HubSpot Portal Cleanliness Guide: HubSpot Super Admins to the Rescue!

If you've ever looked at your HubSpot portal and thought, "Yikes, this place is a mess," take a deep breath; you're in the right place. Even the mightiest HubSpot heroes (yes, that's you!) find their portals cluttered with outdated data, unused assets, and chaotic workflows over time. Think of your HubSpot account as your company's digital headquarters. Like a superhero's lair, it needs regular cleaning and organizing to run at full power.

Don't worry, sidekick, we've got this!In this guide, we'll walk through a comprehensive cleanup of your HubSpot universe, covering Marketing, Sales, Service, Commerce, Operations Hubs, and those all-important Settings.

Along the way, we'll use simple, actionable checklists (no fluff, all field-tested strategies) to help you tidy up and supercharge each area of your portal. By the end, you'll have a squeaky-clean CRM and a lean, mean inbound machine that even Captain HubSpot would envy.

So, put that cape on and let's get to work! 💪

As your trusty sidekick, I'll be right by your side with tips and tricks to turn your portal from cluttered to clean. Here's what we'll tackle:

• CRM Data Hygiene Essentials: Clearing out duplicate, outdated, or junk data that drags down your operations.

• Marketing Hub Cleanliness: Organizing contacts, lists, campaigns, and content assets for maximum marketing impact.

• HubSpot Sales Hub Cleanliness: Streamlining your deal pipeline, sequences, and sales tools to keep revenue on track.

• HubSpot Service Hub Cleanliness: Cleaning up tickets, knowledge base articles, and feedback processes to delight your customers.

• HubSpot Commerce Hub Cleanliness: Tidying up your product library, quotes, and payments for smooth sales operations.

• HubSpot Operations Hub Cleanliness: Optimizing integrations, data sync, and automation behind the scenes.

• HubSpot Portal Settings Cleanliness: Auditing account settings, users, and preferences – the "control room" of your HubSpot portal.

Ready to become the HubSpot Super Admin your team needs? Let's dive in, one section at a time.

CRM Data Hygiene Essentials: Clean Data, Strong Foundation

First up is your core CRM data, the contacts, companies, deals, and tickets that make up the heart of your HubSpot portal. Clean data is the bedrock of a healthy CRM. If this foundation is shaky (think duplicate contacts, fake leads, or inconsistent info), everything built on top will wobble. Let's firm up your data foundation with these steps.

Merge and Purge Duplicate Records

Use HubSpot's deduplication tools regularly to find and merge duplicate contacts and companies. Duplicates can confuse your sales reps and skew your metrics, so combining them leads to one clean, accurate record per customer. Also, delete obvious junk contacts (like test entries or spam submissions) that don't belong in your database.

Remove Outdated or Inaccurate Data

Identify contacts with old or incorrect information, such as bounces, unsubscribes, or contacts who haven't engaged in years. Consider exporting and archiving them outside HubSpot or deleting them if they no longer have value. Quality > Quantity here; a lean list of engaged contacts beats a bloated database of ghosts. This boosts your email deliverability and ensures your team focuses on leads that matter.

Standardize Properties and Values

Clean up property values to ensure consistency in your data. For instance, unify country or state names (no more mix of "USA" and "United States"), fix capitalization inconsistencies, and enforce proper formatting for phone numbers or dates.  If possible, use HubSpot's data quality features or workflows from Operations Hub to auto-format these. Consistent data makes segmentation and reporting far more effective (and it satisfies the OCD organizer in all of us).

Audit Custom Properties

Over time, teams create custom contact/company properties that may become redundant or obsolete. Review all custom fields: If a property isn't being used in any active list, workflow, or report, or duplicates an existing field, consider consolidating or deleting it. Simplify your "data dictionary" so everyone uses the same fields for the same purpose. Your future self (and any new team members) will thank you when they don't have to decipher a tangle of similar-sounding fields.

