National Storage
99.99%
Data sync rate, up from 0.3%
230
Centres across Australia and New Zealand
53.5%
Email open rate
HubSpot implementation and onboarding, done once
Phases, timelines and AUD cost bands for a HubSpot setup, with training from certified HubSpot trainers built in.
One implementation, done once, with your team trained to run it.
A HubSpot implementation is the setup work that turns a HubSpot licence into the system your team runs on: the data model, pipelines, data migration, integrations and training. Ours start from about $7,000, plus the HubSpot licence. A guided build takes four to six weeks. A full build with integrations takes eight to twelve.
We have run implementations for 300+ businesses since 2015. Your PM is your builder: the person who scopes your portal sets it up and runs the training with certified HubSpot trainers. Below is how it actually runs, week by week, what we need from you, what it costs, and the mistakes we see most often.
Last checked October 2026.
What is the difference between HubSpot onboarding and implementation?
HubSpot onboarding is a paid service HubSpot sells with most Professional and Enterprise plans. A HubSpot specialist shows your admin how the product works over a set number of calls. Implementation is the build itself: someone sets the portal up around how you sell, moves your records across and trains the people who will use it. It is common to buy onboarding expecting an implementation, and find out partway through that the building is yours to do.
| HubSpot onboarding | Partner implementation | |
|---|---|---|
| Who runs it | A HubSpot onboarding specialist | A HubSpot partner, here the PM who scoped it |
| Who builds the portal | Your admin, with guidance | The partner, with your admin alongside |
| Data migration | Advice on importing | Mapped, cleaned and imported for you |
| Integrations | Pointers to marketplace apps | Scoped, connected and tested |
| Training | Product training for your admin | Sessions for every role that uses the portal |
| Cost | About A$2,160 for Sales or Service Hub Professional, A$4,320 for Marketing Hub Professional, up to A$10,080 at Enterprise | Ours from about $7,000 |
A HubSpot Solutions Partner can deliver onboarding in place of HubSpot’s own onboarding fee, so compare quotes with that in mind.
Do you need a guided build or a full implementation?
Most of the price difference comes down to two things: how much data has to move, and how many other systems have to talk to HubSpot. Use this to place yourself before a first call.
| Guided build | Full implementation | |
|---|---|---|
| Length | 4 to 6 weeks | 8 to 12 weeks with integrations |
| Cost | From about $7,000, plus the licence | Priced after we have seen the portal |
| Hubs | One or two, usually Sales first | Several, sharing one data model |
| Data | Spreadsheets or a simple CRM, imported clean | A migration from another CRM, often with history |
| Integrations | Off-the-shelf connectors, if any | Accounting, ERP, booking or industry systems, field by field |
| Who builds | We build the core, your admin builds alongside us | We build, migrate, connect and test |
| Suits | A smaller team with a capable admin | Several teams, or a business replacing a CRM it has outgrown |
If you are on Starter with a handful of users and one pipeline, you probably need neither. HubSpot’s free Academy courses will get you most of the way, and we will say so on the call.
What are the phases of a HubSpot implementation?
Five phases, whether HubSpot is new to your team or already live and messy. The same person walks every phase from inside the portal.
| Phase | What happens | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Read what you have | For a new portal, how you sell, who uses which tool and which system holds the customer. For a live one, an inventory of pipelines, properties, workflows and integrations. | A written inventory. Nothing is rebuilt from memory. |
| 2. Agree what done looks like | Three workshops of about two hours each: how it works today, how it should work, and the blueprint. Then the data structure: which records, which fields, which system owns each one. | A scope you sign off before build, and the length of the project. |
| 3. Set the CRM up | Objects, pipelines, properties, and the checks that stop duplicate companies. Import templates for each data source. | A CRM your reports can trust. |
| 4. Build the parts people open | Workflows, views for each role, forms, the handoff from marketing to sales, and any integration, with fields written down before anything syncs. | Working screens, and connected systems. |
| 5. Train, then hand over | Sessions with certified HubSpot trainers, written notes, and a short list of what your admin can change alone. | A team that runs the portal without us. |
What happens in a HubSpot implementation, week by week?
The build runs in two-week sprints, and you see something working in your portal at the end of each one. Here is how the weeks usually fall.
| Week | What we do | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kick-off and project plan. Workshop on how you sell today. Inventory of what exists. | Give admin access. Send exports of your spreadsheets or old CRM. |
| 2 | Workshops on how it should work and the blueprint. Data structure agreed. Import templates sent. | Sign off the blueprint. Start filling in the import templates. |
| 3 to 4 | Pipelines, properties, views and the first workflows built. Test import, checked record by record. | Your admin builds alongside us. Check the test import. |
| 5 | Full import. Training sessions by role, with written notes. | Book the team into training. |
| 6 | Go live with two or three people first, then everyone. Handover. | Your champions test it in real work and tell us what is off. |
| Weeks | What we do | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 2 | Kick-off, dated project plan, inventory of every system that holds customer data. | Name one decision maker. Give admin access to HubSpot and each system being connected. |
| 2 to 3 | Three process workshops and the data structure workshop. Nothing is built until the data structure is agreed. | Bring the people who do the work to the workshops. Sign off the blueprint. |
| 3 to 6 | Two sprints: the CRM itself, then workflows, views and forms. Field map for each integration. | Review each sprint in the portal. Approve the field maps. |
| 6 to 9 | Integrations built and tested. Test migration, then the full migration. | Export from the old systems by the agreed date. Spot check migrated records. |
| 9 to 11 | User testing with your team. Training by role. | Test real scenarios, including the awkward ones. |
| 10 to 12 | Soft launch with two champions, then the whole team. Handover notes and admin training. | Move the team across, and turn the old system to read only. |
What do we need from you before we start?
