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Can you build workflows on HubSpot Starter?

54 specsDocumented for Professional and above, untested on Starter1 needs Data Hub Professional on per-hub plans

Short answer

Partly, and HubSpot says two different things. The Sales Hub pricing page sells Starter with up to 50 workflows with restricted triggers and actions.

The workflows documentation lists Professional and Enterprise only, and never mentions Starter. Marketing Starter is clearer: 10 automated actions and one simple workflow per form. Nobody publishes which triggers and actions the Starter restriction removes, so no honest answer can tell you whether a given workflow runs there.

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What a spec looks like

Free Round-robin lead assignment by territory Contact15 steps Read it in full
The nine sections, and the files

Every spec follows the same nine sections, so a team reads one and knows how to read all of them.

  • Outcome, when to use it and when not to
  • Prerequisites: properties, lists, tiers, with the JSON to create them
  • Enrollment and re-enrollment, then every step with its parameters
  • Known pitfalls, a test plan, variants, and the YAML build spec

PDF, Markdown, properties JSON, workflow JSON, custom code where used. Test plan and known pitfalls in every spec.

Each spec states its minimum tier. The 12 free ones open in full, the others show their public preview.

The 54 specs, in build order

Deal hygiene that asks little of the tool

Set a property, create a task, notify an owner when a deal moves. The shortest specs in the library, and the first ones worth testing on a Starter seat.

What each spec doesHide
Task creation when a deal enters a pipeline stageDeal4 stepsEvery time a deal moves into a defined stage, the right next-action task is created automatically, so reps stop guessing what to do next.Notify deal owner and manager on Closed WonDeal4 stepsThe deal owner and their manager both get an immediate notification the moment a deal is marked Closed Won, so wins get recognized and downstream teams find out without waiting for a manual update.Missing next step date flagDeal3 stepsAn open deal with no scheduled next step date gets flagged and a task lands on the owner's list, so "someday" deals surface before they quietly go cold.Closed-won handoff flag to Customer SuccessDeal3 stepsEvery Closed Won deal gets flagged and routed to Customer Success automatically, so a new customer never waits on someone remembering to forward the deal.
Show the 6 other specs in this groupShow fewer
Closed-lost follow-up task in 90 daysDeal4 stepsA deal that closes lost gets a follow-up task automatically scheduled 90 days out, so re-engagement does not depend on someone remembering to check back.Notify finance and ops on Closed Won for invoicing kickoffDeal3 stepsFinance and operations get notified automatically the moment a deal closes won, so invoicing and provisioning start without waiting on a rep to loop them in.Deal reactivation workflow from Closed LostDeal4 stepsA deal manually moved out of Closed Lost back into an open stage gets its lost-reason fields cleared and a re-qualification task created automatically, so a reopened deal does not carry stale loss data into a fresh sales cycle.Task reminder before an approaching close dateDeal2 stepsA rep gets a task a set number of days before a deal's close date, so the final push happens on purpose instead of the date arriving unnoticed.Missing deal description flag at negotiation stageDeal6 stepsA deal reaching Negotiation with a blank description gets a task for the owner to fill it in, so anyone picking up the deal later, including a manager reviewing forecast or a rep covering for absence, has context instead of a blank field.No logged activity since deal creation flagDeal6 stepsA deal that has sat open for a week with zero logged activity gets flagged and the owner nudged, catching a deal that stalled before it ever really started, which deal-hygiene-001's "last activity" check cannot see since there is no last activity date to compare against yet.

Sales admin, one or two steps each

Follow up tasks, meeting outcomes, quote reminders. Nothing here needs a list, a sequence or code.

What each spec doesHide
Notify AE by internal email when a meeting is booked on their calendarContact5 stepsThe AE gets an immediate internal email the moment a prospect books time on their meeting link, with the prospect's context, so they are not relying on catching the calendar invite in a crowded inbox.Create SDR-to-AE handoff task when a meeting is bookedContact6 stepsThe moment an SDR-booked discovery meeting lands on an AE's calendar, the AE gets a task carrying the context they need (who booked it, why, what the SDR learned) instead of walking in cold.FreeNotify rep when a sent quote is viewed by the buyerQuote4 stepsThe rep finds out the same day a buyer opens the quote, so follow-up happens while the quote is top of mind instead of days later on a routine check-in.Notify rep and manager when a quote is e-signedQuote6 stepsThe rep and their manager both hear about a signed deal within minutes, before it surfaces on a weekly pipeline report, so the handoff to whoever processes the paperwork or kicks off onboarding starts immediately.
Show the 5 other specs in this groupShow fewer
Notify AE when a booked meeting is rescheduled or canceledContact4 stepsThe AE is told immediately when a prospect moves or cancels a booked meeting, so they can adjust their calendar and decide whether to re-engage instead of discovering the gap right before the call.Attach a discovery-call playbook link as a task when a deal is createdDeal1 stepA new deal automatically gets a task pointing the owner to the standard discovery-call playbook, so reps stop asking sales ops which questions to cover on the first call.Trigger the demo-call playbook task when a deal enters the Demo stageDeal1 stepThe moment a deal reaches the Demo stage, the owner gets a task linking to the demo playbook, so prep starts before the call gets booked instead of the night before.Notify rep and manager when a quote e-signature is declinedQuote3 stepsThe rep and manager both find out the moment a buyer formally declines a quote's e-signature, instead of the rep discovering it days later when the deal has already gone cold.Auto-create a demo follow-up task a set number of days after the demo call is loggedContact2 stepsEvery demo gets a follow-up task on a fixed schedule automatically, so a rep never forgets to check back in because the week got busy.

