Struggling to figure out how to manage users in HubSpot, especially when someone leaves your team or changes roles? Don’t worry, you’re not alone! It’s super important to keep your HubSpot portal tidy and secure. If you want to remove a user from your HubSpot account, the process generally involves two main steps: first, you’ll deactivate their access, and then, if needed, you can permanently remove them from the account. This helps ensure that sensitive data remains protected and your team’s workflows stay smooth. We’re going to walk through everything you need to know, from the quick steps to the nitty-gritty details, to make sure you handle user management in HubSpot effectively.

Getting your HubSpot user management right is crucial for data security and efficient operations. Picture this: an employee leaves, but their access isn’t revoked. That’s a huge security risk right there. Or maybe someone changes departments, and they still have access to tools they no longer need, cluttering up their interface and potentially leading to mistakes. HubSpot offers powerful tools to help you manage your team, but knowing the difference between deactivating a user and fully removing them, or even understanding how to delete your own HubSpot profile, is key. This guide will cover all of that, plus we’ll touch on how to handle other data like contacts and deals when users move on. Ready? Let’s jump in!

Table of Contents

Why User Management in HubSpot Matters More Than You Think!

Think about your HubSpot portal as the central hub for your business’s customer interactions, marketing efforts, sales pipeline, and customer service. It holds a ton of sensitive information and drives critical processes. So, it makes sense that who has access to what is a big deal, right?

Here’s why it’s so important to manage users carefully:

Security: This is probably the biggest one. If a former employee still has access to your HubSpot account, they could potentially view, export, or even tamper with your data. That’s a breach waiting to happen, and nobody wants that. Regular user audits help you spot and fix these vulnerabilities quickly.
Data Integrity: When people have access to things they shouldn’t, there’s a higher chance of accidental changes or deletions. Proper permissions mean only the right people can edit the right data, keeping your records clean and reliable.
Compliance: Depending on your industry and location, you might have regulations like GDPR or CCPA that dictate how you handle personal data. Ensuring only authorized personnel can access or modify certain information is a key part of staying compliant.
Efficiency: When team members only see the tools and data relevant to their role, they can work more efficiently. Less clutter, less confusion, more productivity!
Cost Control: For paid HubSpot seats, inactive users still count towards your subscription. Deactivating or removing users when they’re no longer active can save you money.

Managing user permissions is a strategic move that helps protect your CRM and empowers your team to work smarter and more securely.

Deactivating vs. Removing a User: What’s the Difference?

Before you click any buttons, it’s super important to understand the core difference between deactivating and removing a user in HubSpot. These aren’t the same thing, and they have different implications for your data and account. The Brains Behind HubSpot: Getting to Know Dharmesh Shah

Deactivating a User

When you deactivate a user, you’re essentially putting their HubSpot access on pause.

Access Revoked: The user immediately loses the ability to log into your HubSpot account. They can’t access any tools, view data, or make changes.
Profile Retained: Their user profile, along with all their historical activity, remains in your account. This means they will still appear as the owner of any contacts, companies, deals, or other assets they were assigned.
Reporting Intact: Their past activities, like property changes and content updates, are still visible in reports and attributed to them. This is incredibly useful for maintaining historical data and understanding who did what.
Reactivation Possible: If the user ever needs access again e.g., they return to the company, or you made a mistake, you can easily reactivate their profile, and all their previous assignments and history will be restored.
Paid Seats: If the deactivated user had a paid seat, you might need to remove their seat separately to free it up for another user.

When to Deactivate: This is usually the go-to option when an employee is temporarily away, changing roles internally, or you want to retain their historical data for reporting and accountability without granting them ongoing access. Many experts recommend deactivating as the default action for offboarding.

Removing a User

Removing a user is a more permanent action. You can only remove a user after they have been deactivated.

