How to Create Custom Funnel Reports in Hubspot

Building clear funnel reports in Hubspot helps you understand how contacts, companies, deals, and tickets move through your pipeline and where they drop off. This guide walks you through every step to configure, customize, and interpret your funnel performance using standard and advanced funnel reports.

Understanding Hubspot Funnel Report Types

Before you build a report, you need to choose the right funnel type in Hubspot. Each funnel type is based on a different set of objects and can answer different questions about your pipeline.

Standard funnel reports in Hubspot

Standard custom funnel reports are object-based and focus on how records move between property values over time. You can select from four standard funnel types:

• Contact funnel: track contacts moving through lifecycle stages.
• Company funnel: measure how companies progress through company lifecycle stages or custom properties.
• Deal funnel: analyze deals as they advance across deal stages in a pipeline.
• Ticket funnel: evaluate support performance as tickets move from one status to another.

These funnels are ideal when you want a structured, stage-based view of conversion performance in Hubspot.

Event and activity-based funnels in Hubspot

For more granular tracking, you can build funnels based on events and activities recorded in your CRM.

• Retention funnel reports: use custom behavioral events or Hubspot events to understand how often visitors or users repeat a key action over time.
• Sales funnel reports: use logged activities to show progression across meetings, calls, emails, and other actions tied to your sales process.

These event and activity-based reports require additional configuration but unlock deeper insight into how people and teams engage inside Hubspot.

Key Requirements Before Building Hubspot Reports

Not all features are available in every account. To build custom event-based or advanced funnel reports in Hubspot, you may need specific subscriptions and tools.

• To use retention reports based on custom events, you must have access to custom behavioral events.
• To use retention reports based on standard Hubspot events, you need the HubSpot Events tool.
• To build sales funnel reports that include activities, you need access to tasks and logged activities such as calls, emails, and meetings.
• To edit or create new funnel reports, your user must have the correct reporting permissions.

If you need help validating your setup or choosing the right subscription mix, consider consulting a Hubspot-focused partner such as Consultevo for implementation guidance.

How to Create a Standard Funnel Report in Hubspot

Use a standard funnel when you want to track movement between property-based stages, like lifecycle or deal stages.

Step 1: Start a new funnel report in Hubspot

1. In your Hubspot account, navigate to Reports > Reports.
2. Click Create report.
3. Select Funnels from the report type options.
4. Choose the object type you want to analyze: Contacts, Companies, Deals, or Tickets.

This opens the funnel builder interface where you define stages and filters.

Step 2: Choose the funnel type and direction

In the funnel builder, pick how you want Hubspot to evaluate the flow of records.

• Open funnel: includes any record that reached a later stage, even if it did not pass through every earlier stage.
• Strict funnel: only includes records that moved through all stages in the exact order you specify.

Open funnels are best for flexible pipelines, while strict funnels are ideal when you must confirm every stage is completed in sequence.

Step 3: Define your Hubspot funnel stages

1. Select the property that will define your stages. For example:
   • Contact funnel: Lifecycle stage.
   • Deal funnel: Deal stage.
   • Ticket funnel: Ticket status.
2. Click Add stage and pick the specific values that represent each step in your funnel.
3. Reorder stages if needed so they reflect the actual progression you expect in Hubspot.

Hubspot will calculate conversion rates based on how records change from one stage value to another over your chosen date range.

Step 4: Apply filters and date ranges

Next, narrow your report to focus on the most relevant subset of your data.

• Add filters such as owner, pipeline, team, region, or any custom property.
• Choose a date range that controls which records are included in the analysis.
• Specify whether the report uses the date of record creation or the date of stage change as the key time reference.

These filters help you build targeted Hubspot funnel dashboards, such as specific sales teams or product lines.

Step 5: Customize visualization and save your Hubspot report

1. Choose your chart type, commonly a bar or funnel visualization.
2. Enable or disable metrics such as count of records, conversion percentage, and cumulative drop-off.
3. Preview the report and confirm the numbers align with your expectations.
4. Click Save report, give it a meaningful name, and add it to an existing or new dashboard.

Once saved, your Hubspot funnel report can be shared with users, scheduled via email, or cloned and adjusted for alternative segments.

How to Create Retention Funnel Reports in Hubspot

Retention reports in Hubspot focus on repeat actions over time, such as recurring logins, purchases, or feature usage.

Step 1: Select retention as the funnel type

1. From the report creation screen, choose Funnels and then select the Retention option.
2. Pick whether you are using custom behavioral events or standard Hubspot events as the base.

Step 2: Configure the starting and returning events

• Define the starting event that initiates the cohort, such as a signup or first purchase.
• Set the returning event that indicates retention, like a repeat login or additional purchase.
• Choose the time interval (day, week, month) that defines when users must return to be counted as retained.

Hubspot will then group users into cohorts based on their start date and chart how many return during each subsequent period.

Step 3: Filter and interpret retention data

• Add filters such as country, plan type, or lifecycle stage.
• Analyze which cohorts show the strongest retention and where drop-off occurs.
• Use these insights to refine onboarding, product experiences, and lifecycle nurturing in Hubspot.

How to Build Sales Activity Funnels in Hubspot

Sales funnels based on activities show how consistently reps move prospects through meetings, calls, and follow-ups.

Step 1: Choose the sales activity funnel option

1. In the funnel report builder, select Sales activity as the type.
2. Ensure your Hubspot account is logging activities such as calls, emails, notes, tasks, and meetings.

Step 2: Define activity steps

• Choose which activities count as funnel steps, for example:
  • First meeting booked.
  • Follow-up call completed.
  • Proposal email sent.
  • Closing call scheduled.
• Arrange activities in the order that matches your internal sales process.

Hubspot will calculate how many records move from one activity to the next and the percentage that fail to progress.

Step 3: Use insights to optimize sales performance

• Identify bottlenecks where prospects stall between activities.
• Compare conversion performance across teams, reps, or segments.
• Update playbooks and sequences in Hubspot to address gaps uncovered by the funnel.

Best Practices for Reliable Hubspot Funnel Data

A powerful funnel report is only as strong as the data behind it. Apply these practices across your Hubspot account to keep your reports trustworthy.

• Standardize properties: ensure lifecycle stages, deal stages, and ticket statuses are clearly defined and consistently used.
• Automate stage updates: use workflows to change stages automatically when conditions are met, reducing manual errors.
• Clean your database regularly: remove duplicates and inactive records that might distort conversion rates.
• Align teams: confirm marketing, sales, and service teams share a common definition of each stage in Hubspot.

Next Steps and Additional Resources

Once you master custom funnel reports, expand your analytics by combining them with attribution, revenue, and lifecycle reporting in Hubspot. For deeper technical details on configuration options, review the official documentation at Hubspot’s custom funnel reports help article.

Use these funnel capabilities to build focused dashboards, monitor trends over time, and drive continuous improvement across your marketing, sales, and service operations powered by Hubspot.

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