HubSpot subscription types control which marketing emails your contacts receive. Instead of unsubscribing from everything, a contact can opt out of specific content types — weekly newsletters, for example — while still receiving product updates or transactional emails. Setting them up correctly reduces unsubscribes and keeps your email deliverability healthy.
This guide explains what HubSpot subscription types are, how to configure them, and how to use them in your email sends and preference centres.
In HubSpot, navigate to Settings > Marketing > Email > Subscription Types. You’ll see any existing types and a button to create new ones.
Click Create subscription type. Give it a clear name (e.g. “Monthly Newsletter”, “Product Updates”, “Event Invitations”), add a short description that contacts will see when managing their preferences, and choose whether it’s opt-in by default.
When building or editing a marketing email, scroll to the Settings tab. Under Subscription type, select the relevant type. HubSpot will use this to check whether the recipient is opted in before sending.
In any HubSpot form, add the Email subscription types field. Contacts filling in the form can select which types they want to receive. This is the most common way to collect granular preferences at the point of sign-up.
HubSpot automatically generates a subscription preference page linked from your email footer. Make sure your unsubscribe link points there, not to a single-click global opt-out. Contacts then manage their preferences rather than leaving your list entirely.
What Are HubSpot Subscription Types?
A subscription type is a category of marketing communication. Examples used by teams across Southeast Asia include:
- Monthly Newsletter — regular roundups of content, tips, or company news
- Product Updates — announcements about new features or service changes
- Event Invitations — webinars, in-person events, conferences
- Promotional Offers — discounts, special deals, campaign-specific emails
- Training Resources — onboarding sequences, how-to guides for existing customers
Each contact’s subscription preferences are stored on their record. When you send a marketing email, HubSpot checks whether the recipient has opted in (or at least not opted out) to the subscription type assigned to that email before including them in the send.
How Do Subscription Types Differ from Marketing Contact Status?
Two separate things control whether a contact receives your emails in HubSpot:
- Marketing contact status — whether the contact counts toward your marketing contacts limit and can receive marketing emails at all. Non-marketing contacts can only receive transactional and operational emails.
- Subscription types — within marketing contacts, which categories of email they’ve opted into. A contact marked as a marketing contact can still be opted out of specific types.
For most teams, you set contacts as marketing contacts during import or via a workflow, then use subscription types to handle preference management after that.
Why Set Up Subscription Types Early?
Subscription types become harder to retrofit after you’ve been sending emails for a while. If contacts have only ever seen a single global opt-out, re-introducing granular preferences requires re-permission campaigns. Teams that set them up at the start get cleaner data and lower unsubscribe rates over time.
For teams in Southeast Asia managing LINE alongside email, subscription types let you distinguish between email newsletters and event-specific emails without asking contacts to unsubscribe from everything when one type becomes irrelevant to them.
How to Update Subscription Preferences in Bulk
If you’re importing contacts and want to set their subscription status at the same time, include a column in your CSV for each subscription type. During the import mapping step, map that column to the relevant subscription type and set the value to Subscribed or Not subscribed.
You can also update preferences in bulk using a workflow: enrol contacts from a list, then use the Manage subscription status action to opt them in or out of a specific type.
How to Use Subscription Types in HubSpot Workflows
Subscription types work as both workflow triggers and workflow actions:
- Trigger: start a workflow when a contact opts in to a specific type (e.g. subscribe to “Training Resources” triggers an onboarding sequence).
- Filter: in list criteria or workflow enrollment triggers, filter by subscription status to ensure you only send relevant sequences to opted-in contacts.
- Action: update subscription status as part of a workflow, such as opting contacts into event updates after they register for a webinar.
What Happens When a Contact Unsubscribes?
When a contact clicks Unsubscribe in your email footer, they’re taken to your preference centre. By default, they can:
- Opt out of the specific subscription type that email was assigned to
- Opt out of all marketing emails
- Update their other subscription preferences
HubSpot logs the unsubscribe action on the contact’s activity timeline, so your team can see when and what a contact opted out of. Transactional emails — receipts, password resets, notifications — are not affected by marketing subscription settings.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Can I create subscription types on a free HubSpot account?
- Basic subscription management is available across most HubSpot tiers, but advanced features — like custom preference centre pages and granular type management — require a paid Marketing Hub plan. Check your current tier in Settings.
- How many subscription types should I have?
- Keep it practical. Most teams work well with three to five types. Too many options in the preference centre can confuse contacts and lead to more complete opt-outs.
- Can contacts opt back in after unsubscribing?
- Yes. They can return to the preference centre via the link in any email footer, or you can embed a re-subscription form on your website. Re-opting in through a form is the cleanest method for scenarios where consent records matter.
- Do subscription types apply to one-to-one sales emails sent through sequences?
- No. Sequences use sales email infrastructure, not marketing email. They are not governed by subscription type settings. Subscription types apply to bulk marketing emails only.
An independent informational resource produced by a HubSpot Platinum Partner. HubSpot is a trademark of HubSpot, Inc.
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