Align Lifecycle Stages & Associations

Check that contacts, companies, deals, and tickets are properly associated and in sync. For example, if you use customized lifecycle stages, make sure that when a deal is marked "Closed Won," the associated contact is marked as a "Customer." Ensure your process consistently moves records through stages across Marketing, Sales, and Service. This alignment prevents leads from slipping through cracks between teams—every hero needs a smooth handoff!

Clean Up Lists and Segments

Review your saved contact lists and smart segments. Remove or update lists that are no longer needed (e.g., old event attendee lists from 3 years ago). For active lists, double-check the filters to confirm they still make sense with your current strategy. A tidy list folder improves performance and saves confusion when marketing users are trying to pick the right audience for an email to be sent.

🔎Resource: What is HubSpot, really? (The definition most get wrong)

By scrubbing our data clean, we will instantly make a difference, shorter load times, more accurate reports, and a CRM your whole team trusts. With this strong foundation laid, let's move on to each Hub and get those in hero shape as well.

Marketing Hub: Cleaning Up Your Marketing Arsenal 🎯

The Marketing Hub is often where chaos first erupts, after all, it's home to your contacts, emails, landing pages, campaigns, and more. Time to put on your marketing cape and tidy up this arsenal of tools so your campaigns can soar.

Here's your checklist to declutter and organize the Marketing Hub:

Revisit Your Contact Segments

Ensure your contacts are segmented meaningfully. Delete or merge redundant static lists, and refine the criteria of your active lists. For example, you might combine several old lists into one updated master list with proper filters. Also, double-check that contacts marked as "Marketing contacts" in HubSpot are truly the ones you plan to market to. This avoids surprises in your contact tier and keeps your database lean and focused on the right people.

Prune Bounced and Unengaged Contacts

An engaged email list is a healthy email list. Create a suppression list of contacts who have hard-bounced or repeatedly ignored your emails for a long time. Consider removing these from your marketing sends (or even from HubSpot entirely if they hold no sales value). This "scrubbing" process will improve your email deliverability and open rates, because you're only messaging folks who want to hear from you. It's like clearing dead branches off a tree so the healthy ones can thrive.

Enforce Naming Conventions

Establish clear naming conventions for all your marketing assets, and stick to them. It might not sound exciting, but it's a huge time-saver. Name your emails, workflows, forms, and landing pages in a consistent format (e.g., dates or campaign names in titles). For instance, prefix campaign-related assets with the campaign or project name "2025_Q1_Webinar_LandingPage". This way, anyone on your team (present or future) can instantly understand what an asset is for, and you won't waste time opening ten versions of "Newsletter Email Final FINAL" to find the right one!

Archive or Delete Old Assets

Marketing campaigns create many artifacts. Go through your emails, landing pages, forms, CTAs, and even images/files. Identify those who no longer use that long-past webinar landing page, last year's holiday promo emails, and outdated logos hiding in the File Manager, and archive or delete them. HubSpot lets you archive many asset types to keep them out of sight but retrievable if needed. By clearing the clutter, your "active" asset lists become shorter and relevant. Finding the current version of something becomes as easy as summoning a sidekick with a signal.

Audit Workflows and Automations

Your workflows are the engine of your marketing automation – make sure they're running clean. Review all active workflows: turn off obsolete ones (e.g., workflows for an old nurture that's no longer relevant). For the ones you keep, check for logic errors or unused branches, and update enrollment triggers if your processes have changed. A pro tip is maintaining a naming convention and folder structure for workflows, too (perhaps by funnel stage or team). A streamlined set of well-documented workflows is far easier to manage and less likely to accidentally put contacts through the wrong sequence.

Optimize Forms and Conversion Paths

Over time, you may accumulate many forms and landing pages. Identify duplicate or similar forms and consider consolidating them to a single, more flexible form when possible (especially if multiple forms feed the same list). Test your important landing pages and forms to ensure they still work as expected. Nothing's worse than a prospective customer hitting a broken form. While you're at it, clean up your Thank You pages and confirmation emails to ensure they're on-brand and up-to-date. Smooth conversion paths = happy leads/humans = happy marketers.