Handover and onboarding notices

The specs that move a closed deal to the next team with a task and an internal email.

What each spec doesHide
Welcome email series to new customerContact6 stepsMarketing Hub ProfessionalNew customers get a short, automatic email series over about two weeks that orients them to the product and points them to support, without a marketer sending each one by hand.Onboarding start date property set on deal closed wonDeal1 stepEvery closed-won deal gets a single, reliable timestamp for when onboarding began, so reporting on time-to-value and onboarding duration has a consistent anchor without depending on any other onboarding workflow being active.Executive sponsor introduction email sequenceContact3 stepsMarketing Hub ProfessionalA new customer's primary contact receives an introduction to their executive sponsor within a few days of becoming a customer, without a rep having to remember to send it manually.Onboarding completion notice to originating sales repTicket6 stepsService Hub ProfessionalWhen an onboarding ticket reaches its Completed stage, the sales rep who closed the deal gets a short notification, so the rep knows when to check in on the account or start expansion conversations.
Show the 4 other specs in this groupShow fewer
Welcome packet and document share automationContact4 stepsMarketing Hub ProfessionalThe moment a contact becomes a customer, they automatically get an email with the welcome packet document attached and tracked, without anyone remembering to send it by hand.Welcome gift or swag fulfillment requestDeal3 stepsA closed-won deal flagged for a welcome gift automatically creates a fulfillment task with the shipping address attached, instead of a rep remembering to email the office manager.Contract signature confirmation notice to legal and opsDeal2 stepsThe moment a signed contract is recorded on a deal, legal and operations get one notification with the key terms, instead of waiting to hear about it secondhand or digging through the deal record themselves.Lifecycle stage update to customer post-signatureContact1 stepMarketing Hub ProfessionalEvery contact associated with a deal that closes won gets moved to the Customer lifecycle stage automatically, keeping reporting and list segmentation accurate without a manual step.

Internal alerts and digests

Notify a person or a channel when a record changes. The simplest family in the library.

What each spec doesHide
Slack alert: deal marked Closed Won (revenue milestone notification)Deal4 stepsThe sales team sees a Slack message the moment a deal is marked Closed Won, so wins are visible in real time without opening the CRM.FreeSlack alert: high-value deal created (amount above threshold, awareness only)Deal3 stepsLeadership and sales management see a Slack message the moment a deal above a set amount threshold is created, so large opportunities get visibility from day one rather than surfacing only at forecast review.Slack alert: workflow goal completion milestone reachedContact4 stepsMarketing Hub ProfessionalThe marketing channel gets a Slack message the moment a contact meets a defined nurture milestone, so goal completions are visible without checking each workflow's goal-performance tab.Property: first-touch and last-touch timestamp helpers (funnel reporting)Contact3 stepsMarketing Hub ProfessionalEvery contact carries a clean, report-friendly first-touch channel and date, plus a last-touch channel and date that updates on each new interaction, so funnel reports do not depend on parsing HubSpot's native analytics-source properties.
Show the 4 other specs in this groupShow fewer
Property: date of last support interaction per company (recency helper)Company2 stepsService Hub ProfessionalEvery company record shows the date of its most recent ticket activity, so a rep or CS manager can tell how recently an account engaged support without opening the tickets list and sorting by date.Property: days since last marketing email open (engagement recency helper)Contact2 stepsMarketing Hub ProfessionalEvery contact carries a rolling count of days since their last marketing email open, so segmentation and reporting can target or exclude by recency without a report author computing that gap manually every time.Slack alert: contact reaches a key lifecycle stage milestone (e.g. became Customer)Contact4 stepsMarketing Hub ProfessionalThe team sees a Slack message the moment a contact reaches a chosen lifecycle stage milestone, most commonly becoming a Customer, so conversion events are visible in real time without opening the CRM.Slack alert: previously Closed Lost deal reactivated (visibility notification)Deal4 stepsThe sales channel gets a Slack message the moment a deal that was previously Closed Lost moves back into an open stage, so a reactivated opportunity is visible without someone noticing it by chance in a pipeline view.

