HubSpot Migration
This checklist comes from 100+ Salesforce to HubSpot migrations across enterprise and mid-market B2B companies. It is organized by phase and prioritized by the order decisions need to happen, not the order most teams think about them.
Use this as your working document. Every unchecked item at go-live is a risk. Every unchecked item discovered post-go-live is a remediation project.
Before You Begin: This checklist assumes you have executive sponsorship for the migration, a project owner on the revenue operations team, and a defined go-live target. If any of those are missing, stop and get them before starting item 1. Migrations without executive ownership stall at adoption.
Understand what you are migrating before migrating anything.
Export full custom object inventory — List every custom object, custom field, and custom picklist in the Salesforce instance. Flag which have been updated in the last 6 months.
Document all active workflows and automation — Export every active workflow rule, process builder, and Flow. Identify the business function each serves. Mark which will be rebuilt in HubSpot and which will be retired.
Run a data quality audit on contacts and accounts — Identify duplicate records, missing required fields, invalid email addresses, and contacts without company associations. Data quality issues compound in HubSpot if not resolved before migration.
Map all integration touchpoints — Document every system that connects to Salesforce. Include direction (read, write, bidirectional), frequency, and owner. This is your integration risk map.
Pull full campaign and campaign member history — Export all Salesforce campaigns from the past 36 months, including member counts, status fields, and associated revenue. This is the raw material for your attribution preservation strategy.
Document all active reports and dashboards — List every report and dashboard actively used by sales, marketing, and leadership. Each will need a HubSpot equivalent. Build the inventory now, not during go-live week.
Identify Salesforce user roles and permissions — Map current Salesforce user roles to HubSpot permission sets. Flag any role-based data visibility requirements that need to be replicated.
Design the data structure before moving any data.
Map Salesforce standard fields to HubSpot standard properties — Identify the 1:1 equivalents. Account Name maps to Company Name. Lead Source maps to Original Source. This is the easy part.
Design custom property architecture for non-standard fields — For every Salesforce custom field with no HubSpot standard equivalent, determine the HubSpot property type (text, dropdown, number, date, checkbox). Get this wrong and your reporting breaks.
Decide your attribution preservation strategy — Choose one: (a) Rebuild campaign associations in HubSpot, (b) Store as custom contact properties, or (c) Maintain Salesforce as a read-only archive. Document the rationale and get CFO/CMO sign-off.
Design the HubSpot deal pipeline structure — Map Salesforce opportunity stages to HubSpot deal stages. If your stages differ by team or product, design multiple pipelines. Stage names should reflect buyer behavior, not internal process steps.
Plan custom objects in HubSpot (if required) — For Salesforce custom objects with no standard HubSpot equivalent, determine whether to use HubSpot custom objects or remodel the data into existing object types. Custom objects require HubSpot Enterprise.
Build the HubSpot user role and permission structure — Configure HubSpot teams, user roles, and property permissions before any users are added to the instance. Retroactively managing permissions after users are active is significantly harder.
Design the HubSpot automation architecture — For each active Salesforce workflow being migrated, design the equivalent HubSpot workflow. Document the trigger, conditions, actions, and any dependencies on other workflows.
Build the container before filling it.
Create all custom contact properties — Build every custom property designed in phase 2. Validate that property types match intended use. Test picklist values against a sample of Salesforce data before migration.
Create all custom company properties — Same as contacts. Build and validate before data imports begin.
Configure deal pipelines and stages — Build all deal pipelines with correct stage names, probability percentages, and required fields. Test a sample deal through each stage before bulk migration.
Build HubSpot workflows (automation) — Rebuild all active Salesforce workflows as HubSpot workflows. Keep them paused during migration. Activate only after data validation is complete.
Configure HubSpot sequences for sales teams — If migrating from Salesforce Engage or SalesLoft, rebuild active sequences in HubSpot Sales Hub before cutover.
Set up HubSpot email domains and sender settings — Configure all email sending domains, unsubscribe preferences, and CAN-SPAM/GDPR settings before any marketing email is sent from HubSpot.
Order matters. Parent objects before child objects.
Migrate and validate companies (accounts) — Import company records first. Run deduplication after import. Validate that company names, domains, and key attributes match Salesforce account records.
Migrate and validate contacts — Import contacts with company associations. Validate that every contact with a Salesforce account association has the correct HubSpot company association after import. Spot-check 5% of records manually.
Migrate and validate deals (opportunities) — Import deals with contact and company associations. Validate that deal stage mapping is accurate and close dates are preserved. Run a count reconciliation against Salesforce.
Migrate activity history (notes, calls, emails) — Import activity records and associate to contacts and deals. Activity history migration is optional but valuable for sales context. Set a cutoff date (typically 12-18 months) to limit volume.
Migrate attribution data using chosen strategy — Execute the attribution preservation strategy defined in step 10. This is the most important data migration step. Validate the output against the Salesforce baseline before any other go-live steps proceed.
Run full record count reconciliation — Compare HubSpot record counts to Salesforce for contacts, companies, deals, and activities. Document any discrepancies with explanations. Unresolved discrepancies block go-live.
Each integration is a go-live risk until it is tested and validated.
Migrate marketing automation integration — Reconnect HubSpot Marketing Hub (or your MAP) to HubSpot CRM. If migrating from a separate marketing automation platform, run the MA migration in parallel with the CRM migration.
Reconnect ERP integration — If Salesforce was connected to NetSuite, SAP, or another ERP, rebuild the connection to HubSpot. Validate that quote and order data flows correctly before go-live.
