How to Clean Up a Messy HubSpot CRM (Without Breaking Everything)

Let’s Talk About the Elephant in the Portal: Your HubSpot CRM Is a Mess

If you’re reading this, you probably already know. Your HubSpot portal is messy, disorganized, and possibly stressing out your team more than it’s helping them. You’ve got hundreds (maybe thousands) of outdated contacts, duplicates, half-built workflows, unused properties, and reports that don’t actually tell you anything useful.

I get it — most people don’t go into HubSpot planning to make a mess. It happens over time, with new team members, quick fixes, “just-for-now” solutions, and scattered experiments. But if you don’t clean it up, it can cost you leads, revenue, and your team’s trust in the system.

Here’s how to clean up your HubSpot CRM the right way, without blowing everything up in the process.

Step 1: Take Inventory Before You Touch Anything

Before you jump into deleting stuff, pause. You need a clear picture of what’s actually going on in your portal.

Here’s what to review:

• Contact and company records: How many are there? How many are missing key info?

• Custom properties: Are they being used? Are the definitions clear?

• Workflows: Which ones are active? Which ones are outdated or broken?

• Pipelines: Do your deal stages reflect your current sales process?

• Lists: Are your active lists still relevant? Are smart lists working correctly?

• Reports and dashboards: Do they still match your current goals?

Use HubSpot’s Property Usage and Workflow History tools to get a sense of what’s being used and what’s not. If you’re using Operations Hub, custom reports can help you find gaps and inconsistencies in your data.

Step 2: Clean Up Your Contacts and Companies

This is where a lot of people get overwhelmed — especially if you have a big database. But cleaning your contact records is critical if you want better lead management, reporting, and automation.

Here’s what to look for:

✅ Merge Duplicates

Use HubSpot’s duplicate management tool to merge contacts and companies based on email or domain. Just make sure you're not losing custom field data in the process.

✅ Archive or Delete Dead Contacts

If a contact hasn’t opened an email or visited your site in 12+ months — and they’re not a customer — it’s probably time to let them go. Don’t pay for bloat.

✅ Standardize Lifecycle Stages

Too many portals have lifecycle stages that don’t reflect reality. Define each stage clearly, then update records in bulk using filters, workflows, or import tools.

✅ Fill in the Gaps

Use workflows, enrichment tools, or form mapping to ensure contacts have core fields like name, email, company name, phone, and lifecycle stage.

Step 3: Organize and Simplify Properties

HubSpot properties are the backbone of your data. When they’re messy or unclear, everything from reports to automation starts to break down.

Here’s how to tidy them up:

• Delete unused properties that haven’t been touched in over 6–12 months

• Group properties logically using property groups (e.g. Sales Info, Marketing Data, Customer Success)

• Avoid duplicate fields like “Industry” and “Client Industry” — pick one and stick with it

• Standardize picklists so reps aren’t choosing from 10 versions of the same answer

If you’re unsure which ones are still relevant, talk to your marketing, sales, and service teams. You’ll be surprised what they’ve stopped using altogether.

Step 4: Review and Optimize Workflows

Workflows are powerful, but they’re also one of the most common sources of mess in HubSpot.

Here’s your cleanup checklist:

• Turn off inactive or outdated workflows

• Rename workflows clearly using a consistent naming convention (e.g. MKTG | Lead Nurture - Demo Booked)

• Check for conflicting triggers — sometimes two workflows are doing the same thing

• Document what each workflow does — even a short internal description helps

• Review enrollment criteria and exit rules to make sure they still make sense

A good rule of thumb: if you don’t know what a workflow does just by looking at the name, it’s time to rework it.

Step 5: Simplify Pipelines and Deal Stages

Your pipelines should reflect your current sales process — not the one you had two years ago.

• Audit each pipeline: Are deals flowing through all stages, or do some never get used?

• Re-name stages to reflect actions, not just labels (e.g. "Proposal Sent" vs "Stage 3")

• Eliminate unused stages and consolidate if needed

• Use stage automation to reduce manual task creation, internal alerts, and follow-up reminders

If you have more than two pipelines and you’re not sure why, ask your sales team what they’re actually using. Less is usually more.

Step 6: Fix Reporting and Dashboards

Your dashboards are only as good as your data. Once your CRM is cleaned up, revisit the reports and dashboards you’ve built.

Ask yourself:

• Do these reports reflect the questions we’re actually trying to answer?

• Are we tracking marketing, sales, and customer success performance in a connected way?

• Are we using filters and properties that still make sense?

Start by rebuilding just one or two dashboards that matter most to your leadership team or revenue leaders. Focus on clarity and actionability.

Step 7: Set Rules to Keep It Clean

Cleaning your HubSpot portal once is great. But if you don’t change how the team uses it, the mess will come back.

Here’s what you can do:

• Set clear naming conventions (for properties, workflows, lists, reports, etc.)

• Train your team on how to enter and update data

• Use permissions to limit who can create new properties and workflows

• Schedule a quarterly CRM audit (even if it’s just a 1-hour internal review)

If you’ve got multiple teams or a high-growth business, consider getting RevOps support to keep your portal clean and aligned with your strategy.

Final Thoughts

A messy HubSpot CRM isn’t just an inconvenience — it’s a growth blocker. When your system is cluttered, your team wastes time, your reports lose accuracy, and your revenue suffers.

Cleaning up your HubSpot portal gives you back control. You’ll move faster, see clearer, and create a better experience for your team and your customers.

If you want help with a full HubSpot portal audit or need someone to clean things up the right way — that’s what we do at Revefied. We’ve helped teams go from chaos to clarity without losing momentum.