Managing projects efficiently requires not only a skilled team but also the right tools. As businesses increasingly seek integrated platforms that handle customer relationships and internal workflows, many ask: Is HubSpot a good CRM for project management? In this article, we’ll dive deep into HubSpot’s capabilities, strengths, and limitations when it comes to managing projects and explore how it compares to tools marketed as the best CRM for project management.
What Is HubSpot and What Does It Offer?
HubSpot is a cloud-based CRM platform designed primarily to help businesses attract leads, convert customers, and nurture relationships. It offers an integrated suite of tools covering:
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Marketing automation
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Sales enablement
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Customer service
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Content management
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CRM and contact tracking
While HubSpot excels in areas related to customer engagement and pipeline management, its capabilities for project management are not as prominently marketed. Still, with the right approach, many businesses use HubSpot effectively for managing projects.
HubSpot’s Project Management Features
Though HubSpot is not a dedicated project management tool, it provides several features that can support project workflows:
1. Tasks and Task Queues
Users can create tasks, assign them to team members, set deadlines, and add notes. Task queues allow for organizing and prioritizing work, which can support simple project management needs like follow-ups, approvals, or content production pipelines.
2. Pipelines and Deal Stages
HubSpot’s pipeline tools, typically used for sales, can be adapted to represent stages in a project. For example, content development projects can use pipeline stages like “Planning,” “In Progress,” “Review,” and “Completed.”
3. Custom Properties and Workflows
With custom properties and workflows, teams can create automated processes that mimic project stages. This allows HubSpot to act as a lightweight alternative to traditional project management platforms when used creatively.
4. Team Collaboration
HubSpot enables tagging users in comments, assigning roles, and centralizing communication through notes, emails, and activity tracking. These collaboration tools are helpful in small-to-medium project environments.
5. Integration with Project Management Tools
HubSpot integrates with tools like Asana, Trello, ClickUp, and Monday.com. These integrations allow users to sync project tasks and timelines, offering a hybrid solution where HubSpot manages the customer-facing side and an external tool handles deeper project workflows.
Advantages of Using HubSpot for Project Management
Despite not being a dedicated project management tool, HubSpot offers several advantages:
1. Unified Platform
HubSpot’s CRM connects sales, marketing, and service teams, meaning that project management can happen in the same environment as client communication. This reduces context switching and improves transparency.
2. Automation Capabilities
Automated task creation, email notifications, and status updates can reduce manual overhead. Teams working on repetitive or recurring projects (e.g., client onboarding) benefit from these automations.
3. Real-Time Visibility
With dashboards and custom reports, HubSpot provides clear visibility into task progress, ownership, and bottlenecks. This is critical for managers who need a high-level view of ongoing work.
4. Ease of Use
HubSpot’s interface is user-friendly, making it easy for non-technical team members to adopt and navigate. This is especially valuable for small businesses or startups without dedicated project managers.
Limitations of HubSpot as a Project Management Tool
While HubSpot offers several features that can support project tracking, it lacks many advanced project management functionalities:
1. No Gantt or Timeline Views
Traditional project management software offers visual tools like Gantt charts or calendar views to track timelines. HubSpot does not natively support this kind of visualization.
2. Limited Time Tracking
HubSpot does not include native time tracking, a feature that’s important for managing workloads, budgets, and invoicing in project-centric businesses.
3. Not Ideal for Complex Projects
Large-scale projects with dependencies, resource allocation, risk assessment, or sprint planning are better managed with specialized tools like Jira, Wrike, or Monday.com.
4. Customization Trade-offs
Although HubSpot offers some customization, it’s limited compared to purpose-built PM tools. Trying to “hack” HubSpot into a full-scale PM platform can become inefficient as project complexity increases.
When Is HubSpot the Right Choice?
HubSpot can be an excellent project management tool if your projects are tightly linked to customer journeys or client deliverables. Agencies, small service-based businesses, and marketing teams often find success using HubSpot as both a CRM and a lightweight project management tool.
For example, a marketing agency might use HubSpot to manage:
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Client onboarding
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Campaign planning
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Content development
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Post-launch reporting
In such cases, HubSpot not only tracks deliverables but also ties them directly to deals, contacts, and communications. It can serve as a central hub without needing another app.
How HubSpot Compares to the Best CRM for Project Management
When comparing HubSpot to the best CRM for project management, it’s important to define what “best” means for your use case. Tools like Zoho CRM, Salesforce with Quip, or Insightly offer deeper native project management tools. Meanwhile, hybrid tools like ClickUp or Monday.com offer CRM features layered on top of robust project planning systems.
If your team prioritizes internal task dependencies, detailed reporting, and time management, those may be better fits. But if you need seamless integration between customer communications, sales pipelines, and project deliverables — HubSpot offers a compelling balance.
Conclusion: Should You Use HubSpot for Project Management?
So, is HubSpot a good CRM for project management? The answer depends on your team’s complexity, size, and focus.
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For small teams managing client-facing projects or repeatable workflows — yes, HubSpot can function well.
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For complex, multi-phase internal projects with heavy dependencies — probably not without integrations.
Ultimately, while HubSpot may not be the best CRM for project management in a traditional sense, it can be the best solution for teams seeking a centralized CRM with light project management capabilities.