Slow replies cost more weeks than hard technical problems do. Have these ready and the plan holds.
| What | Who provides it | When |
|---|---|---|
| Super admin access to HubSpot, and to each system being connected | Whoever owns the accounts | Before kick-off |
| One person who can make decisions | A manager with authority over how sales or service runs | Every workshop, for the length of the project |
| Exports of what you have now | Your admin: the spreadsheets, the old CRM, the lists people keep on the side | Week one, final export by the migration date |
| Your sales process, even roughly | The sales lead. A whiteboard photo is fine. | The first workshop |
| The people who do the work | Two or three users from each team | The workshops, testing and training |
| Sample documents | Quotes, proposals or forms the CRM has to produce or read | Before phase four |
If you want the full list to hold any partner to, read the onboarding deliverables to ask for and what HubSpot onboarding asks of your team.
How much does a HubSpot implementation cost in Australia?
Ours start from about $7,000, plus the HubSpot licence. That is a guided build of one or two hubs. A full implementation with a migration and integrations is priced once we have seen the portal and a sample of your data, because those two things decide the number.
For context, this is our reading of published Australian partner pricing for a partner-led build at a business of about 100 people. Our guide to what a HubSpot build costs a 100 person Australian business explains each band.
| Band | Typical scope | Typical length | Typical range (AUD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clean setup | One hub, usually Sales. A pipeline that matches how you sell, properties that mean something, a handful of automations, basic reporting and training. | 4 to 6 weeks | $8,000 to $15,000 |
| Multi-hub with integrations | Two or three hubs, a real migration, two or three integrations that matter, and reporting a leadership team can run a meeting from. | 8 to 14 weeks | $15,000 to $35,000 |
| Revenue architecture | Custom objects, a custom code layer where the platform runs out, attribution, and change management as its own workstream. | 3 to 6 months | $35,000 and up |
What makes the number move
- How messy your data is. The biggest variable. Ask any partner to quote migration as its own line, after they have seen a sample export.
- Whether anyone has mapped the process. If your sales process only exists in people’s heads, the first phase is finding it. Mapping your sales process before onboarding is the cheapest way to bring a quote down.
- How many integrations, and how unusual. An off-the-shelf connector is a day. A custom integration with your own product or an industry system is weeks.
- How many people have to change how they work. Twelve salespeople is a training session. Eighty people across four teams is a change program.
- Whether one person can decide. Projects where every question goes to a committee cost more than technically hard ones.
Costs that sit outside the implementation
- The HubSpot licence and seats, billed by HubSpot.
- HubSpot’s onboarding fee, unless your partner delivers onboarding in its place.
- Paid connectors or marketplace apps, and a higher HubSpot tier if you need its data sync or custom code features.
- Support after go live, if you want someone to keep looking after the portal.
Why do HubSpot implementations go wrong, and how do you avoid it?
Almost never because of the software. These are the ones we see most, on our own projects and in the portals we inherit from other partners.
| What goes wrong | What it looks like | What we do about it |
|---|---|---|
| The old system is copied across | Every field, stage and workflow from the last CRM, now in HubSpot. One inherited portal we audited had a separate workflow for every single action. | An inventory, then a keep, fix or leave behind call on each item. More on CRM implementation. |
| Automation before clean data | Lead scoring and sequences firing on duplicates and blank fields. | Data and pipelines first. Scoring waits until the fields are right. |
| Integration before a field map | A sync that overwrites good data. On one portal we were asked to look at, a sync was overwriting where leads came from: a lead that had arrived from Google search read as an offline source two days later. | A written field map, with which system wins for each field, before anything syncs. |
| Pipeline stages nobody agreed on | Deals pile up in the first stage. At a B2B hardware company, 120-odd leads sat in New. | Stages that match how the team sells, with a rule for leaving each one. After a clean-up, that board went from 120-odd leads in New to four. |
| Go live with testing unfinished | A launch date that arrives before user testing is done. | A soft launch with two users while testing finishes, and the full team moves once they sign off. |
| Everyone at once | The whole company in the same week, and every small issue lands on the admin. | Two champions per team test it in real work first. |
| Nobody owns it afterwards | Six months later, fields multiply and nobody knows which workflows matter. | A named admin, trained to change fields and workflows, and a short written list of the rules. |
More on the long tail in the CRM problems that only show up months after onboarding and what a bad HubSpot implementation costs.
