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Stop me if this sounds familiar: your team is juggling multiple tools to manage projects, track tasks, and communicate effectively. You’re already using HubSpot (or thinking of using it) to manage your CRM and marketing, but now you’re wondering: can it help you simplify project management too? After all, fewer tools mean less hassle, right?
Here’s the thing—HubSpot isn’t traditionally thought of as a project management tool. It’s better known for its robust CRM, marketing automation, and sales features.
But if you’re already paying for it, why not explore if it can double as a project management solution?
In this article, you’ll learn:
- What HubSpot is and what it offers
- How HubSpot’s features can be applied to project management
- The benefits and limitations of using HubSpot in this wa
- Whether HubSpot is the right tool for your team’s project management needs
By the end, you’ll have a clear understanding of whether HubSpot is a good fit for project management—or if you should look elsewhere for a dedicated solution.
What is HubSpot?
HubSpot is an all-in-one platform designed to help businesses attract, engage, and delight customers. It’s widely recognised for its powerful tools across marketing, sales, customer service, and content management.
Whether you’re nurturing leads with email automation, tracking deals in the sales pipeline, or building a knowledge base for customer support, HubSpot has a feature to support your goals.
At its core, HubSpot is built around its CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system, which acts as the foundation for all its tools. This CRM provides a centralised place to store and manage customer data, enabling teams to collaborate more effectively. Over the years, HubSpot has expanded its functionality with “Hubs,” including:
- Marketing Hub: For campaigns, email automation, and lead generation
- Sales Hub: For pipeline management, email tracking, and sales automation
- Service Hub: For customer support, ticketing systems, and live chat
- Content Hub: For managing your website and content marketing efforts
- Operations Hub: For automating processes and syncing data across platforms
- AI Breeze: Several AI features which can be used to enrich your data and speed up your workflow significantly
While these hubs are traditionally focused on external-facing functions like sales and marketing, some of their features—such as task management, workflows, and reporting—can be repurposed for internal project management.
So, while HubSpot may not have been explicitly designed for project management, its flexibility has led some teams to use it as a substitute.
But how well does it perform in this role?
HubSpot as a Project Management Tool
While HubSpot isn’t marketed as a project management platform, it includes several features that can be adapted to handle project management tasks. These functionalities are primarily rooted in its CRM and the various hubs, particularly the Sales and Marketing Hubs.
Here’s a closer look at how HubSpot can function as a project management tool:
1. Task Management
HubSpot allows you to create, assign, and track tasks directly within the platform. For example, you can:
- Assign tasks to team members, complete with due dates and priorities
- View tasks in a list or timeline format for better organisation
- Use filters to sort tasks by user, due date, or status
While it works well for managing individual responsibilities, task dependencies or more complex workflows might be harder to implement without additional tools.
Here’s what the task setup looks like:
You can also enter more details for the task, as you can see below:
Here’s an official guide from HubSpot on how to create tasks within HubSpot.
2. Workflows for Automation
HubSpot’s automation features—found in its Workflows tool—can streamline repetitive tasks.
For instance, you could:
- Automate task creation based on specific triggers, such as a new deal being added to the pipeline
- Send reminders or updates to team members when tasks are nearing their due date
- Automatically update project statuses when certain conditions are met
These workflows can simplify recurring processes, but they may require some setup and familiarity with HubSpot’s automation options.
Here’s a guide on how to create workflows in HubSpot.
3. Dashboards and Reporting
HubSpot’s custom dashboards and reporting tools provide visibility into your project’s progress.
You can:
- Create dashboards that track task completion rates or project milestones
- Use pre-built or custom reports to identify bottlenecks or areas for improvement
However, HubSpot’s reporting features are more geared toward sales and marketing metrics, so adapting them for project management might require creativity.
4. Team Collaboration
HubSpot’s collaboration tools include shared task views, notes, and activity logs. These features can help team members stay on the same page by providing:
- A centralised space to share updates, comments, and files
- Activity timelines to track progress on deals, tasks, or campaigns
Although these tools are helpful, they may not fully replace the collaboration features of dedicated project management platforms, like real-time document sharing or advanced communication options.
5. Pipelines as Project Frameworks
HubSpot’s deal pipelines can be repurposed to manage project workflows. By treating each project or task as a “deal,” you can create custom pipeline stages that reflect your project’s progress, such as:
- To-Do
- In Progress
- Under Review
- Completed
This visual representation can be particularly useful for smaller teams or simpler projects. However, it may not scale well for more complex projects involving multiple phases or dependencies.
While HubSpot’s tools offer flexibility, they do have limitations when compared to dedicated project management software.
Strengths of Using HubSpot for Project Management
HubSpot offers several advantages when repurposed for project management, particularly for teams already using its CRM and marketing tools.
Here are some of the key strengths:
1. Seamless Integration Across Teams
HubSpot’s tools are designed to work harmoniously across sales, marketing, and customer service teams.
