How to Configure Lifecycle Stages in Hubspot

Managing your customer journey in Hubspot starts with correctly setting up lifecycle stages so you can track contacts, companies, and deals from first touch to closed revenue.

This guide walks through how lifecycle stages work, where they appear, and how to customize them for your team.

What Are Lifecycle Stages in Hubspot?

Lifecycle stages are default properties that show where a contact, company, or deal is in your marketing and sales funnel.

They help you:

• Segment leads by funnel stage
• Align marketing and sales handoffs
• Report on pipeline health and conversions
• Automate nurturing and qualification workflows

By default, lifecycle stages move in a forward direction along your funnel. Once a record reaches a later stage, it will not move back to an earlier one automatically.

Default Lifecycle Stages in Hubspot

The default lifecycle stages in Hubspot typically include:

• Subscriber – People who know your business and opted in to hear from you.
• Lead – Contacts who show initial interest, such as by filling out a form.
• Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) – Leads considered qualified for marketing follow-up.
• Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) – Leads vetted and ready for direct sales engagement.
• Opportunity – Open deals associated with a contact or company.
• Customer – Contacts or companies with at least one closed-won deal.
• Evangelist – Customers who actively promote your brand.
• Other – Records that do not fit the main funnel.

Each stage is stored as a property value on contacts, companies, and deals and can be used in filters, lists, and reports across Hubspot.

Where Lifecycle Stages Appear in Hubspot

Lifecycle stages are system properties that you will see in multiple tools and views.

Object Records

On individual contact, company, and deal records, you can view and update the lifecycle stage property in the left-hand or center column, depending on your layout.

Views and Lists

You can use lifecycle stage as a filter in table views, custom views, and lists to segment your database, for example:

• All MQLs generated this quarter
• All SQLs with open deals
• All Customers without an assigned owner

Workflows and Automation

Lifecycle stages are available in workflows as both triggers and actions, so you can:

• Trigger nurture sequences when a lead becomes an MQL
• Update the lifecycle stage when a deal moves to a specific pipeline stage
• Notify sales when a high-intent form sets a record to SQL

How Lifecycle Stage Sync Works in Hubspot

Hubspot keeps lifecycle stages aligned between contacts, companies, and deals based on certain rules.

Contact and Company Sync

When contacts and companies are associated, lifecycle changes may sync depending on your association settings. In many setups:

• Updating the lifecycle of a primary company can update its associated contacts to the same or a later stage.
• Contacts can also influence the lifecycle of their associated companies when they move to a later stage.

This ensures that account-level and contact-level stages stay consistent across Hubspot.

Deal Influence on Lifecycle Stage

Deals can affect lifecycle stage when they are created or when they reach a closed-won stage:

• Creating a new open deal may set the related contact and company to Opportunity.
• When a deal is marked closed-won, Hubspot can automatically move associated contacts and companies to Customer.

These rules reduce manual updates and help keep your reporting accurate.

How to Customize Lifecycle Stages in Hubspot

You can edit the default lifecycle stage property to better match your funnel while staying within the system rules.

Access Lifecycle Stage Settings

1. In your Hubspot account, go to Settings.
2. Navigate to Objects and choose Contacts, Companies, or Deals.
3. Select Properties and search for the lifecycle stage property for that object.

From here, you can manage the existing stage options.

Rename Existing Stages

You can rename default lifecycle stage labels to match your internal language without changing the underlying logic. For example:

• Rename Subscriber to Newsletter Subscriber
• Rename Sales Qualified Lead to Sales Accepted Lead

Renaming only affects how the label appears in the Hubspot UI and reports.

Reorder Stages Carefully

The order of lifecycle stages controls how forward-only progression behaves. You can reorder existing values, but keep them in a logical funnel sequence:

1. Position awareness stages early (like Subscriber).
2. Place qualification stages (MQL, SQL) in the middle.
3. Keep revenue and post-sale stages (Opportunity, Customer, Evangelist) last.

Reordering can impact automation logic and reporting, so confirm changes with your operations team.

Add Custom Lifecycle Values

You can add new lifecycle values, for example:

• Product Qualified Lead
• Onboarding
• Churned

When adding custom values:

• Place them in the correct order in relation to existing stages.
• Update workflows and forms to use the new values where needed.
• Align definitions with your marketing, sales, and success teams.

Key Rules and Limitations in Hubspot Lifecycle Stages

When working with lifecycle stages, keep these rules in mind:

• Lifecycle stage progression is designed to move forward only.
• Certain system behaviors, like deal-closed logic, will always set records to Customer when a closed-won deal exists.
• You cannot delete the core lifecycle stage property itself.
• Values that are in use cannot always be removed without data cleanup.

Always review the impact of any change on your automation, routing, and reports across Hubspot.

Reporting on Lifecycle Stages in Hubspot

Lifecycle stages power many standard and custom reports.

Common lifecycle reports include:

• Funnel conversion from Lead to Customer
• Volume of MQLs and SQLs over time
• Pipeline value by lifecycle stage
• Time spent in each lifecycle stage

Use these insights to refine qualification criteria, improve handoffs, and identify bottlenecks across your funnel.

Best Practices for Managing Lifecycle Stages in Hubspot

• Document definitions for every stage and share them with marketing, sales, and success teams.
• Use workflows to automate stage updates based on clear triggers.
• Avoid manual overrides unless you have a documented exception process.
• Audit regularly to ensure records are in the correct stage.
• Test changes in a small segment before rolling out across your entire Hubspot account.

Additional Resources

For the official product documentation on lifecycle stages, review the source article on the Hubspot Knowledge Base: How to create and customize lifecycle stages.

If you need strategic help designing your lifecycle model, automation, and reporting, you can work with a Hubspot-focused consultancy such as Consultevo.

By defining, customizing, and enforcing lifecycle stages correctly, you gain reliable funnel visibility and create a consistent, scalable revenue process across your entire Hubspot environment.

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