Tickets, the plain ones

First response tasks, closure notices, survey sends. Service Hub tiers apply on top of the Starter question.

What each spec doesHide
CSAT survey sent automatically when a ticket is closedTicket5 stepsService Hub ProfessionalEvery closed ticket automatically triggers a one-question satisfaction survey to the requester, without a rep remembering to send it.Internal reminder to rep before first-response SLA is dueTicket5 stepsService Hub ProfessionalThe assigned rep gets a heads-up before the first-response SLA clock runs out, giving them a chance to reply before it counts as a breach.Auto-close inactive tickets after N days without a contact replyTicket6 stepsService Hub ProfessionalA ticket that has been waiting on the customer with no reply for N days after a warning closes automatically, keeping open-ticket counts honest instead of drifting upward forever.CSAT survey variant for live chat conversationsTicket2 stepsService Hub ProfessionalA chat-originated ticket gets a satisfaction survey scoped to the chat experience, separate from the general CSAT send used for email and form tickets, so the team can compare chat quality on its own.
Show the 4 other specs in this groupShow fewer
Auto-tag ticket category from subject line keyword matchTicket4 stepsService Hub ProfessionalA ticket without a queue value already set (for example one that arrived by email or a plain form with no routing question) gets a best-guess Ticket queue value from its subject line, so tickets-sla-001's round-robin has something to route on instead of falling through to manual triage.Bulk priority reassignment when a ticket pipeline stage changesTicket3 stepsService Hub ProfessionalEvery ticket that reaches a specific pipeline stage gets its priority set consistently, instead of relying on whoever moves it to also remember to update priority by hand.Stamp an SLA-met/missed flag on the ticket at closure for downstream reportingTicket5 stepsService Hub ProfessionalEvery closed ticket carries a permanent, simple met-or-missed value, so a report built later does not have to reason about live SLA status fields that keep changing while the ticket is open.SLA exemption for an internal/IT ticket pipeline versus a customer-facing pipelineTicket1 stepService Hub ProfessionalInternal IT or employee-facing tickets stop tripping the same SLA escalation and reporting workflows built for customer support, without turning those workflows off for the pipeline that actually needs them.

Renewals, reminders only

Date-based reminders with no rollup, no scoring, no code.

What each spec doesHide
Renewal deal owner auto-assignment to current CSM/AMDeal2 stepsA renewal deal is owned by whoever currently manages the account, not whoever happened to be the deal creator or the original sales rep, the moment the deal is created.NPS survey auto-send after renewal or usage milestoneContact4 stepsService Hub ProfessionalA contact receives an NPS survey right after their account renews or hits a usage milestone, instead of on a flat calendar schedule that misses the moment that matters.Renewal deal auto-move to Closed Lost on confirmed non-renewalDeal5 stepsA renewal deal moves itself to Closed Lost with a reason attached the moment someone confirms the account will not renew, so stale renewal deals stop sitting open in the pipeline and skewing forecast.Multi-year contract mid-term check-in taskDeal6 stepsA deal owner gets a check-in task at the halfway point of any multi-year renewal contract, so a two- or three-year deal does not go silent between signature and its eventual renewal date.
Show the 7 other specs in this groupShow fewer
Executive business review reminder before renewal dateDeal6 stepsThe deal owner gets a reminder to schedule an executive business review a set number of days before a renewal deal's close date, so the last strategic conversation before renewal does not get skipped under day-to-day pressure.Price increase notification task before renewal dateDeal3 stepsWhen a renewal carries a price increase, the deal owner gets a task to tell the customer well before the renewal date, instead of the increase showing up as a surprise on the invoice.Webinar registrant auto-add to active list and campaign associationContact2 stepsMarketing Hub ProfessionalAnyone who registers for a webinar lands on the right active list and gets tagged to the campaign automatically, so follow-up sends and reporting are correct from the moment of registration, not after someone remembers to tidy it up.Paid social (Facebook/LinkedIn/Google) campaign membership auto-taggingContact6 stepsMarketing Hub ProfessionalA contact who converts through a paid social or paid search ad gets tagged with which platform drove them, automatically, without a person cross-checking the ad platform's own reporting.Data processing agreement acknowledgment tracking propertyContact3 stepsMarketing Hub ProfessionalA contact's acknowledgment of a data processing agreement or privacy notice update is captured and timestamped on the record, giving compliance a queryable answer to "did this person see and accept the current notice" without digging through form submission logs.Data-verified checkbox with periodic review reminderContact4 stepsData Hub ProfessionalContacts marked as verified automatically come back up for review after a fixed interval, instead of a verified checkbox staying checked forever after the one time someone actually checked it.Unopened-email resend with an alternate subject lineContact5 stepsMarketing Hub ProfessionalA contact who did not open the first send of a specific email automatically gets the same content again, 3 days later, under a different subject line, without a marketer manually pulling and re-sending a non-opener list.