Reconnect customer support integration — Rebuild connections to Zendesk, Intercom, or your support platform. Customer health and ticket data visibility matters for customer success and renewal tracking.
Test all integrations with live data — Run a full end-to-end test of every integration. Create a test contact, run through a workflow, and validate that every connected system receives and sends data correctly.
Validate bidirectional sync (if applicable) — If any systems write data back to HubSpot, validate that updates in those systems appear correctly in HubSpot records within the expected time window.
Leadership cannot trust a platform they cannot report from on day one.
Build CMO pipeline attribution dashboard — Replicate the marketing pipeline attribution report your CMO uses today. Validate the HubSpot version against the Salesforce baseline. Any discrepancy needs an explanation, not a workaround.
Build CRO deal velocity and forecasting dashboard — Replicate the sales reporting views your CRO uses for forecasting. Include deal stage distribution, average deal velocity, and win rate by segment.
Build sales manager activity and pipeline dashboards — Individual rep and team-level pipeline, activity, and sequence enrollment dashboards. Sales managers need these from day one to maintain accountability during the transition.
Validate HubSpot reports against Salesforce baselines — Run both systems' key reports for the same time period and compare. Document differences and determine if they reflect data migration decisions or reporting configuration gaps.
A perfect migration fails commercially if the team does not adopt the new system.
Run live training for sales development reps — SDR-specific HubSpot training: sequences, tasks, contact views, and activity logging. Do not combine with AE training. The workflows are different.
Run live training for account executives — AE-specific training: deal management, pipeline views, email integration, and reporting. Record the session for new hires.
Run live training for customer success and account management — Retention-focused HubSpot use cases: account health tracking, renewal pipeline, and customer communication logging.
Run leadership reporting training — Train sales managers, directors, and VPs on how to access and interpret their dashboards. 30 minutes of training at this level prevents 30 support tickets after go-live.
Create quick-reference guides for each role — One-page or two-page role-specific guides for the 5 most common HubSpot tasks each team will perform daily. Post in your team wiki and Slack channel.
Activate all HubSpot workflows — Unpause all automation on go-live day. Monitor for the first 48 hours. Watch for unexpected workflow triggers on historical data.
Begin parallel operation period (minimum 2 weeks) — Run Salesforce and HubSpot simultaneously. Update records in both systems during this period. Use parallel operation data to catch any migration gaps.
Monitor HubSpot adoption metrics daily — Track login rates, deal updates, activity logging, and sequence enrollments by user. Identify reps who are logging in but not updating records within the first week.
Run daily stand-up for the first 2 weeks — 15 minutes with the migration team and key users. Surface questions, blockers, and data issues before they become adoption problems. Most issues appear in the first 5 business days.
Validate CMO and CRO reports at end of week 1 — Walk through every leadership dashboard with the CMO and CRO at the end of go-live week. Address discrepancies or confusion immediately. Their confidence in the system determines the team's confidence.
Decommission Salesforce on schedule — Do not extend the Salesforce subscription indefinitely. Set a firm end date (typically 30-60 days after go-live) and stick to it. Open-ended Salesforce access reduces HubSpot adoption urgency.
Conduct 30-day post-migration retrospective — 30 days after go-live, review: data quality, adoption rates, reporting accuracy, integration performance, and open issues. Produce a 30-day optimization roadmap. This is the handoff from migration to ongoing HubSpot operations.
"Every item on this checklist exists because a migration failed without it. The teams that skip items are the teams that do migrations twice."
Want Help Running This Checklist?
TPG runs this checklist on every migration engagement. We audit your Salesforce instance, design the migration architecture, and manage every phase through go-live and hypercare.
How many steps are in a complete Salesforce to HubSpot migration checklist?
A thorough migration checklist covers 47 steps across 7 phases: audit and discovery, architecture and design, HubSpot configuration, data migration, integration migration, reporting and dashboards, and training and adoption. Every unchecked item at go-live is a risk. Every unchecked item discovered post-go-live becomes a remediation project.
What should be completed before any data migration begins?
Three things must be complete before a single record moves: the full Salesforce audit (custom objects, workflows, integrations, data quality, and campaign history), the HubSpot property architecture design, and the attribution preservation strategy with CFO or CMO sign-off. Moving data before these decisions are made is the most common source of migration rework.
Why does the migration checklist start with companies before contacts?
Every contact and deal in Salesforce is associated with an account. If companies do not exist in HubSpot when contacts migrate, the association breaks. The migration sequence exists to preserve relational data integrity: companies first, contacts second, deals third, activities fourth, attribution data last.
When should HubSpot reports and dashboards be built in the migration process?
During the configuration phase, before any user training happens. Leadership needs to see accurate, validated reports from day one. If dashboards are not built before go-live, the first week of live operation becomes a reporting gap discovery exercise rather than a validation of clean data.
What does a 30-day hypercare plan include after migration go-live?
Daily standups for the first two weeks, per-rep adoption dashboards reviewed weekly, a single point of contact available same-day for questions, a firm Salesforce decommission date communicated to all users, and a 30-day retrospective with an optimization roadmap. The migration project ends at day 30 of hypercare, not at cutover.
Do we need HubSpot Enterprise to complete a migration from Salesforce?
Not always. The minimum recommended tier for mid-market B2B is HubSpot Sales Hub Professional. HubSpot Enterprise is required if you need custom objects, advanced reporting, or predictive lead scoring. The right tier depends on your Salesforce data model and reporting requirements, which the pre-migration audit determines.
The Pedowitz Group | pedowitzgroup.com | Revenue Marketing Experts Since 2007