Review Email Templates & Subscription Types

Go through your email templates and draft emails. Delete outdated templates or templates that nobody uses. Confirm that you still need all the ones listed for your subscription types (found in Settings under Marketing > Email). Remove any legacy subscription categories that confuse subscribers or aren't used in your content strategy. This ensures subscribers only see relevant email options, and your team doesn't have to juggle subscriptions that no longer apply.

Utilize Campaigns and Attribution

Part of cleanliness is organizing things in the right buckets. Use HubSpot's Campaigns tool to group related assets (emails, pages, social posts) for a campaign and track performance in one place. During your clean-up, link orphaned assets to campaigns if they belong. Also, consistently implement UTM tracking on your URLs. This isn't "cleaning" in the delete sense, but it cleans up your reporting, giving you clearer attribution and less manual data crunching later. It's like putting all the puzzle pieces in the same box so you don't lose track of the picture.

Refresh Reports and Dashboards

Lastly, for marketing, check your reporting dashboards. Remove reports that no one finds useful (be honest, that "All Twitter Posts Ever" report that no one checks can probably go). Add any new reports that help track your current KPIs, and organize your dashboard layouts for clarity. A decluttered dashboard view means that you can pull up exactly what you need in seconds when the CMO asks for metrics. Data-driven hero, here we come!

🔎Resource: Do You Need a Dedicated HubSpot Super Admin for Your Business?

With these Marketing Hub clean-up actions, your marketing team will feel like they've stepped into a freshly organized command center. Leads will flow smoothly, campaigns will be easier to execute, and everyone from the content creator to the CMO will see the benefits of an organized portal.

Sales Hub: Keeping the Sales Pipeline Pristine

Next, let's tackle the HubSpot Sales Hub. Your sales team lives and breathes deals, tasks, and one-to-one emails, which means clutter here can cost real money. A disorganized pipeline or messy CRM data can lead to missed follow-ups and inaccurate forecasts. Not on our watch!

Put on your sales-hero mask and use these steps to whip the Sales Hub into shape:

Streamline Your Deal Pipeline

Start by reviewing your deal pipelines and stages. Are the stages clearly defined with criteria for when a deal moves forward? If not, work with the sales team to clarify them. Then, close or delete old deals that have been sitting stagnant beyond a reasonable timeframe (e.g., that deal from 2 years ago with no activity isn't "Pending" – it's dead). It's better to have a realistic pipeline than a wishful one. Cleaning out long-gone opportunities will make current opportunities easier to track and give you more accurate forecast data. Think of it as clearing the gutters so the revenue can flow adequately!

Enforce Required Fields at Each Stage

Configure required properties for each stage of your deal pipelines to avoid missing information (and to keep data quality high). For example, require an expected close date and amount when a deal moves to the proposal stage, or a "Lost Reason" when a deal goes to Closed Lost. This way, reps are prompted to enter key details, and deals will not miss crucial data in reports. It's a simple, clean-up step that pays enormous dividends in data completeness.

Review Contact & Company Ownership

Audit the ownership of contacts, companies, and deals as part of Sales Hub hygiene. Ensure every live deal has an owner (and reassign those that belong to former employees or have "unassigned" ownership). Similarly, assign orphaned high-value contacts or companies to active reps so everyone in your database is being looked after. A clean ownership structure prevents leads from being ignored and keeps accountability clear. No hero left behind!

Audit Sales Email Templates & Sequences

Sales reps accumulate their trove of email templates and sequences for enrollments. Go through the sales content: remove or update outdated or off-brand templates (nobody should accidentally send last year's pricing in an email because an old template stuck around). If you have Sequences for outreach, check their performance and content, unenroll contacts still stuck in no longer relevant sequences, and refine the steps or timing based on what worked or failed. Eliminating underperforming sequences (and enhancing the good ones) will ensure your prospects only get emails that hit the mark.

