What are subscription types?
Subscription types are the email categories HubSpot uses to manage what people receive from you.
Every contact in HubSpot has a subscription status for each type, either Subscribed, Opted out, or Unknown. HubSubs shows you all of this in one view when you search a contact. Common examples: Marketing Emails, Newsletter, Promotional, Transactional. Your HubSpot account may have different ones.
How to set up subscription types in HubSpot
You only need to do this once. After setup, HubSubs will automatically pull all your types.
1
Go to HubSpot Settings
Log in to HubSpot and click the Settings gear icon in the top-right navigation bar.
2
Open Email settings
In the left sidebar, scroll down to Marketing → Email. Then click the Subscription Types tab at the top of the page.
3
Create a subscription type
Click the orange Create subscription type button (top right). Give it a name your team will recognise, e.g. "Marketing Information", "Newsletter and Community", "Events and Invitations". Add a short description so contacts know what they're signing up for.
Use full descriptive names in HubSpot — those appear on contact preference pages. In HubSubs Settings you can relabel how they appear in the app (e.g. shorten "Newsletter and Community" to "Newsletter") without touching HubSpot.
4
Assign types to your emails
When creating or editing a marketing email in HubSpot, select the appropriate subscription type in the email settings panel.
5
Search a contact in HubSubs
Once your subscription types are set up, search any contact. You'll see green pills for each list they're subscribed to, and a red badge if they've opted out of any.
Reading the subscription pills
Each row in the search results shows a contact's full subscription profile at a glance.
● Marketing EmailsGreen pill = actively subscribed
2 opted outRed badge = number of lists unsubscribed from
No subscriptionsGrey = no subscription history yet