By using it for project management, you can streamline collaboration and ensure everyone stays aligned. For example:
- Marketing teams can monitor campaign progress alongside project deliverables
- Sales teams can track follow-up tasks directly tied to deal stages
This integrated approach eliminates the need for multiple tools, creating a more cohesive workflow.
2. Centralised Data
Because HubSpot serves as a CRM at its core, all data—tasks, client information, deal statuses, and more—lives in one place. This centralisation offers a clear advantage for project management:
- Reduces time spent switching between platforms
- Provides easy access to relevant data for all team members
- Helps avoid duplication of effort or data silos
3. Built-In Automation
One of HubSpot’s standout features is its robust automation. By leveraging workflows, you can reduce the manual effort required to manage repetitive tasks, such as:
- Assigning tasks to team members when certain conditions are met (e.g., when a deal reaches a new stage)
- Sending reminders or follow-ups to keep projects on track
- Updating project statuses automatically to reflect progress
This automation ensures that nothing falls through the cracks and keeps projects moving smoothly.
4. Cost Effectiveness for HubSpot Users
If your business is already using HubSpot for CRM, marketing, or sales, repurposing it for project management can save money compared to investing in a separate tool.
This approach might be particularly advantageous for smaller teams or startups that prefer to maximise their existing software investments.
5. Customisation
HubSpot’s flexibility allows you to tailor its tools to fit your project management needs. Whether it’s creating custom dashboards, repurposing deal pipelines, or configuring automation workflows, HubSpot enables you to adapt the platform to your processes.
6. User-Friendly Interface
HubSpot is known for its clean and user-friendly design, which makes it easy to onboard team members. The intuitive interface reduces the learning curve often associated with new project management tools, enabling teams to hit the ground running.
In saying this, there are also several limitations that you need to be aware of.
Limitations of Using HubSpot for Project Management
While HubSpot offers flexibility and functionality that can be repurposed for project management, it has limitations when compared to dedicated project management platforms.
Here are some of the key challenges you may encounter:
1. Limited Project Management Features
HubSpot wasn’t built as a project management platform, so it lacks many features that dedicated tools offer, such as:
- Gantt charts for visualising project timelines
- Kanban boards beyond the basic deal pipeline functionality
- Time-tracking tools for monitoring work hours on specific tasks or projects
- Advanced dependency tracking to manage complex workflows
If your projects require these tools, HubSpot might not be sufficient on its own.
2. Scalability Challenges
For smaller teams or straightforward projects, HubSpot can work well. However, as your projects grow in complexity, managing dependencies, multiple phases, and larger teams becomes more challenging. The platform’s lack of deep project management capabilities can lead to workarounds that are time-consuming and difficult to maintain.
3. Limited Collaboration Tools
HubSpot’s collaboration features, such as shared notes and activity logs, are helpful but limited compared to tools like Trello, Asana, or Monday.com.
These platforms offer real-time commenting, file-sharing, and in-app chat functionalities, which HubSpot lacks. Teams heavily reliant on collaborative workflows might find this restrictive.
4. Customisation Requires Expertise
While HubSpot is customisable, setting up workflows, dashboards, or pipelines for project management often requires significant effort and knowledge of the platform.
For teams without a dedicated HubSpot expert, this can be a barrier to effectively repurposing the tool.
5. Cost Considerations
If you’re not already using HubSpot for other purposes, it might not be the most cost-effective option for project management.
Many dedicated project management tools offer free plans or lower entry-level costs, whereas HubSpot’s premium tiers can be pricey for teams looking solely for project management capabilities.
6. Reporting Limitations for Projects
HubSpot’s reporting tools are excellent for sales and marketing metrics but less equipped for project-focused insights. For example:
- You won’t find built-in templates for tracking project budgets or time allocation
- Customising reports for project management often involves significant manual effort
For teams needing detailed analytics on project performance, this could be a drawback.
While HubSpot can serve basic project management needs, these limitations highlight why dedicated tools might be better suited for more complex or large-scale projects.
So, Should You Use HubSpot for Project Management?
Here’s the deal: if you’re already using HubSpot for CRM, sales, or marketing, and you want to keep everything under one roof, it’s worth exploring for project management. HubSpot has a lot going for it—task management, automation, dashboards, and seamless integration across teams. For smaller projects or teams that value simplicity and centralisation, it can do the job without breaking a sweat.
But let’s be real, HubSpot wasn’t built to be a full-fledged project management tool. If you’re managing large-scale projects with complex workflows, dependencies, and a need for advanced collaboration tools, it might feel like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. You could make it work, but it’ll take effort—and possibly a lot of workarounds.
So, here’s what I’d tell you: if your projects are straightforward and you want to simplify your tech stack, give HubSpot a shot. But if you need the bells and whistles of a dedicated project management platform, like Gantt charts or deep-time tracking, you might be better off looking at something built for that purpose.
At the end of the day, the question isn’t whether HubSpot can handle project management—it’s whether HubSpot fits the way your team works. Take a hard look at your needs, weigh the pros and cons, and choose the tool that makes your life easier, not harder.
Next, learn about the top five features in HubSpot.