Profile Deleted: The user’s profile is completely removed from your HubSpot account.
Access Gone Forever: They cannot log in, and their user profile is permanently erased from that specific HubSpot account.
Assets Unassigned: This is the big one. When you remove a user, they are unassigned from conversations and assets. Any contacts, companies, deals, or tickets they owned will still exist, but their ownership will be replaced by “Deactivated User removed user’s email address”. This means you lose the direct link to who owned those records.
Reporting Impact: Removed users will no longer appear as options in filters for lists or dashboards, though you can often show inactive owners by checking a box in filters.
Not Easily Restorable: Unlike deactivation, restoring a removed user is not straightforward, if even possible, in the same way. You’d essentially be creating a brand new user.

When to Remove: You’d typically only completely remove a user if you are absolutely certain you’ll never need their user profile or direct historical attribution within HubSpot again. It’s a very strong recommendation from many in the HubSpot community to generally avoid full removal unless absolutely necessary, and rather stick with deactivation, to preserve historical data.

A quick tip: Always have a conversation with your team or a Super Admin before deciding between deactivating and removing, especially if you’re not sure about the long-term data implications. Unlock Your Business Growth: A Real-World HubSpot CRM Example Guide

Step-by-Step Guide: How to Deactivate/Remove a User from HubSpot

Let’s get down to the actual steps. You’ll need to be a Super Admin or have “Add and edit users” permissions to perform these actions.

Step 1: Deactivate the User

Log in to HubSpot: Make sure you’re logged into the correct HubSpot account.
Go to Settings: Click the settings icon it looks like a gear in the main navigation bar at the top right of your HubSpot screen.
Navigate to Users & Teams: In the left sidebar menu, find and click on Users & Teams.
Find the User: You’ll see a list of all users in your account. Locate the user you want to deactivate.
Deactivate: Hover over the user’s name. An “Actions” dropdown menu will appear. Click it, then select Deactivate user.
- Paid Seats: If the user has a paid seat, a dialog box might pop up. You’ll usually have the option to “Unassign paid seat and deactivate user” or “Keep paid seat and deactivate user.” Choose the appropriate option. If you unassign the seat, it becomes available for another user.
- Confirm: Review the advisory in the dialog box, then click Deactivate user again to confirm.
- Point of Contact: If this user is a point of contact for Account & Billing, you’ll need to remove them from that role first before deactivating. Go to Account & Billing > Company Info tab > Points of Contact section.
Confirmation: The user will receive an email letting them know their profile has been deactivated. They can no longer log in.

That’s it for deactivation! Their profile is still there, but their access is gone.

Step 2: Optional Remove the User from the Account

Remember, you can only remove a user after they’ve been deactivated.

Go Back to Users & Teams: If you navigated away, repeat steps 1-3 from the deactivation process to get back to the Users & Teams page.
Locate the Deactivated User: Find the user you just deactivated. Their status should now show as “Deactivated”.
Remove from Account: Click on the user’s name to open their profile. In the top right corner, click the Actions dropdown menu, and this time, select Remove from account.
Reassign Records Important!: A dialog box will appear. If the user still has records assigned to them like contacts or deals, HubSpot will often show you a link to these records. You’ll want to click these links to go to the respective dashboards and reassign these records manually before removing the user completely. This is a critical step to avoid losing track of important client relationships or sales opportunities. You might also consider setting up an automation workflow for reassigning records.
Confirm Removal: After handling any reassignments, confirm the removal in the dialog box. Once you click “Remove from account,” the user’s profile is permanently deleted from your HubSpot portal.

What happens to their assets contacts, deals, emails, etc.?
When a user is removed, any records they owned like contacts, companies, deals, tickets will still be in your HubSpot CRM. However, their name will be replaced by “Deactivated User removed user’s email address” in the ownership property for those records. This helps maintain data history but removes the direct link to the specific user. If you want to find records previously owned by a removed user, you can typically enable a “Show inactive owners” checkbox when filtering. Landing Your Dream Job at HubSpot Dublin: A Complete Guide

Best Practice for Asset Reassignment:
Before removing a user, it’s a really good idea to reassign all their active assets contacts, companies, deals, tickets, tasks, workflows they created, etc. to new owners. This prevents any leads from falling through the cracks or campaigns from stopping dead. You can do this:

Manually: Go to the individual records and change the owner.
In Bulk: Use filters to find all records owned by the departing user and then use bulk editing tools to reassign them.
With Workflows: For larger accounts, you might even set up workflows to automatically reassign records based on certain criteria when a user is deactivated.

