How to Migrate from Keap to HubSpot
Keap runs on tags and Campaign Builder, and sells things. HubSpot runs on properties and workflows, and does not. Translating a tag-driven database and replacing native e-commerce is what makes this migration long.
- Difficulty
- Complex
- Typical duration
- 4–6 weeks
- Downtime
- None, but freeze Keap campaigns before cutover
- Native importer
- No — CSV export or Keap API
| Keap | maps to | HubSpot CRM | What to watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contact | Contact | Direct match on email. Keap allows duplicate emails in some configurations — deduplicate before export or HubSpot merges them. | |
| Company | Company | Keap's company records are lighter than HubSpot's. Populate the domain field before export, since HubSpot dedupes on it. | |
| Opportunity | Deal | Keap opportunity stages map to HubSpot pipeline stages. Create them all before importing. | |
| Tag | Property value, list membership, or nothing | The core translation problem. Keap accounts routinely carry hundreds of tags doing four different jobs — segmentation, state, history and automation triggers. Each needs classifying individually. | |
| Campaign (Campaign Builder) | Workflow + Sequence | Visual campaigns rebuild as HubSpot workflows, with the one-to-one outreach parts becoming Sequences. No export path — screenshot each campaign before you cancel. | |
| Order / Product / Subscription | — (no equivalent) | Keap sells, invoices and bills recurring. HubSpot Commerce Hub covers quotes and payments but not Keap's full subscription engine. Budget a replacement. | |
| Note / Task / Appointment | Note / Task / Meeting | Straightforward, once the parent contact exists. | |
| Email broadcast history | — (metrics only) | Send history and engagement stats stay in Keap. Export the reporting you need before cancelling. |
What transfers cleanly
- Contacts and Companies with custom fields, once matching HubSpot properties exist.
- Opportunities with stage, value and close date.
- Notes, tasks and appointments attached to imported contacts.
- Tag data as property values or list membership, after you classify each tag.
- Owner assignment, where Keap users have HubSpot seats with matching emails.
What doesn't come across
- Campaign Builder. Keap's flagship automation has no export and no direct HubSpot analogue. Every live campaign is a manual rebuild across workflows and sequences.
- Orders, subscriptions and invoicing. Keap is genuinely transactional. HubSpot Commerce Hub does not replace recurring billing — most teams add a billing platform.
- Tag-driven logic. Hundreds of tags encoding state, history and triggers must each be classified. This is the longest task in the project and it cannot be automated safely.
- Keap's built-in landing pages and forms. These rebuild in HubSpot, which needs Marketing Hub.
- Email broadcast history and deliverability reputation. Neither transfers. Warm the new sending domain gradually.
- Keap Business Line / SMS. No HubSpot equivalent; needs a separate tool.
Migration order that works
- Export the full tag list with contact counts and last-applied dates, then classify every tag: becomes a property, becomes a list, or is retired.
- Screenshot or document every active Campaign Builder campaign — there is no export and the logic is not recoverable after cancellation.
- Identify what replaces Keap's orders, subscriptions and invoicing, and treat that as a parallel project with its own timeline.
- Create HubSpot properties, pipelines and stages, including one property per surviving tag category.
- Deduplicate contacts by email in Keap, then export Contacts, Companies and Opportunities with IDs.
- Import Companies, Contacts, Deals, then notes and tasks; apply tag-derived property values and list membership after load.
- Rebuild campaigns as workflows and sequences, warm the new sending domain, and keep Keap read-only for order history.
Keap is not really a CRM with marketing attached. It is a small-business operating system — contacts, automation, a shopping cart, invoices and recurring billing in one subscription. Teams that use all of it are not running a CRM migration when they leave. They are running three replacements at once.
The tag audit is the project
Keap encodes an enormous amount of business meaning in tags. In a typical account you will find tags that mean a segment ("Webinar Attendee"), tags that mean a state ("Onboarding Complete"), tags that mean a historical event ("Bought 2021 Course"), and tags that exist purely to trigger a campaign step.
HubSpot has no tag object. Each of these needs a different destination: segments become active lists, states become property values, historical events become properties or timeline entries, and trigger-only tags get deleted because HubSpot workflows trigger on properties directly.
Export the tag list with contact counts and last-applied dates and classify every row. It is tedious and it cannot be safely automated, because only someone who knows the business can tell "Onboarding Complete" from "Onboarding Complete - OLD". Teams that skip this step import a thousand meaningless boolean properties and lose the logic anyway.
Campaign Builder does not export — document it now
This is the irreversible one. Keap's visual campaign canvases hold years of accumulated logic, and there is no export format. Once the account closes, that logic is gone.
Before anything else, walk every active campaign and capture it: the canvas layout, the goals, the timers, the email bodies, the decision criteria. Screenshots plus a written description are enough. Do this while the account is live, not in cutover week.
The commerce half needs its own project
If Keap is processing orders and running subscriptions, understand clearly what HubSpot does and does not do. Commerce Hub handles quotes, payment links and invoices. It is not a subscription billing engine with dunning, plan changes and revenue recognition.
Treat billing replacement as a parallel workstream with its own evaluation, and do not let the CRM cutover date depend on it.
Warm the sending domain
Keap accounts often send substantial volume from an established domain reputation. That reputation does not transfer with the contacts. Ramp HubSpot sends gradually over a few weeks rather than switching a large list over in one send, or the first campaign in the new system will underperform for reasons that have nothing to do with the migration.