The 3 things that break this, and how the specs stop them

The two official sources do not agree

The Sales Hub pricing page sells Starter with up to 50 workflows with restricted triggers and actions.

The knowledge base article on creating workflows lists Marketing, Sales, Service, Data Hub, Smart CRM and Revenue Hub at Professional and Enterprise, and says nothing about Starter. Both are HubSpot. Read the second before you assume the first.

How the specs stop itShow less

Restricted is the word that costs money

A restriction on triggers and actions is not a smaller version of the same tool.

If the trigger you need is missing, the workflow cannot exist at all, and the count of 50 is irrelevant. HubSpot does not publish the list of what Starter removes.

How the specs stop itShow less

Marketing Starter is a different thing again

Marketing Hub Starter is sold with up to 10 automated actions and one simple workflow per form. That is form follow up, not the workflows tool.

Building a multi step nurture on it is not a matter of hitting a limit, it is a matter of the tool not being there.

How the specs stop itShow less

What this bundle builds

Nothing, on its own. This page exists because a question with a price attached, should I pay for Professional to automate anything, has two official answers from the same vendor, ... and most of the content written about it is years out of date.

What you get is the state of the sources on 19 September 2026, quoted rather than summarised, plus the 54 specs in this library whose steps are short enough that they are the sensible first test on a Starter seat. Short means something precise here: no custom coded action, no list membership action, no sequence enrolment, no random split, and six actions or fewer in the whole flow. Those constraints come from the specs themselves, not from a guess about what Starter allows.

If your portal is on Professional or above, this page is not for you. Read the tier line on any spec instead.

Read the restShow less
How the pieces fit together

Start with the sources, because the order matters. The Sales Hub pricing page is a sales document and it counts workflows. The knowledge base article is an implementation document and it lists subscriptions. When they disagree, the implementation document is the one that tells you whether a button exists in your portal.

Then take the list of candidates here and test three of them, not fifty. Pick one that only sets a property, one that creates a task, and one that sends an internal email. If all three build and enrol, your Starter restriction is generous and the rest of the list is worth trying. If the trigger you need is not in the menu, you have your answer in ten minutes and no money spent.

What you get
  • The exact wording of both HubSpot sources, with the date we read them.
  • 54 specs selected by their own step count, listed with their category, object and minimum documented tier.
  • The rule we used to pick them, so you can apply it yourself to the rest of the catalogue.
  • No claim that any of them runs on Starter. That claim would need a Starter portal, and we do not have one.
Who it is for, and who should skip it

For anyone weighing a Starter seat against a Professional one, and for admins told that HubSpot has no automation below Professional, which is no longer what HubSpot sells.

Skip it if you already run Professional, if you need re-enrollment or branching, which the Starter restriction may well remove, or if you want a definitive list of what Starter can do. That list does not exist in public, and this page will say so until it does.

Questions admins ask

Does HubSpot Starter include workflows?

The Sales Hub pricing page says Sales Starter includes up to 50 workflows with restricted triggers and actions. The workflows documentation lists only Professional and Enterprise. Until HubSpot publishes the restriction list, the safe reading is that Starter offers a reduced automation surface, not the workflows tool as documented.

How many workflows do you get on each tier?

HubSpot states up to 50 on Sales Starter with restrictions, and up to 300 fully customizable on Sales Professional. Marketing Starter is counted in automated actions, up to 10, not in workflows.

Which specs in this library run on Starter?

We do not know, and we will not guess. The 54 specs listed here are the ones whose steps are short enough to be worth testing: no custom code, no list actions, no sequence enrolment, no random split, six actions or fewer. If your Starter portal allows their triggers, they are the first to try.

Why does this page not just answer the question?

Because answering it properly needs a real Starter portal, and a developer test account cannot be one: HubSpot documents test accounts as free accounts with a 90 day trial of enterprise features. We would rather show you the sources than invent a list.

What should I do if I am on Starter and need real automation?

Price the upgrade against the work. Professional opens the documented workflows tool, with re-enrollment, branching, delays and the action library the specs in this catalogue are written against. The comparison page for that decision is the next one to read.

Read 12 complete specs before you pay.

One per category, same format as the paid ones. Email only, no card.

We email the link, then a short note when specs change. Nothing else.

149 EUR199

Full library, 565 specs
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