Permanently Deleting Your Own HubSpot User Account

Sometimes, an individual user might want to permanently delete their own user account from HubSpot, perhaps if they’ve left all companies using HubSpot and no longer need a HubSpot ID. This is different from an admin removing a user from a specific company’s portal.

Here’s how you, as a user, can delete your own HubSpot user account:

Log in to your HubSpot account: Make sure you’re logged into the user account you want to delete.
Go to Profile & Preferences: Click your account name in the top right corner of the main navigation bar, then select Profile & Preferences. If you don’t see an account name, click your user profile icon.
Navigate to Security: In the left sidebar menu, click Security.
Delete My User Account: Scroll down until you see the “Permanently Remove” section. Click Delete my user account.
Confirm: A dialog box will appear asking you to enter your email address to confirm the deletion. Type in your email and click Delete user.

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Certifications: Deleting your user account will also delete any HubSpot Academy certifications associated with that email address. If you want to keep your certifications, transfer them to a new email address before deleting your user account.
Multiple Accounts: Ensure your user account doesn’t have access to any other HubSpot accounts before proceeding, as this process is about your entire HubSpot ID, not just one portal.

Managing User Permissions: The Foundation of Good Security

Beyond just adding or removing users, wisely managing permissions is like building a strong fence around your HubSpot data. It’s about giving people just enough access to do their job, and no more. This is often called the “principle of least privilege”.

HubSpot offers really granular permission settings, which is fantastic for tailoring access.

Types of Permissions and Access Levels

HubSpot lets you control access across different tools and features:

CRM Access: Contacts, companies, deals, tickets, tasks. You can define if a user can view, edit, delete, or bulk delete these records.
Marketing Access: Ads, emails, landing pages, website pages, blog, social media, workflows. You can often set “publish,” “write,” and “read” permissions for these.
Sales Access: Sales tools, sequences, playbooks, forecasts.
Service Access: Conversation inboxes, knowledge base, customer feedback.
Reports Access: Dashboards, analytics tools.
Account Access: Billing, integrations, user management this is where Super Admins come in.

How to Edit User Permissions

Go to Settings > Users & Teams.
Click on the user’s name whose permissions you want to edit.
Navigate to the Access tab or look for the permissions section.
Click “Edit permissions” or toggle the switches for various tools and features.
Save changes. Users will usually need to log out and log back in for changes to take effect.

Permission Sets and Teams Enterprise Feature

For larger organizations, HubSpot Enterprise accounts offer Permission Sets sometimes called Roles in other systems. This allows you to define a group of permissions once and then apply that set to multiple users. It’s a huge time-saver! You can also organize users into Teams for organizational and reporting purposes, which can help streamline access management for groups of users. Unpacking HubSpot CMS Pricing: Your Guide to Content Hub Costs (2025 Breakdown)

Best Practices for Permissions:

Define Roles Clearly: Have a clear understanding of what each role in your company needs to do in HubSpot.
Least Privilege: Grant only the minimum necessary permissions for a user to perform their job.
Limit Super Admins: Only a select few typically senior operations leaders or system administrators should have Super Admin access, as they have full control over everything, including billing and data privacy.
Regular Audits: Periodically review user access and activity logs to ensure permissions are still appropriate and to catch any unusual activity.
Update Regularly: As roles change or new tools are added, update permissions accordingly.

HubSpot API for User Management

For developers or those with complex integration needs, HubSpot does offer APIs Application Programming Interfaces to interact with user data. However, it’s worth noting that while you can use the HubSpot API to create, retrieve, and update user information, direct “delete user” functionality via the API in the same way you remove a user through the UI might be more about managing their access and properties rather than a hard deletion that vanishes them from all records.