Inspect Task Queues and Overdue Tasks

A sales portal clean-up isn't complete without tidying the tasks. Look at the open tasks across the team; if there are tons of overdue tasks, it might indicate a need to purge or reschedule them. Encourage reps to mark tasks completed when done, or bulk-complete ones no longer relevant. Archiving irrelevant task queues or creating a better structure (e.g., separate queues for call follow-ups vs. email follow-ups) can also reduce chaos. The result? Salespeople focus on the current to-dos that matter, instead of wading through an ocean of outdated reminders.

Evaluate Lead Scoring & Qualification

HubSpot's lead scoring (if you use it) should accurately reflect what makes a prospect sales-ready. Review your lead scoring attributes during your audit. Are they still aligned with how your business defines a qualified lead? Remove or adjust scores for criteria that no longer apply, and add new scoring rules if you have fresh insights (like interactions with a new product line). A clean, up-to-date lead scoring model gives your sales team clarity on which leads to prioritize. It's like having a trusty radar that points them straight to the hottest opportunities.

Check Sales Tool Adoption

Lastly, do a quick sweep of Sales Hub feature usage. Are reps fully using the tools available, such as logging activities, using the meetings scheduler, or updating deal stages promptly? You might find, for instance, that one team member never uses the HubSpot tasks and prefers a separate to-do app, which could lead to inconsistencies. Identify any gaps in training or adoption and plan a refresher if needed. A well-adopted Sales Hub (where everyone uses it correctly) is inherently cleaner because data is entered consistently, nd the platform becomes the single source of truth. Unused features can also be removed from views or settings to simplify the interface for your team.

🔎Resource: Why go HubSpot Sales Hub? Featuring Kyle Jepson

With a clean Sales Hub, your pipeline will be accurate, and your team will work more efficiently. Cleaner pipelines, clearer forecasts, and higher chances of hitting that revenue target (cue the victory theme music). Great job making the Sales Hub shine!

Service Hub: Streamlining Support for Happy Customers

Now let's bring order to the Service Hub, because a clean support system means happier customers and less stress for your service team (our everyday heroes on the front lines!). Over time, support portals can get bogged down with outdated tickets, unused feedback surveys, or an overflowing knowledge base.

Let's tidy up and optimize:

Clean Up Ticket Pipelines

Similar to deals, review your customer support ticket pipeline(s). Close out any tickets that are lingering open without activity or resolution. If a ticket cannot be resolved and has stalled, consider closing it as well (with an appropriate status like "Closed – Unresolved" for record keeping). You want your open ticket queues to reflect current customer issues, not ancient history. Also, check that each ticket has an owner, reassign or escalate any orphaned tickets to ensure no customer inquiry is forgotten. A lean ticket pipeline helps your support team focus on the customers who need attention right now.

Review Ticket Stages & Automation Rules

Ensure your ticket statuses (or stages) and automation rules match your support process. Maybe you set up an automation last year to auto-close tickets after 14 days of no response. Is that still appropriate? Based on what you've learned, adjust workflow rules for ticket routing, auto-closing, or SLA breach notifications as needed. By refining these, you'll reduce clutter (e.g., tickets auto-closing correctly instead of hanging open) and improve response times. It's like recalibrating your hero gadgets to work exactly when they should.

Update Your Knowledge Base

An up-to-date Knowledge Base is a self-service treasure trove for customers and a time-saver for your team. Audit all your knowledge base articles: Remove or rewrite any that are out-of-date (features change, and so should the articles). Consolidate duplicate articles covering the same question. Check for broken links or images in articles and fix them. If you identify gaps, common questions that aren't answered yet, note them down to create new articles. Logically organize your knowledge base categories so users can easily find answers. A clean, well-maintained knowledge base means customers can be their hero and solve problems without opening a ticket.

Evaluate Customer Feedback Tools

If you use customer feedback surveys (like NPS or CSAT surveys), give them a once-over. Are your surveys still relevant and providing useful insights? Deactivate any survey that is no longer needed or is targeting the wrong audience. For active surveys, review recent responses and make sure you have a process to act on them (no point cleaning up the portal if the feedback data is gathering dust). If you haven't gathered feedback in a while, it might also be time to schedule a new survey. By keeping your feedback program fresh, you show customers you care and keep improving your service based on real input.

