HubSpot introduced Leads at INBOUND 2023 as part of its Smart CRM vision.
At the time, the object was limited and misunderstood. Many teams assumed HubSpot Leads would finally sync one-to-one with Salesforce Leads, solving years of friction.
The truth is more complicated. HubSpot Leads have grown since launch, but they still don’t behave exactly like Salesforce Leads.
Here’s what HubSpot Leads are today, how they compare to Salesforce Leads, and what to watch for when you’re running both platforms.
What are HubSpot leads?
HubSpot Leads are available in Sales Hub Professional and Enterprise. They now exist as a proper CRM object with their own API, meaning you can create, update, and manage Leads programmatically.
Still, HubSpot Leads cannot exist on their own.
Every Lead must be associated with either a Contact or a Company.
What you can do with HubSpot leads
With the release of the Leads API, the functionality has expanded significantly.
Today you can:
- Create and update Leads via API, not just manually in the UI
- Build reports around Leads to track volume, stages, and outcomes
- Filter Contacts and Companies by their associated Leads in Lists
- Track progress through Lead Stages to see how reps are working accounts
- Log disqualification reasons to improve retargeting and campaign reporting
What you cannot (yet) do with HubSpot leads
Despite the progress, HubSpot Leads still come with clear boundaries.
They are not a perfect mirror of Salesforce Leads, and treating them as such will cause issues.
For one, there is no automatic one-to-one sync between HubSpot Leads and Salesforce Leads… You’ll need to build custom mappings if you want data to flow cleanly.
Every Lead must also be tied to an existing Contact or Company, which means you cannot create or manage standalone Leads the way you can in Salesforce.
On top of that, not all associations and customization options are available yet, with some still in beta or locked to higher subscription tiers.
And from a marketing perspective, Leads cannot serve as the foundation for campaigns: you can’t build email lists or run outreach solely on HubSpot Leads, because those functions still depend on Contacts.
How Salesforce leads work
Salesforce has long treated Leads and Contacts as fully independent objects with separate IDs.
- A Lead represents an unqualified individual.
- Once purchase intent is validated, Salesforce converts the Lead into a Contact (and usually an Account and Opportunity).
This distinction remains.
Salesforce Leads and Contacts are not two versions of the same record. They are separate objects tied to different stages of the buyer’s journey.
How HubSpot leads sync with Salesforce
Out of the box, HubSpot Leads do not sync directly to Salesforce Leads.
The naming overlap is misleading.
HubSpot Leads are only visible within HubSpot and through its API.
To bring HubSpot Leads into Salesforce, you’ll need to explicitly map fields and build the integration logic. This might mean syncing HubSpot Lead properties to Salesforce Contact or Lead fields, depending on your process.
If you skip this setup, you risk a data gap: Leads logged in HubSpot but invisible to Salesforce reporting.
In a nutshell
HubSpot Leads have matured from a limited beta feature into a usable sales object with API access. But they are still not Salesforce Leads, and treating them as interchangeable will create problems.
If your team uses HubSpot Sales Hub alongside Salesforce, make sure you:
- Define how Leads should be mapped and reported before rollout
- Configure integrations carefully so sales activity is visible in both systems
- Monitor reports regularly to catch gaps between HubSpot and Salesforce data
We have a comprehensive guide to the HubSpot-Salesforce integration if you want to take a look.
At RevBlack, we work with mid-market companies where Salesforce and HubSpot are both in play but rarely in sync. If your board is asking for one version of the truth and your teams are juggling two, that’s your signal.
Book a free tech stack audit so we can discover opportunities for improvement in your current stack.
For more detail on HubSpot’s current functionality, see HubSpot’s official Leads API documentation.