Typically, when an API call seems to “delete” a user, it might actually be deactivating them or marking them as inactive, consistent with HubSpot’s general approach of retaining historical data. For specific API capabilities, always check the latest HubSpot API documentation, as these evolve. If you’re looking to automate offboarding processes or sync user statuses with an HR system, the API can be incredibly useful for programmatically updating user properties or deactivating access, but the final “removal” might still be a manual step or handled through the UI.

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Beyond Users: Deleting Other HubSpot Entities

While managing users is vital, sometimes you need to clean up other parts of your HubSpot portal. Let’s briefly touch on how to handle contacts and deals.

How to Delete Contacts in HubSpot

Deleting contacts can be done in a few ways, but be careful: permanent deletion means they’re gone for good!

Individual Contact Deletion:
- Go to CRM > Contacts.
- Click on the name of the contact you want to delete.
- In the left panel or Actions dropdown in the upper right, click Actions, then select Delete.
- You’ll usually have two options: “Delete this contact with the ability to restore within 90 days” this sends them to the recycle bin or “Permanently delete this contact and all its associated content”. Choose wisely! For permanent deletion, you’ll need “Permanently delete contacts” permissions.
- You might be asked to select a user to receive a confirmation email.
Bulk Delete Contacts:
- From the Contacts index page, select the checkboxes next to the contacts you want to delete.
- At the top of the table, click the Delete button.
- Enter the number of records to confirm and click Delete. This typically sends them to the recycle bin for 90 days.
- From Lists: You can delete contacts from a specific list. Go to Contacts > Lists, select the list, then select contacts and choose “Remove from list” for static lists or “Delete” for active lists.
- Workflows: You can even set up workflows to perform a restorable delete of contacts based on certain enrollment triggers available in Professional and Enterprise Hubs.

Important: Permanently deleting contacts cannot be undone and cannot be done in bulk using segments or workflows. It’s a serious action, especially for privacy regulations like GDPR. Unpacking HubSpot Content Hub Enterprise Pricing: What You Really Pay For

How to Delete a Deal in HubSpot

Deleting deals is pretty straightforward, but like contacts, they also go to a recycle bin first.

Individual Deal Deletion:
- Go to Sales > Deals.
- Click the name of the deal you want to delete.
- In the upper right of the left sidebar, click the Actions dropdown menu, then select Delete.
- Confirm the deletion. Like contacts, deals can usually be restored from the recycle bin within 90 days.
Bulk Delete Deals:
- From the Deals index page, you might want to switch to the table view if you’re in the board view.
- Select the checkboxes next to the deals you want to delete.
- Enter the number of records to confirm and click Delete.
- If you accidentally created a bunch of deals with a workflow, you can filter them by “Create date” and other unique criteria to bulk delete them.

Considerations for Deals:
Before deleting, remember that just because a deal is lost doesn’t mean it should be deleted. Moving it to a “Closed Lost” stage in your sales pipeline provides valuable data for future analysis. Only delete if the deal was created in error and holds no historical value.

How to Delete Your HubSpot Account The Entire Portal

Deleting your entire HubSpot account or portal is a much bigger step than just deleting a user, contacts, or deals. This usually comes into play if you’re completely stopping your use of HubSpot. You’ll need billing admin permissions to do this. Mastering Your Content Strategy with HubSpot Content Hub Professional

Export Your Data First: Seriously, do this! Before you delete your account, make sure you’ve exported all your essential content and data from HubSpot. Once the account is gone, so is your data.
Cancel Paid Subscriptions if applicable:
- If you have a paid HubSpot subscription, you cannot delete your account if there are any active commitments, even if auto-renewal is turned off.
- You need to cancel the auto-renewal first. Go to your account name top right > Account & Billing.
- Click the Subscriptions tab.
- Under the subscription you want to cancel, click Cancel auto-renewal.
- Follow the prompts to select a reason and confirm. Your subscription will then cancel at the end of your current commitment term, and your account will be downgraded to the free HubSpot CRM tools.
Delete the Account for Free or Downgraded Accounts:
- Once your account is only using free tools either a free CRM, a developer account, or after a paid subscription has ended, go to your account name top right > Account & Billing.
- Click the Delete Account tab.
- Click Delete account.
- You’ll be prompted to enter your Hub ID to confirm. Type it in and click Yes, delete to permanently delete your account.