Organize Support Inboxes & Channels

HubSpot Service Hub often involves a shared Conversations Inbox for incoming emails or chats. Take a look at your inbox setup: archive or delete old conversation threads that are long resolved (especially if your inbox is cluttered with spam or auto-replies). If you have multiple inboxes (say one for Support, one for Sales inquiries, etc.), ensure each is clearly labeled and accessible to the right team members. Check your chat widgets and chatbot flows, too. Retire any chat flows that are outdated (like a promo chat for an expired campaign) so customers aren't greeted by irrelevant messages. A tidy inbox and chat system keeps your team responsive and your customers' experience seamless.

Ensure Consistent Ticket Data

Like sales deals, support tickets have properties (like ticket type, priority, product area, etc.). Decide which of those properties are essential or reporting and make sure your team is updating them. Remove unused ticket properties that no one fills in to simplify the ticket form. If certain fields should always be filled (e.g. ", Issue Category"), mark them as required for ticket closure or create automation to prompt for them. Clean and consistent ticket data will allow you to generate better service reports. For example, if every ticket is categorized correctly, you can accurately see how many "Billing" issues came in this month.

🔎Resource: The most baller HubSpot Service Hub deep-dive with Adriti Gulati

By cleaning up the Service Hub, you empower your support team to be faster and more effective, and nothing makes a hero shine like helping people in need. Your customers will feel the difference when resolutions come quicker and knowledge is easier to find. High-five for making customer service a priority in your cleanliness mission!

Commerce Hub: Tidy Products, Quotes, and Payments

If your organization uses HubSpot's Commerce tools (quotes, product library, payment links, etc.), keeping the Commerce Hub clean ensures a smooth sales process and accurate revenue data, because an outdated product catalog or messy quotes can throw a wrench in your growth engine. Let's straighten things up:

Update the Product Library

Over time, your product or service offerings might change. Go to your Product Library in HubSpot and review all items. Remove products that you no longer sell, and update the details (pricing, descriptions, SKU codes) for current products if anything has changed or was entered incorrectly. A clean product catalog means your sales reps will always quote the right items, and your revenue reports (which pull from deal line items) will be accurate. No more accidentally selling that "Old Package Version" because it was still in the list.

Audit Quotes Templates

If you're using HubSpot Quotes, take a look at your templates and past quote records. Delete or archive any old quote templates that are no longer in use, especially if they contain outdated terms or branding. For active templates, ensure the company info, branding (logo/color), and default terms and conditions are current. It's easy to forget an old address or an old legal clause in a quote template; now's the time to catch and fix that. Also, if you have a lot of test or voided quotes cluttering your quotes list, you might clean those up.

Review Payment Links and Processes

HubSpot's Commerce tools include payment links or integrations with e-commerce. If you have payment links generated in HubSpot (for collecting fees, event tickets, etc.), review them for accuracy. Disable any links that you no longer want to accept payments through, so customers don't stumble on an old payment page. For active payment links, ensure the associated product, amount, and confirmation emails are correct. If you use an e-commerce integration (like Shopify or WooCommerce via Operations Hub data sync), make sure that integration is still running smoothly – outdated connections can result in missing or duplicate order records. Clean up any failed transactions or integration error logs if they exist, and reconnect or update settings as needed to keep the commerce data flowing without errors.

Align Deals with Actual Revenue

Many companies using Commerce Hub features will have deals in HubSpot reflecting sales. During your cleanup, reconcile your deal records with actual sales/orders. For instance, if some deals were created for test transactions or were duplicates of real orders, close or delete those to avoid counting phantom revenue. Ensure each real sale has a corresponding deal marked won (with the correct amount and products attached). This might involve a quick cross-check with your accounting or e-commerce system. It's worth it; a tidy alignment between deals and reality means your sales reports and forecasts aren't inflated by cluttered data.

