: The API enables you to build custom integrations. For instance, you could integrate your pipeline data with a project management tool, an accounting system, or even custom analytics dashboards outside of HubSpot.
Enhanced Automation: While HubSpot’s built-in workflows are powerful, the API lets you create even more sophisticated automations. You could, for example, trigger actions in a third-party application when a deal reaches a specific stage in HubSpot, or vice versa.
AI Integrations: Modern applications, like the HubSpot Connector for Google Gemini, use the API to access and process your HubSpot data. This allows AI to summarize long email threads related to deals, draft follow-up emails using deal details, or answer natural-language questions about your pipeline e.g., “Which deals over £10k are stuck in negotiation?” by querying HubSpot objects. This is a glimpse into the future of ultra-smart pipeline management!

In short, while most users will manage pipelines directly within the HubSpot interface, the API is the backbone that allows for deeper integration, customization, and advanced automation, unlocking even more potential for businesses with specific technical needs.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the main difference between a sales pipeline and a sales funnel in HubSpot?

Think of it like this: a sales pipeline is your team’s internal roadmap, showing the specific steps your sales reps take to move a deal from initial contact to closing, focusing on the actions your business performs. A sales funnel, however, represents the customer’s journey, illustrating how they move through awareness, consideration, and purchase of your product, often broader and encompassing both marketing and sales. While they both use similar data, the pipeline focuses on your active deals and your team’s efforts, while the funnel focuses on the prospect’s path and conversion rates at each stage.

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Can I have multiple pipelines in HubSpot?

Yes, absolutely! If you’re on a paid HubSpot Sales Hub Starter, Professional, or Enterprise or Service Hub Professional or Enterprise plan, you can create multiple pipelines. This is incredibly useful if your business has different sales processes for various products or services, distinct customer segments, or separate workflows e.g., one pipeline for new sales, another for renewals, and a different one for customer support tickets.

What are “deal stages” in a HubSpot pipeline?

Deal stages are the individual steps or milestones that a deal moves through in your pipeline, from the very beginning like a new lead to the end like a closed-won or closed-lost deal. Each stage represents a specific point in your sales process and typically has a probability associated with it, indicating the likelihood of that deal closing successfully. You can customize these stages to perfectly match your business’s unique sales cycle and workflow.

How do I add or move a deal in my HubSpot pipeline?

Adding a deal can be done manually by clicking “Create Deal” in your pipeline view and filling in the details, or it can be automated through HubSpot workflows e.g., a form submission automatically creates a deal. Once a deal is in your pipeline usually displayed in a board view, you move it between stages simply by dragging and dropping the deal card from one column to the next. This visual, interactive method makes managing deals super intuitive.

What are some key metrics I should track for my HubSpot pipeline?

To keep your pipeline healthy and performing well, you should definitely keep an eye on a few key metrics. These include conversion rates between each stage how many deals move from one stage to the next, the average deal size, and the average time deals spend in each stage also known as deal velocity. Tracking these helps you spot bottlenecks, forecast more accurately, and continually optimize your sales process. HubSpot’s reporting tools are fantastic for generating dashboards that show you all this at a glance.

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