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What Is A Deal In HubSpot?

What A Deal In HubSpot Actually Means

A deal in HubSpot represents a potential revenue opportunity. It’s not the same as a contact or a company—it’s a specific transaction tied to a person or business that your team is actively pursuing. Think of it as a sales opportunity that moves through defined stages like "Discovery," "Proposal Sent," or "Closed Won."

This structure helps sales, RevOps, and marketing teams track and forecast revenue based on real-time CRM data. If your team uses quotes, proposals, or subscriptions, deals are the object that connects all of those elements to your pipeline.

How a Deal in HubSpot Works Inside the CRM

A deal in HubSpot functions as a separate record with its own properties, timeline, and associations, but it’s also tightly connected to your contacts, companies, and activities.

Each deal record typically includes:

  • A clear deal name (e.g., “Q3 Redesign – Acme Co.”)
  • An amount tied to expected revenue
  • An expected close date
  • A deal stage inside a pipeline
  • Linked contacts and companies
  • Deal owner (usually a rep or CSM)
  • Custom properties (e.g., contract signed, discount %)

Every deal gets its own timeline where logged emails, notes, calls, and activities live. This makes it easy for anyone on the team to see the status of a sales opportunity without needing a sync call or status update.

How to Create a Deal in HubSpot

There are multiple ways to create a deal in HubSpot, depending on how your team captures opportunities:

Manually via the Deals tab:

  • Go to Sales → Deals → Create Deal
  • Fill in name, pipeline, stage, and associations
  • Add deal amount and projected close date

From a contact or company record:

  • Click “Create Deal” while viewing a contact or company
  • HubSpot will pre-fill relevant associations

Automatically via workflows:

  • Use triggers like form fills, lifecycle stage changes, or deal property updates to generate deals
  • Great for marketing-to-sales handoffs or product-led growth flows

You can also import deals in bulk from spreadsheets or external CRMs during a migration.

How a Deal in HubSpot Differs From a Contact or Company

A deal in HubSpot is fundamentally different from a contact (a person) or a company (an organization). It tracks the specific revenue opportunity—not the people or businesses involved.

Why that matters:

  • One contact might be tied to multiple deals (e.g., upsells, renewals)
  • One company might have separate deals with different teams or divisions
  • Deals can move through a pipeline independently of the contact's lifecycle stage

This separation makes it easier to report on pipeline health, build dashboards, and automate deal-level actions.

What a Deal Stage and Pipeline in HubSpot Looks Like

Every deal in HubSpot lives inside a pipeline, which is a customizable framework of deal stages that map to your sales process.

For example, a basic pipeline might include:

  • Discovery
  • Demo Completed
  • Proposal Sent
  • Contract Signed
  • Closed Won
  • Closed Lost

Each deal stage:

  • Can trigger workflows (e.g., notify legal when a deal hits "Contract Sent")
  • Is time-stamped for stage duration reporting
  • Affects forecast accuracy

You can create multiple pipelines if your team sells different products, sells across regions, or uses different sales processes.

Common Use Cases for a Deal in HubSpot

A deal in HubSpot is flexible. Here’s how teams typically use them:

Sales teams:

  • Track new business opportunities from lead to close
  • Log deal amounts and expected close dates
  • Forecast revenue based on stage probability

Account managers or CS teams:

  • Manage renewals, upsells, and cross-sells
  • Track contract expansions or changes in ARR

Marketing teams:

  • Attribute leads to closed revenue
  • Analyze campaign contribution to deal creation
  • Align MQLs with actual pipeline progress

Every team can benefit from clean deal records, even if they aren’t the ones closing.

Do You Need a Developer to Use a Deal in HubSpot?

No. Creating and managing a deal in HubSpot is simple and doesn’t require coding. Anyone with CRM access can:

  • Manually create and update deals
  • Move deals between stages
  • Edit deal properties

However, you may need technical help if you want to:

  • Automate deal creation from product activity
  • Use the HubSpot API to sync deals with Stripe, Salesforce, or a product database
  • Create custom reports with calculated properties

For basic use, though, no developer is needed.

Can You Customize a Deal in HubSpot?

Yes—HubSpot makes it easy to tailor every deal in HubSpot to your sales model.

You can:

  • Add custom properties like Sales Region, Deal Type, or Product SKU
  • Require fields based on pipeline stage
  • Use calculated fields for revenue forecasting or commission tracking
  • Add custom views or filters to prioritize deals by owner, date, or value

Customization helps teams report accurately, standardize updates, and reduce CRM clutter.

What Are the Risks or Limitations of Using a Deal in HubSpot?

There aren’t major risks, but there are a few limitations worth noting:

  • Data quality drops quickly if reps don’t update deals or skip required fields
  • Too many pipelines or stages can cause confusion and make reporting harder
  • Disconnected deals (i.e., no linked contact or company) limit attribution and reporting
  • HubSpot’s forecasting features require consistent deal values and close dates to be reliable

You can avoid most of these issues with good training, required fields, and smart automation.

Final Word: What a Deal in HubSpot Is

A deal in HubSpot is more than a line item, it’s the systematized way to manage revenue opportunities, report with accuracy, and align sales efforts with the rest of your CRM.

When set up properly, deals help you:

  • See what’s working in your pipeline
  • Track revenue across teams and stages
  • Automate key actions based on deal movement

And because HubSpot deals tie directly to contacts, companies, and campaigns, they’re the core object that keeps your sales engine running with clarity.

Need help cleaning up your pipeline or customizing deal stages?
FMK helps in-house teams and agencies build HubSpot pipelines that reflect real-world sales processes. We streamline deal creation, automation, and reporting—so nothing gets lost in the shuffle. 

Reach out if you want hands-on support or a second set of eyes.