Streamline E-commerce Integrations

If HubSpot is connected to an online store or subscription billing system, check all those connected apps (this overlaps with our Operations Hub section, but it's very relevant for commerce). Remove access for any commerce app you no longer use, and update settings for those you keep. For example, if you used to run a Shopify store that's now shut down, disconnect it to stop any stray data syncs. Or if you have a Zoom integration for webinars that you sell, confirm it's up to date. Every integration you tidy or remove is one less potential point of failure.

🔎Resource: What the Heck Is HubSpot Commerce Hub? with Jack Coopersmith

A slim, well-configured integration stack ensures that orders, payments, and customer info stay consistent across systems. By decluttering the Commerce Hub, you make it easier for your team to sell the right products at the right prices and get paid without hiccups. It's like organizing the store shelves so customers (and sales reps) can find exactly what they need instantly. Smooth commerce operations equal a happier sales team and healthier revenue tracking. Cha-ching! 💰

Operations Hub: Keeping the Engine Running Smoothly

The Operations Hub is the unsung hero behind the scenes – integrating systems, cleaning data, and automating processes to keep your whole RevOps engine humming. A messy Ops Hub setup can quietly wreak havoc (duplicate records, broken integrations, inaccurate reports). Let's give some love to Ops and ensure everything under the hood is tuned and oiled:

Audit Connected Apps & Integrations

Start with a tour of Settings > Integrations. Review all the apps connected to your HubSpot portal. Remove any integrations that are no longer in use;  every unnecessary connection is a potential source of clutter or conflict. For the integrations you keep, check their sync health: Are all the data syncs functioning with no error messages? For example, if you're syncing contacts with Salesforce or another CRM, ensure there are no large batches of failing syncs. If you find errors, troubleshoot and fix mapping issues, or reconnect the auth as needed. A clean integration roster guarantees data isn't duplicating or slipping through due to forgotten, half-broken connectors.

Review Data Sync Rules & Field Mappings

Within each active data sync (Operations Hub offers robust data sync between systems), open the mapping settings. Confirm that you're only syncing the fields you actually need between systems; extraneous fields can clutter both databases and even create unnecessary custom properties in HubSpot. Also, verify that rules like "HubSpot overwrites external system" or vice versa are set correctly to avoid ping-pong data updates. Tightening up these sync rules will maintain cleaner, more reliable data across your tools. It's the equivalent of calibrating your instruments so all readings stay accurate.

Utilize Data Quality Automation

Operations Hub (especially if you have Professional or Enterprise), which includes Data Quality Automation actions, like automatic formatting of names, phone numbers, and dates. Check if you have set up those features or if they're available to you. If yes, turn them on to auto-correct common data issues (e.g., capitalize first names, enforce country codes in phone numbers). If not, consider building simple workflows to achieve similar cleanup. For example, a workflow to standardize state abbreviations or to copy legacy property values to new consolidated ones, then remove the old. These automations act like a Roomba for your CRM data, quietly cleaning in the background so the mess never piles up again.

Audit Custom Code Actions

If your portal uses any custom code in workflows (a powerful Operations Hub feature), list them out and evaluate their performance. Remove or refactor code that isn't needed or that you've replaced with native features. For each custom code action still in use, ensure it's running without errors (check the workflow history for any failures). Also, verify that any external APIs the code calls are still valid. Cleaning up custom code not only avoids broken automation but also improves security and speed. Think of it as tightening the screws on your high-tech gadgets so they don't malfunction mid-action.

Consolidate Datasets and Properties

Operations Hub can involve creating datasets or calculated properties for reports. Over time, you might accumulate experimental ones. Review any datasets you've built,  and delete ones that were tests or that nobody uses in reporting. For calculated properties, do similar housekeeping: remove any unused calculated fields to reduce confusion (each one recalculates regularly, so fewer equals better performance). Keep the ones that provide real value, and ensure their formulas are up to date with your business logic. A lean set of operational data assets means analysts and dashboards are all drawing from the same trusted numbers.

Coordinate with the IT/Systems Team

If applicable) – Use this clean-up period to sync with any IT or systems administrators who also touch HubSpot. Make sure any external processes (like nightly data imports/exports or integrations managed outside of HubSpot) are known and documented. Retire any legacy data jobs that aren't needed after your clean-up. Essentially, close the loop on all data flows in and out of HubSpot. By having a clear picture of these, you prevent well-intentioned external processes from reintroducing themselves. It's like sealing off the secret passages to your base so no unexpected visitors (or bugs) get in.

