Which HubSpot contacts count toward my bill?
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A marketing contact in HubSpot is a contact you can send marketing email and ads to. Those, and only those, are what Marketing Hub bills. The size of your database is not the bill.
So the question is never how many contacts you have. It is how many you have marked as marketing. Imported 20,000 leads? Not on the bill yet, because imports start as non-marketing. One of them fills in a form on your site? Now they are.
| Status | Paid or not paid | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Marketing | Paid | Can get marketing email and ads |
| Non-marketing | Not paid | Can still get sales, one-to-one, sequence, transactional and survey email |
| Unsubscribed, hard bounced or reported spam, still set as marketing | Paid | HubSpot stops mailing them. Nothing in its help says that changes their marketing status (our reading). Set them as non-marketing yourself |
| Came in through a HubSpot form | Paid | Forms set contacts as marketing by default, even someone you had set as non-marketing |
| Imported or from an integration | Not paid at first | Starts as non-marketing |
| From HubSpot's free CRM and tools | Paid once set as marketing | Same database as Marketing Hub |
| Bounced in three or more HubSpot accounts | Depends on its marketing status | Does not show up in segments or filters of your hard bounces |
| Deleted | Not paid | Frees room. Read the next paragraph before you delete |
Set them as non-marketing rather than delete. HubSpot's clean-up tool shows the unsubscribed and bounced groups first, and its help even says you may wish to delete them. Setting them as non-marketing takes them off the count and keeps their record and their opt-out. A delete in HubSpot keeps less than you might hope. After a restorable delete, the address gets its bounces and unsubscribes back if it is created or imported again. After a permanent delete, imports of it are blocked, but a form or the API can add it back as a new record, with its bounces and without its unsubscribe. The Almanac's suppression and deletion answer shows what a lost unsubscribe leads to: the address gets mailed again. So keep a do-not-email record before any delete. More on what a delete does in each tool.
Two exceptions. Marketing Hub accounts created before October 2022 may not have marketing contacts. And on HubSpot's newer flexible seats-and-credits pricing, marketing contacts are not billed on their own.
Not sure who on your HubSpot account is marked as marketing and can't be reached? Our free SOS hotline will look at it with you.
Ask an AI. Copy this into ChatGPT, Claude or a similar assistant, fill in the blanks, and keep going with your own case:
I use HubSpot Marketing Hub [Starter, Professional or Enterprise] with a tier of [number] marketing contacts. I have [number] contacts in total, about [number] set as marketing, and roughly [number] of those are unsubscribed or bounced. Who should I set as non-marketing, how do I stop forms turning people back into marketing contacts, and what should I export first?Sources. HubSpot's own pages, read 21 Oct 2026, re-checked 23 Oct 2026, every quote still word for word:
- Understand marketing contacts (last updated 20 Oct 2026): "Only marketing contacts count toward your contact tier and impact the cost of your subscription. Any contacts you don't plan on marketing to can be set as non-marketing contacts, which don't count toward your contact tier, and you aren't charged for them." "you can send other types of emails to your contacts regardless of their marketing status, including sales one-to-one emails, sequences, registration emails, ticket kickback emails, transactional emails, and customer feedback surveys." "Marketing Hub accounts created before October 2022 may not have marketing contacts."
- Set contacts as non-marketing: "By default, unsubscribed and bounced contact groups are displayed."
- Delete contacts who no longer receive your marketing emails: "You may wish to delete these contacts to ensure the contacts in your account reflect only those who want to be contacted." And "contacts who have globally bounced (i.e. hard bounced in three or more HubSpot accounts) will not appear in segments or filters of hard bounced contacts."
- Default marketing statuses for newly created contacts: "The HubSpot forms tool sets contacts as marketing by default." "any existing non-marketing contact who submits the form will be updated to a marketing contact". "The import tool sets contacts as non-marketing by default."
- Products & Services Catalog: contacts from the free tools share the same database and "could affect your contact tier pricing."
- Flexible Seats-and-Credits Pricing Supplement: "Customers on flexible seats-and-credits pricing do not pay separately for Marketing Contacts."
Pricing rules change, so we re-check them every quarter.
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