This is a final, irreversible step for your entire HubSpot portal. Be absolutely certain before proceeding!

Best Practices for HubSpot User Management

Keeping your HubSpot portal secure and efficient requires a proactive approach to user management. Here are some key best practices:

Implement a Clear Offboarding Process: When an employee leaves, have a checklist ready. This should include deactivating their HubSpot user, reassigning all their owned records contacts, deals, tasks, removing them from teams, revoking access to external tools connected to HubSpot, and then, if necessary, fully removing their user profile.
Regular User Audits: Schedule periodic reviews e.g., quarterly to check who has access to your HubSpot account and what their permission levels are. This helps identify inactive users who can be deactivated and ensures permissions align with current roles.
Principle of Least Privilege: Always give users only the access they need to do their job, and nothing more. This minimizes security risks and potential errors.
Utilize Teams and Permission Sets: If your HubSpot subscription allows typically Enterprise, use these features to streamline permission management for groups of users. It makes managing multiple users much easier.
Document Everything: Keep a record of when users are added, deactivated, or removed, and why. This is helpful for auditing and compliance.
Train Your Team: Make sure your team understands the importance of security and how to properly use HubSpot’s features, especially around data management.
Monitor Activity Logs: HubSpot often provides activity logs that show who did what and when. Regularly reviewing these can help spot unauthorized actions or suspicious activity.

By following these best practices, you can create a more secure, efficient, and well-organized HubSpot environment for everyone on your team.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What happens to a user’s data after they are deactivated in HubSpot?

When a user is deactivated, their user profile remains in your HubSpot account. They will no longer be able to log in, but any records contacts, companies, deals, tickets they owned will still be attributed to them, and their historical activities like property changes, content updates will still appear in reports. This is why deactivation is often preferred over immediate removal, as it preserves valuable historical data.

Can I reactivate a removed user in HubSpot?

You cannot “reactivate” a user who has been completely removed from your HubSpot account in the same way you would a deactivated user. Once a user is removed, their profile is deleted. If that person needs access again, you would essentially need to create a brand new user for them, assigning new permissions and potentially having to manually reassign any assets they previously owned if they weren’t reassigned before removal.

How do I reassign contacts and deals from a deactivated user?

You can reassign contacts and deals from a deactivated user in a few ways. You can filter your CRM to show records owned by that specific user, select them in bulk, and then use the “Edit” function to reassign ownership to another active user. For individual records, you can go to the contact or deal’s page and manually change the owner. For larger accounts, you might also be able to set up workflows to automate the reassignment of records based on certain criteria upon user deactivation.

What is the difference between deleting a HubSpot user and deleting a HubSpot account?

Deleting a HubSpot user means removing an individual’s access and/or profile from a specific HubSpot portal. Deleting a HubSpot account or portal means permanently removing the entire CRM, all its data, and all associated users from HubSpot’s systems. Deleting an account is a much more significant and often irreversible step, usually requiring you to cancel paid subscriptions first and export all your data. Crm hubspot certification

Do I need to be a Super Admin to delete a user in HubSpot?

Yes, to deactivate or remove another user from your HubSpot account, you generally need to have Super Admin permissions. Super Admins have full access to all tools and settings, including user management. If you don’t have Super Admin access, you’ll need to ask someone who does to help you.

Can I delete contacts or deals in bulk permanently?

You can delete contacts and deals in bulk, which typically sends them to a recycle bin where they can be restored within 90 days. However, performing a permanent deletion of contacts meaning they are gone forever and cannot be restored usually needs to be done on individual contact records and requires specific “Permanently delete contacts” permissions. Bulk permanent deletion is generally not available for contacts through segments or workflows, though you can delete records from lists.

Will deleting a user affect my HubSpot Academy certifications?

If you, as a user, permanently delete your own HubSpot user account, any HubSpot Academy certifications associated with that specific email address will also be deleted. If you want to keep your certifications, it’s recommended to transfer them to a new email address before you proceed with deleting your user account.

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