🔎Resource: Demystifying HubSpot Operations Hub + Who Is Responsible for Operations?

With the Operations Hub spruced up, your entire HubSpot portal benefits. Integrations will hand off data seamlessly, automated routines will fire correctly, and your trusted "single source of truth" status for HubSpot will be stronger than ever. The behind-the-scenes heroics of Ops might not get public glory, but believe me, when everything just works, everyone notices.

Portal Settings: The HubSpot Control Room

Last but absolutely not least, we need to tidy up the Settings, the control center for your HubSpot portal. Think of Settings as the foundation and guardrails that keep all your HubSpot heroes (users) working in harmony. It's easy to "set and forget" many of these configurations, so let's audit them for cleanliness and correctness:

User Access and Permissions Check

Open your Users & Teams settings and review who has access. Remove any users who no longer need access (ex-employees, old contractors, etc.). Lingering user accounts are a security risk and can add to your user count costs. For current users, ensure each has the correct permissions for their role. You might find someone in Marketing has super admin when they don't need it, or a sales rep lacks permission to view certain contacts they should see. Clean up the roles so they adhere to the principle of least privilege (everyone has exactly what they need, nothing more). This not only secures your portal but also declutters menus for users who have access to tools they never use.

Team Structure and Ownership

If you use Teams in HubSpot, make sure the team structure in Settings reflects your current org chart. Update team membership, move users who changed roles to the correct team, and remove teams that were test groups or that mirror departments that don't exist anymore. A clean team setup helps with asset partitioning and reporting by team. Also, check default ownership rules if you have any (such as round-robin assignments or territory assignments via workflows) to ensure they align with the updated team structure. This way, leads and deals get assigned to the right people without manual intervention.

Branding and Domain Settings

Go to Brand Kit (Branding) and verify your company information. Is your current logo updated? Are the default colors and fonts set to your latest brand guidelines? Consistent branding settings ensure things like your email footer or meeting links always carry the right look. Next, check Domains & URLs, remove any old website domains or subdomains you no longer use, and verify that your primary domain is correctly connected. An extra domain lying around can confuse users when they create pages or emails, so it's best to keep only the active ones listed. This step is like making sure the signage and address on your hero headquarters are current, so that your allies and customers can find you and trust you.

Subscription Types & Preferences

Under Marketing > Email > Subscription Types, clean up any subscription types that are no longer part of your email strategy. Sometimes during setup, multiple subscription categories get created (e.g. ", Newsletter", "Product Updates", "Newsletter 2"), and over time, you realize you only needed one. Delete or merge unnecessary ones to avoid confusing your contacts during email subscription management. Also, review your email preference page is it branded properly and only showing the options you want? A tidy subscription setup means easier compliance with customer preferences and GDPR/Can-Spam rules. A hero always respects consent!

Property Settings and Picklists

This is related to the data hygiene we did earlier, but from the settings angle. Scan through the properties list for each object (contacts, companies, deals, tickets, etc.). Deprecated properties (no longer used) can be hidden or deleted. For dropdown properties, edit the options to remove any duplicates or typos (like if "Industry" has both "IT" and "I.I.T., consolidate them). Ensuring your data fields are clean and user-friendly in settings prevents future clutter as people continue to use the CRM. It's future-proofing your clean portal so the mess doesn't grow back like weeds.

Integrations & API Keys

In the Integrations > API section, if there are old API keys or private apps that were created and not used, consider deactivating them. Each active API key/private app is a doorway into your portal's data. Disabling ones that are not needed anymore is good security hygiene. For the ones in use, ensure the labels/documentation are clear so you know what they're for. While you're at it, check any webhook subscriptions or data sync settings (we covered this in Ops Hub, but one more glance from the settings perspective doesn't hurt). You want a tidy list of only the integrations that you actively intend to maintain.