What should a HubSpot implementation include?
Whoever you hire, a proposal should name each of these, or say why it is left out:
- An inventory of what you have now, written down.
- A data structure: which objects, which properties, and which system owns each field.
- Pipelines with stages your team agreed, and what has to be true to move a deal forward.
- Migration as its own line, with a test import before the real one.
- Each integration with a field map.
- Views and reports for each role, starting with the one report leadership reads.
- Training by role, and admin training for whoever owns the portal.
- What happens after go live, and who you call.
And a few things worth leaving until the CRM has run for a month or two: lead scoring, forecasting, attribution reporting and AI agents. They all depend on fields your team has been filling in properly for a while.
An example
The Agency, a national real estate group, had about 48,000 contacts in HubSpot and no structure under them: no contact types, territories, income tiers or consent recorded. In a two-month build we set up 18 contact properties, 34 deal properties and 59 lists, archived the dead properties, and gave every live field an owner before anything was scored or sent. Two months later there were 44 qualified deals tracking toward $5 million in yearly commission.
What we built, and what it moved.
Not sure which phase you are in? Tell us where your setup is at.
Book a call
“They gave us a system that actually works and supports growth at scale. Cassy didn’t just help ‘set up’ HubSpot, she took the time to understand our business, our people, and the unique challenges of recruitment in real estate.”
Trent P
Head of Brand, The Agency · Read the case study
Read next.
Guides from the team on HubSpot onboarding, cost and the first months after go live.
- How we onboard clients onto HubSpot
- What happens during HubSpot onboarding
- Map your sales process before onboarding
- Eleven things to demand from an onboarding partner
- What a HubSpot build costs a 100 person business
- A 90-day CRM adoption plan for small teams
- What a HubSpot sandbox protects you from
- Six CRM problems that show up after onboarding
- HubSpot partner in Australia, based in Brisbane
- CRM implementation, without the old mess
What people ask before an implementation.
How much does HubSpot onboarding cost in Australia?
HubSpot’s own onboarding fee is about A$2,160 for Sales or Service Hub Professional, A$4,320 for Marketing Hub Professional and up to A$10,080 at Enterprise. A partner implementation is a separate cost. A HubSpot Solutions Partner can deliver onboarding in place of HubSpot’s own onboarding fee, so compare quotes with that in mind.
How much does a HubSpot implementation cost?
Ours start from about $7,000, plus the HubSpot licence, for a guided build of one or two hubs. A full implementation with a migration and integrations is priced once we have seen the portal. On our reading of published Australian partner pricing, a partner-led build runs from about $8,000 for one hub to $35,000 and up.
How long does a HubSpot implementation take?
Four to six weeks for a guided build of one or two hubs. Eight to twelve weeks for a full implementation with a migration and integrations. You will know your length after the second phase, once we have seen your portal and a sample of your data.
What are the stages of HubSpot onboarding?
Five: read what you already have, agree what done looks like, set the CRM up, build the parts people open, then train and hand over. You sign off the scope at the end of stage two, before anything is built.
What is included in a HubSpot implementation?
An inventory, a data structure, pipelines, the data migration, integrations with a field map, views and reports for each role, training by role, and a plan for after go live. A proposal that leaves one out should say why.
Can we implement HubSpot ourselves?
Yes, if you are on Starter with a small team, one pipeline and no integrations. HubSpot Academy’s free courses cover it. Once there is a migration, several teams or a system to connect, a partner usually saves more time than it costs.
Is HubSpot just a CRM?
The CRM is free and sits underneath everything. The Marketing, Sales, Service and other hubs add tools on top of the same records, so you can start with the CRM and add hubs later without another migration.
What are the downsides of HubSpot?
Cost climbs as you add seats, contacts and tiers, and much of the automation needs Professional. Custom objects need Enterprise. Reporting covers most needs but is not a full BI tool. We would rather you know that before you buy.
Can you connect HubSpot to Xero, NetSuite or Salesforce?
Yes, when the other system needs to share a record with HubSpot. We write a field map first, with which system wins for each field, and tell you what will sync. A move onto HubSpot from another CRM is a migration, which we scope on its own.
Do you set up HubSpot lead scoring?
Yes, once the fields are clean enough to score. We set the points from how your team already treats a good lead, run it for a fortnight, and change the points that were wrong.
Where is HubSpot data hosted for Australian businesses?
HubSpot runs a data centre in Sydney, and its data hosting FAQ explains how a portal is assigned to it. We confirm where your portal is hosted in the first phase.
What can our team do themselves after onboarding?
Change a field, clone a workflow, fix a view, and explain the pipeline to a new hire. That is the bar for a finished HubSpot onboarding, and certified HubSpot trainers teach to it.
Tell us where your HubSpot setup is at.
A few lines is enough. You will get a human reply within one business day. After a first call with Matt, one PM plans it and builds it.
Got it, there.
We will be back to you within one business day. Rather not wait? Pick a time with Matt below and skip the email round, or call 1300 71 61 41.