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How do I choose which teams and roles to assign my HubSpot users?

Before adding users to HubSpot, plan how you'll organize them and what each person should be able to see and do. Getting this right keeps your data secure, makes reporting easier, and helps everyone see only what's relevant to their job.

You'll make three main decisions for each user:

  1. Seat: which paid HubSpot tools they need.
  2. Team: which group they belong to.
  3. Permissions: what they can access and change.

Tip: use our users, teams and permissions template to plan this out before you start adding users.

1. Seats

Seats decide which paid HubSpot tools a user can use:

  • Core seat: access to paid features across HubSpot's tools, such as Marketing Hub and Content Hub.
  • Sales seat: includes Sales Hub tools, such as sequences and forecasting.
  • Service seat: includes Service Hub tools, such as the help desk.

Users without a paid seat can still use free tools and view data, depending on their permissions. Only assign paid seats to people who need those tools, since each seat has a cost.

2. Teams

Teams group your users, for example by department, office location or region. Teams help you:

  • Control record access: for example, let sales managers see all deals owned by their team.
  • Report by team: compare performance across teams.
  • Organize assignments: such as round-robin lead routing or shared inboxes.

How teams work:

  • Each user has one main team. It's used for reporting and fills in the HubSpot team property on records they own.
  • Users can also belong to extra teams, for people who work across departments.
  • Enterprise accounts can nest teams: for example, East Sales and West Sales under a parent Sales team. Managers on the parent team can then access records owned by members of its nested teams.
  • The number of teams you can create depends on your subscription.

To create a team: go to Settings > Users & Teams, click the Teams tab, then click Create team. To assign users, edit each user and choose their Main Team and any Extra Teams.

Choosing your teams:

  • Mirror your organization: use teams like Marketing, Sales and Client Services.
  • Split by region or office if managers should only see their own team's records.
  • Keep it simple: only create teams you'll actually use for access or reporting.

3. Permissions

Permissions decide which tools a user can open, and what they can do with your data.

Record access (the most important setting)
For contacts, companies, deals and tickets, choose which records each user can view and edit:

  • Everything: all records in the account.
  • Team only: records owned by the user and members of their team.
  • Owned only: only records assigned to them.

Example: a sales rep might see Owned only, a sales manager Team only, and a marketing manager Everything.

Tool and settings permissions
Permissions are grouped into sections:

  • CRM: contacts, companies, deals, tickets, and actions like import, export and bulk delete.
  • Marketing: email, social, forms, landing pages, blog, ads, segments and campaigns, often with View, Edit or Publish levels.
  • Sales: sequences, templates, meetings, calling, quotes and forecasting.
  • Service: help desk, inboxes, knowledge base and feedback surveys.
  • Reports: dashboards, reports and analytics.
  • Account: settings, users and teams, domains, marketing contacts, and the app marketplace.

Ways to set permissions

  • Super Admin: full access to every tool and setting, including adding users and changing billing. Only another Super Admin can make someone a Super Admin.
  • Permission templates: start from a preset based on someone's job function, then adjust as needed.
  • Custom permissions: turn individual permissions on or off for each user.
  • Permission sets (Enterprise only): save a group of permissions as a reusable set, such as Marketing Manager, Sales Rep or Intern, and assign it to many users at once.
    • Create them under Settings > Users & Teams > Permission Sets.
    • Assigning a set replaces the user's individual permissions.
    • Updating a set updates everyone assigned to it.

Best practices

  • Limit Super Admins to two or three trusted people, such as your HubSpot owner and Gate 39.
  • Give the least access needed. Start limited and add access when people need it.
  • Be careful with high-risk permissions, such as delete, export and bulk edit, especially for client data.
  • Use permission sets (Enterprise) or templates to keep access consistent for people in the same role.
  • Review users and permissions regularly, and deactivate users who leave. See How do I add and remove users in HubSpot?

For financial firms: your compliance policies may require limiting who can export client data or send marketing emails. Align your HubSpot permissions with those policies.

Need help planning your teams and permissions? Contact the Gate 39 team through the Customer portal.

 

 References
[1] HubSpot – Create and assign permission sets
[2] HS Simple – Managing Teams, Access, and Permissions in HubSpot
[3] HubSpot – Create and manage teams (updated Mar 13, 2026)
[4] HubSpot – Add and update HubSpot users
[5] Lynton – Best Practices for Assigning Teams and Permission Sets in HubSpot
[6] HubSpot – User permissions guide
[7] HubSpot – Create and manage teams (alternate version)