Default Settings & Configurations

Finally, click through some key default settings: e.g., Contacts & Companies settings – is auto-associate companies enabled as you want? Are duplicate management settings configured? Check Sales > Deals – are deal create properties configured well (maybe add a required custom field here if you notice reps always forget it)? Look at Inbox settings, are office hours and agent assignment rules up to date for the team's schedule? Adjust any default that no longer matches how your business operates. These small tweaks can have a big impact on keeping things running smoothly day-to-day. It's like checking the dials and knobs on life support systems;  small misconfigurations can cause chaos, so we ensure all switches are in the correct position.

🔎Resource: HubSpot custom properties, objects, and groups 101 + best practices

Phew! By systematically auditing the HubSpot Settings, you've essentially given your portal a security check, a user access cleanup, and a configuration refresh all at once. This is the polish on top of all the cleaning you've done in the hubs themselves. Consider the control room officially decluttered and optimized!

Make Portal Cleanliness a Habit

Congratulations! You've done a heroic sweep through your HubSpot portal's Marketing, Sales, Service, Commerce, and Operations areas and tidied up the underlying data and settings. Take a moment to appreciate how far you've come. Your portal is now cleaner, faster, and primed for performance. It feels good, doesn't it?

But like saving the world, portal cleanliness isn't a one-and-done mission; it's an ongoing habit. Here are a few tips to keep your HubSpot instance in tip-top shape long term.

Set a Cleaning Schedule

Just as you might spring-clean your home or service your Batmobile on a schedule, put recurring reminders on your calendar to audit key areas of HubSpot. For example, do a light data cleanup (duplicates, bounces, etc.) every quarter, and a deeper dive into workflows, properties, and settings every 6-12 months. Regular mini-audits will prevent another massive overhaul and keep things running smoothly.

Establish Usage Guidelines

Create brief internal guidelines for your team on how to use HubSpot cleanly. This could include naming convention rules, what to do before creating a new property or list, and how often to update records. When everyone on the team knows the "clean habits" expected of them, your portal will stay organized by design. In other words, make clean CRM practices part of your company culture.

Train Your Sidekicks (Team Members)

Host a workshop or training session to share the changes you've made and the best practices moving forward. Show marketers how to find the new organized lists and folders, educate sales reps on keeping deals updated and tasks current, and teach support agents how to use the tidy knowledge base and ticket fields. Empower them to be custodians of their respective areas. When each user takes pride in keeping their piece of the portal clean, the whole system shines. Team effort for the win!

Leverage Automation for Maintenance

Take advantage of HubSpot tools to maintain cleanliness automatically. For instance, set workflows to notify record owners to update stale deals, use suppression lists to automatically exclude disengaged contacts from emails, or employ lifecycle stage automation to keep sales handoffs tight. Automation is like having a robotic sidekick doing nightly patrols, so issues are fixed before they become problems.

Stay Informed and Evolve

HubSpot is constantly rolling out new features and improvements (sometimes even new Hubs!). Make it a habit to keep an eye on HubSpot product update notes or community announcements. You might discover a new feature that can replace a manual process you've been doing, or an update that impacts how you should organize your data. Adapting your cleanliness strategy with the platform's evolution ensures you always use best-in-class methods. Keep learning, keep iterating, a true hero never stops honing their craft.

🔎Resource: Wake Up! Customer Platform Podcast

By following this guide and weaving these habits into your routine, you've transformed from a frazzled portal manager into a HubSpot Super Admin with an immaculate, high-performing CRM. Your marketing campaigns will run on solid data, your sales team will trust their pipeline, your service team will respond faster, and leadership will have reliable reports to make decisions.

That's the power of a clean HubSpot portal: it enables every team (and every hero) to do their best work. Now go forth and enjoy the fruits of your tidy HubSpot portal. May your contact lists be clean, your pipelines be current, and your workflows be in your favor.

And remember: whenever chaos begins to creep back in, you have this guide (and your inner sidekick know-how) to get things back on track. You've got this, hero, now let's keep that portal shining! 🚀