How to Migrate from HubSpot to Zoho CRM — Complete Guide 2026

The most common reason teams migrate from HubSpot to Zoho CRM is cost — HubSpot's pricing scales aggressively as your contact database grows. But the migration itself is what most teams get wrong. This guide walks through the full process so you don't lose data, break workflows, or kill your team's productivity in the transition.

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Why Teams Leave HubSpot

Before starting, be clear on your reason. The most common ones:

Cost: HubSpot's Marketing Hub and Sales Hub Professional tiers — the ones with automation and sequences — cost $800–$1,600/month for growing teams. Zoho CRM Enterprise is $40/user/month with no contact-count penalty.

Feature overlap: Teams often pay for HubSpot's marketing features but don't use them, or use Mailchimp separately anyway. Zoho CRM + Zoho Campaigns covers the same ground at a fraction of the price.

Reporting: HubSpot's custom report builder is on the Enterprise tier only ($1,200+/month). Zoho CRM Enterprise includes custom analytics at $40/user.

If your reason is something else — team fit, interface preference, specific integration — reconsider whether the migration effort is worth it before starting.

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What to Export from HubSpot

Log into HubSpot and export the following before doing anything else:

Contacts

Settings → Data Management → Import/Export → Export → Contacts

Export all contact properties including:

• Standard fields (name, email, phone, company, title, lifecycle stage)
• All custom properties your team has created
• Contact owner assignments
• Associated company names

Companies

Export → Companies — include all company properties and associated contact counts.

Deals

Export → Deals — include deal stage, amount, close date, associated contact, associated company, deal owner, and all custom deal properties.

Activities (Notes, Calls, Emails, Meetings)

This is the tricky one. HubSpot's activity export is less complete than its contact export. You'll get notes and logged activities via the API, but HubSpot doesn't export sent emails in a format that directly imports into most CRMs.

Recommendation: export activities for the past 12 months. Older activity history has diminishing value and importing years of logged emails creates noise in your new CRM.

Lists & Segments

Export your active contact lists — you'll recreate these as views and segments in Zoho CRM.

Sequences & Workflows

You can't export these — they need to be recreated manually. Document your active sequences and workflow logic before you switch so you have a rebuild reference.

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Mapping HubSpot Concepts to Zoho CRM

HubSpot and Zoho CRM use different terminology for similar concepts:

| HubSpot | Zoho CRM | |---|---| | Contact | Contact | | Company | Account | | Deal | Deal | | Lifecycle Stage | Lead Status / Stage | | Pipeline | Pipeline | | Sequence | Cadence / Email Sequence | | Workflow | Workflow Rule | | Smart List | Custom View / Segment | | Owner | Record Owner | | Property | Field |

The most important mapping to get right: Lifecycle Stage. HubSpot uses lifecycle stages (Subscriber → Lead → MQL → SQL → Opportunity → Customer) that don't map 1:1 to Zoho CRM's Lead Status and Deal Stage fields. Decide before import how your pipeline stages in Zoho CRM correspond to HubSpot lifecycle stages.

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Setting Up Zoho CRM Before Import

Do this before importing a single contact:

1. Build Your Pipeline

Go to Settings → Pipelines → Add Pipeline. Create stages that match how your sales team actually works — don't just copy HubSpot's stages. This is an opportunity to clean up your process.

2. Create Custom Fields

Match your HubSpot custom properties to Zoho CRM custom fields. Go to Settings → Modules → Contacts → Fields → Add Field for each custom property you're carrying over.

3. Set Up Users and Roles

Create user accounts for all your reps before importing, so you can assign contact owners correctly during the import.

4. Configure Lead Sources

Add your HubSpot lead source values to Zoho CRM's Lead Source picklist so they import correctly.

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The Import Process

Step 1: Import Accounts (Companies) First

Companies must exist before contacts, since contacts reference a company. Go to Accounts → Import → Upload CSV. Map your HubSpot company fields to Zoho CRM Account fields.

Step 2: Import Contacts

Go to Contacts → Import → Upload CSV. Map fields carefully:

• HubSpot "Lifecycle Stage" → Zoho "Lead Status"
• HubSpot "Contact Owner" → Zoho "Contact Owner" (must match user email addresses)
• HubSpot "Associated Company" → Zoho "Account Name"

Step 3: Import Deals

Go to Deals → Import → Upload CSV. Map deal stages to your newly created Zoho CRM pipeline stages.

Step 4: Import Activities

Activities import via the Zoho CRM API or using a third-party migration tool. For most teams, importing notes (as Notes in Zoho CRM) is the most practical approach — logged emails and calls add bulk without adding much value.

Step 5: Run a Validation Pass

After import, spot-check 20–30 records. Verify:

• Contact-to-Account associations are correct
• Deal-to-Contact associations are correct
• Custom field values imported correctly
• Owner assignments are correct

Fix issues at this stage before your team starts using the system.

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Rebuilding Workflows and Sequences

Workflows

HubSpot workflows = Zoho CRM Workflow Rules. Go to Settings → Automation → Workflow Rules.

For each HubSpot workflow, document:

• Trigger condition
• Actions (email send, field update, task create, etc.)
• Delays/timing

Then recreate in Zoho CRM. Complex multi-branch workflows may need Zoho's Blueprint feature instead of standard Workflow Rules.

Email Sequences

HubSpot sequences = Zoho CRM Cadences (available in Enterprise tier). Recreate your sequences with the same steps and timing. Your email templates will need to be rebuilt — export your HubSpot templates and paste the content into Zoho's email template editor.

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Integrations to Reconnect

After migration, reconnect your integrations:

• Email (Gmail/Outlook): Settings → Email → Configure personal email sync
• Calendar (Google/Outlook): Settings → Calendar → Connect
• Slack: Zoho CRM Marketplace → Slack
• Stripe/Billing: Reconnect via Zoho CRM Marketplace or Zoho Flow
• Zoom: Install Zoho CRM for Zoom from the Marketplace
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator: Reconnect if you use it

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Training Your Team

The biggest risk in a HubSpot to Zoho CRM migration isn't the technical migration — it's adoption. A few things that help:

Run a 2-hour onboarding session for reps: logging a call, updating a deal, sending an email from within CRM, and creating a task. Cover just these five things — don't overwhelm them with features on day one.

Keep HubSpot read-only for 30 days so reps can look up old conversation history while they get used to Zoho CRM.

Nominate a Zoho CRM champion — one person on the team who becomes the go-to for questions and advocates for the new system.

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Timeline Expectations

| Phase | Duration | |---|---| | Data export and cleanup | 2–3 days | | Zoho CRM setup (fields, pipeline, users) | 1–2 days | | Test import and validation | 1 day | | Final import | 1 day | | Workflow and sequence rebuild | 2–5 days | | Integration reconnection | 1 day | | Team training | 1 day | | Total | ~2 weeks |

A clean migration from HubSpot to Zoho CRM for a team of 10–30 takes approximately 2 weeks with dedicated effort. Larger teams or more complex workflows take 3–4 weeks.

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VoltVave handles HubSpot to Zoho CRM migrations end-to-end — data migration, pipeline setup, workflow rebuild, integration reconnection, and team training. Get in touch for a free scope assessment.