Migrate from Help Scout to HubSpot Service Hub

Help Scout Customers map to HubSpot Contacts with email as the dedupe key. Standard fields (email, first name, last name, phone, address, company) map directly. Help Scout Customer Properties (Plus-plan feature) map to HubSpot custom contact properties with equivalent field types. We detect duplicate Contacts by email before import and flag for customer admin to decide on skip or merge. Help Scout's unlimited-user model means no Owner reconciliation is needed on the Contact record unless the Help Scout account uses a Salesforce integration to surface owner data.

Help Scout Companies map to HubSpot Companies using domain as the dedupe key. Standard fields (name, domain, phone, address) migrate directly. Company-level custom properties map to HubSpot Company properties. Company is created before Contact import to satisfy the lookup dependency on the Contact-Company relationship. If the Help Scout account uses the Salesforce integration to sync company data, we validate that HubSpot Companies are correctly matched against the HubSpot account's own company records.

Help Scout Conversations map to HubSpot Tickets, the closest structural equivalent. The Help Scout thread (all replies and internal notes in sequence) maps to the HubSpot Ticket conversation timeline. We map the Help Scout mailbox assignment to a HubSpot pipeline by routing rule during scoping; if the customer uses multiple mailboxes for routing, we either consolidate them into one HubSpot pipeline or split them into multiple HubSpot pipelines based on the customer's preferred model. Help Scout's closed, active, and spam status values map to HubSpot Ticket status (open, closed, closed). The Help Scout conversation ID is preserved in a custom Ticket property for audit trail.

Help Scout Mailboxes have no direct HubSpot equivalent because HubSpot Service Hub uses a single inbox filtered by pipeline and ticket status. During scoping we assess whether the customer's mailboxes represent distinct routing domains (e.g., separate product inboxes, regional inboxes) and either consolidate them into one HubSpot pipeline with stage-based routing or map them to multiple pipelines with separate Sales Processes. Each mailbox's custom fields (up to 10 per mailbox on Plus plan) require pre-creation of equivalent HubSpot Ticket properties before migration.

Help Scout Custom Fields (Dropdown, Single line, Multi line, Number, Date) are gated to Plus and Pro plans. We detect the source plan tier during scoping and create matching HubSpot custom contact properties (for Customer Properties) and custom ticket properties (for Conversation Custom Fields) before migration. Dropdown fields with up to 100 options migrate as HubSpot single-select picklists; multi-value dropdowns migrate as multi-select picklists. Custom fields on accounts below Plus tier do not exist in the source schema and are skipped without error.

Help Scout Tags are applied across Conversations, Customers, and Docs, with no tag hierarchy or nesting. We preserve all tag assignments during migration and map them to HubSpot Labels on Tickets and Contacts. If the customer uses Help Scout tags for ticket categorization or priority routing, we document the tag-to-pipeline mapping during scoping. Multi-value tagging semantics are preserved by applying all tags as comma-separated Labels in HubSpot. Tags used for content classification in Docs migrate to HubSpot Knowledge Base article labels separately.

Help Scout Docs articles organized within Collections map to HubSpot Knowledge Base articles and categories. We export article content (HTML), category structure, author attribution, published status, and navigation hierarchy via the Help Scout Docs API. Help Scout Docs is a separately priced product ($20/month per additional site on Free plan); we confirm during scoping whether Docs migration is in scope and whether the destination HubSpot account is on a paid Service Hub tier with knowledge base enabled. Published status maps to HubSpot article availability. Docs with fewer than 500 articles migrate within standard scope; larger knowledge bases are scoped as an add-on.

Help Scout Automatic Workflows with triggers (conversation status change, mailbox assignment, tag applied, customer property change) do not migrate as automation code because HubSpot uses a different automation model. We inventory every active Help Scout Workflow during scoping: trigger, conditions, actions, and intended outcome. For each workflow we produce a written handoff document with a recommended HubSpot Workflow or Automation equivalent using the customer's Service Hub tier (Professional and above includes Workflows). The customer's admin rebuilds automations post-migration; we do not write HubSpot automation logic inside the migration scope.

Help Scout Users (agents, admins, billing owners) map to HubSpot Users by email address match. Help Scout's unlimited-user pricing means all agents on the account are available for migration; we extract the full user list including role (admin, agent) and team assignment. HubSpot seat provisioning is the customer's responsibility; we match Help Scout users to existing HubSpot users by email and flag any Help Scout users without a HubSpot account in a reconciliation queue before Contact and Ticket migration begins.

Help Scout Teams and Departments group agents for routing and permissions. We preserve team assignments and map them to HubSpot Teams. Advanced team permissions in Help Scout (Plus-plan feature) that gate mailbox access by team do not transfer as permission sets; we document the original permission matrix for the customer to reconfigure in HubSpot after migration.

Attachments embedded in Help Scout conversation threads are exported as binary blobs via the Inbox API and re-attached to the corresponding HubSpot Ticket records. We export all MIME-encoded file attachments with original filenames and MIME types preserved. Large attachment batches (accounts with over 10,000 attachments) are migrated in a separate batch phase to prevent API timeouts; attachments are linked to the correct Ticket by Help Scout conversation ID lookup. Image inline attachments within conversation body HTML are handled as ContentDocument records linked to the Ticket.

Help Scout Saved Replies are template snippets used across conversations. We export all Saved Replies as a structured JSON inventory including title, body, shortcut key, and mailbox assignment. HubSpot Service Hub does not have a native Saved Replies object equivalent at the Starter or Professional tiers; the inventory is delivered as a documented set for the customer's admin to import manually into HubSpot via settings or as a knowledge base article referenced from a workflow. If the customer is on a higher HubSpot tier with a template library, we map the inventory to the closest equivalent.