Migrate ActiveCampaign to HubSpot: Keep Automations Intact

The trigger I see most often is a pricing renewal notice. A team hits 10,000 contacts in ActiveCampaign, the bill jumps, someone in finance asks why the CRM and the email tool are separate line items, and suddenly “migrate to HubSpot” lands on the Q2 roadmap. That is exactly the moment this guide is written for. The actual migration is not technically hard. What it does, consistently, is destroy automations that teams assumed the export would carry. It never will.

Before you migrate: the prep checklist

I cannot overstate how much the audit phase determines whether your cutover takes two days or two weeks. Every client I have worked with through this at Homegrown Growth Co. who skipped the audit ended up with broken follow-up sequences, orphaned contacts sitting in no list, and a frantic weekend before their next campaign send. Do not be that team.

Before touching HubSpot, do all of this in ActiveCampaign first:

• Export your full contact list with all custom fields as a CSV. Include tags as a column, not just as metadata.
• Screenshot or document every active automation. Record the trigger, each action step, the conditions on each branch, and the goal event. A shared Notion doc or a Google Sheet works fine.
• Identify which automations are actually active. In my experience, roughly 40% of the automations in an average ActiveCampaign account are dormant artifacts. Only migrate what is live and generating engagement.
• List every segment. Note whether each is tag-based or field-based. Tag-based segments require a conversion step.
• Pause all active sequences at least 48 hours before cutover. Contacts mid-sequence will otherwise receive duplicate emails from both platforms.
• Verify your sending domain is unlocked and that you have DNS access. You will re-authenticate SPF and DKIM in HubSpot from scratch.
• Note your suppression list. Unsubscribes and bounces must be imported as suppressed contacts in HubSpot, not as marketable contacts.

This prep work is essentially identical if you are migrating from Mailchimp to Brevo or coming from GetResponse. The platforms differ. The logic does not travel in any CSV.

What breaks and what does not transfer

This is where migrations quietly fail. The export looks complete, the import succeeds, and then the first campaign goes out and something is wrong. Every time.

ActiveCampaign Export Column Setup

Required columns for clean migration:
- Email (required, primary key)
- First Name
- Last Name
- Phone
- [All custom fields by name]
- Tags (pipe-delimited, e.g.:
  trial-user|webinar-attendee|Q1-lead)
- Subscription Status
  (values: subscribed / unsubscribed)
- Date Added

In HubSpot import mapping:
- "Tags" column --> Custom text property
  named "AC Tags" (create this first)
- Build Active Lists using:
  Filter: AC Tags > contains > trial-user

Do NOT map to HubSpot's native
"Tags" object -- it does not exist
as a contact filter the same way.
Use a plain text or multi-checkbox
property instead.

The other consistent breakage point is email templates. HubSpot uses its own drag-and-drop editor and does not accept HTML from ActiveCampaign without manual cleanup. If you have branded templates, budget time to rebuild them in HubSpot’s Email editor or bring in a third-party template tool like Beefree. Pasting raw ActiveCampaign HTML and hoping for the best is not a strategy.

Verify it worked

Before you activate a single workflow or send your first campaign, check these four things:

1. Spot-check 50 contact records against your export CSV. Verify custom field values transferred correctly, subscription status is accurate, and the AC Tags property is populated.
2. Send a test email from each workflow to an internal test contact. Confirm personalization tokens (first name, company, etc.) pull correctly from the contact record.
3. Verify your domain authentication using MXToolbox’s SPF/DKIM checker before your first real send.
4. Confirm suppression list coverage by attempting to enroll a known unsubscriber in a workflow. HubSpot should block the enrollment automatically.

Also review HubSpot’s documentation on email sending limits before queuing a large campaign. Batch send restrictions vary by tier and will catch you off guard if you do not check first.

Should you actually make this switch?

Not everyone should. The migration carries real time costs, and HubSpot’s pricing scales fast once you move past Marketing Hub Starter.

Who should migrate and who should stay

Choose Migrate to HubSpot if

• You are already using or evaluating HubSpot CRM and want one system for contacts, deals, and email
• Your team needs cross-functional reporting across marketing and sales activity in a single dashboard
• You are outgrowing ActiveCampaign's CRM capabilities and manage deals alongside nurture sequences

Marketing Hub Starter from $20/mo, Professional from $890/mo Try HubSpot →

Choose Stay on ActiveCampaign if

• Your automation complexity is high and your team is deeply trained on AC's visual automation builder
• You need tight WooCommerce or Shopify ecommerce triggers that ActiveCampaign handles natively
• You are under 10k contacts and the price difference does not justify the rebuild time

Lite from $15/mo, Plus from $49/mo Stay on ActiveCampaign →

Choose Consider Brevo instead if

• You want HubSpot-level features at closer to ActiveCampaign pricing
• Transactional email volume is a core use case alongside marketing automation
• You need a GDPR-friendly EU-hosted option

Free up to 300 emails/day, Starter from $9/mo Try Brevo →

Choose Consider GetResponse if

• Webinar and landing page hosting is built into your email marketing workflow
• You want an all-in-one without paying HubSpot Professional rates
• Your list is under 5k and you run mostly broadcast campaigns, not complex automations

Email Marketing from $19/mo, Marketing Automation from $59/mo Try GetResponse →

One more thing on timing

Do not migrate during an active campaign cycle. The cleanest migrations I have run land during a low-send month, with a full two-week buffer before the next planned campaign. If you are also re-evaluating your cold email infrastructure at the same time, keep that work separate. Cold email deliverability has its own distinct challenges in 2026 and those are worth addressing independently, after your marketing email is stable on HubSpot.

ActiveCampaign to HubSpot is a migration worth doing for the right team. It is not a plug-and-play data move. Treat it like a system rebuild with a data import attached, and you will come out with cleaner automations than you had going in.