HubSpot overview
HubSpot sells customer relationship management software to small and midsize businesses. At the center of its platform is HubSpot Smart CRM, a free CRM that stores contacts, companies, deals and every interaction with them. Around it the company sells paid products it calls hubs, including HubSpot Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Service Hub, Content Hub, Data Hub and Revenue Hub, and its AI layer, Breeze, adds an assistant and agents that write content, find prospects and answer customer questions.
Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah met as graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and founded HubSpot in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2006. They believed buyers were tuning out cold calls and interruptive advertising, and that companies would do better by attracting customers with useful content such as blog posts, search-friendly web pages and social media, an approach Halligan called inbound marketing. After a closed beta in 2006, HubSpot began selling its first marketing software in 2007, and the founders spread their ideas through a book, Inbound Marketing, and the company’s annual INBOUND conference.
HubSpot went public on the New York Stock Exchange in October 2014, the same year it introduced its free CRM. It later moved upmarket toward companies with up to about 2,000 employees and added software for sales, customer service, websites, data management and payments. Yamini Rangan, the company’s first chief customer officer, succeeded Halligan as chief executive in September 2021. In 2024 Reuters reported that Google had considered buying HubSpot, but no deal followed.
HubSpot reported revenue of $3.13 billion for 2025 and had 8,882 full-time employees at the end of that year, and by June 30, 2026, it served 306,446 customers. The company has rebuilt its products around AI since 2024. In 2026 it renamed its annual conference UNBOUND, launched Revenue Hub for quoting, billing and payments and Agent Hub for managing AI agents, and in September unveiled a self-updating version of its Smart CRM.
Software by HubSpot
2 products profiled, from HubSpot Marketing Hub (2007) to HubSpot Smart CRM (2014).
HubSpot history and milestones
- 2006
Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah found HubSpot in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and run a closed beta of its marketing software.
- 2007
HubSpot begins selling its inbound marketing software to small businesses.
- 2014
HubSpot introduces a free CRM and goes public on the New York Stock Exchange in October at $25 per share.
- 2017
HubSpot starts organizing its products into hubs, beginning with Marketing Hub and Sales Hub.
- 2021
Yamini Rangan succeeds co-founder Brian Halligan as CEO in September.
- 2023
HubSpot cuts about 7 percent of its workforce in January and acquires B2B data provider Clearbit in December.
- 2024
HubSpot launches Breeze, a set of AI tools, assistants and agents across its platform.
- 2025
Brian Halligan steps down as executive chair, and Lorrie Norrington becomes chair of the board.
- 2026
HubSpot renames INBOUND as UNBOUND, launches Revenue Hub and Agent Hub, and unveils a self-updating Smart CRM.
Who founded HubSpot?
Brian Halligan
Co-founder; CEO until 2021 and executive chair until 2025
Brian Halligan grew up in Westwood, Massachusetts, earned an electrical engineering degree from the University of Vermont and spent about a decade at Parametric Technology Corporation, where he built its Pacific Rim business. He later ran sales at Groove Networks, which Microsoft acquired, and earned an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, where he met Dharmesh Shah.
Halligan coined the term inbound marketing, co-wrote the book of that name with Shah and led HubSpot as chief executive until September 2021. He served as executive chair until May 2025 and remains a director. He is also a partner at Sequoia Capital and a senior lecturer at MIT, and in 2022 he helped launch Propeller, a venture fund focused on ocean and climate technology.
Dharmesh Shah
Co-founder and chief technology officer
Dharmesh Shah founded and ran Pyramid Digital Solutions, a software company that SunGard Data Systems acquired in 2005, and then became a graduate student at MIT, where he met Brian Halligan. He co-founded HubSpot in 2006 and has served as its chief technology officer and a member of its board ever since.
Shah co-wrote Inbound Marketing with Halligan, and in 2013 he published HubSpot’s Culture Code, a public document describing how the company works and what it values. He also founded OnStartups.com, a blog and online community for entrepreneurs, and is an active angel investor.
How HubSpot makes money
HubSpot uses a freemium model. Businesses can start with its free CRM and free versions of several marketing, sales and service tools, then upgrade to paid Starter, Professional or Enterprise editions of individual hubs or buy several hubs together as a bundle. Subscriptions account for about 98 percent of revenue, and HubSpot is adding usage-based pricing for AI: in 2026 it began charging for its Customer Agent and Prospecting Agent only when they complete a task.
Partners are an important sales channel. Customers that came through HubSpot’s Solutions Partner program of agencies and consultants made up about a quarter of its customer base and roughly 49 percent of its revenue in 2025. The company focuses on business-to-business companies with between 2 and 2,000 employees, and its average subscription revenue per customer was about $11,800 in the second quarter of 2026.
Who owns and runs HubSpot?
Yamini Rangan has been HubSpot’s chief executive since September 2021 after serving as its first chief customer officer, and she previously held senior roles at Dropbox, Workday and SAP. Lorrie Norrington, a director since 2013, has chaired the board since May 2025, when co-founder Brian Halligan gave up the executive chair role while staying on as a director. Co-founder Dharmesh Shah is chief technology officer, Kate Bueker is chief financial officer, and Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost is among the directors. HubSpot trades on the NYSE and has a single class of common stock.
- Yamini RanganCEO and president
- Lorrie NorringtonChair of the board
- Dharmesh ShahCo-founder and chief technology officer
- Brian HalliganCo-founder; CEO until 2021 and executive chair until 2025
- Kate BuekerChief financial officer
HubSpot: frequently asked questions
Who founded HubSpot?
HubSpot was founded in 2006 by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, who met as graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Halligan served as CEO until 2021, and Shah has been chief technology officer since the company’s founding. Together they popularized the idea of inbound marketing.
Who owns HubSpot?
HubSpot, Inc. is a publicly traded company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker HUBS, so it is owned by its shareholders. It has a single class of common stock, which means its co-founders do not hold shares with special voting rights.
Who is the CEO of HubSpot?
Yamini Rangan is the CEO of HubSpot. She took over from co-founder Brian Halligan in September 2021 after serving as the company’s first chief customer officer, and she previously worked in senior roles at Dropbox, Workday and SAP.
Where is HubSpot headquartered?
HubSpot is headquartered at Two Canal Park in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It also has regional headquarters in Dublin for Europe, Singapore for Asia-Pacific and Bogota for Latin America, plus offices in cities including Berlin, Paris, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto and San Francisco.
What software does HubSpot make?
HubSpot makes a customer platform built on its Smart CRM, which businesses can start using for free. Paid products include Marketing Hub for marketing automation, Sales Hub, Service Hub for customer support, Content Hub for websites, Data Hub for data management and Revenue Hub for quoting, billing and payments, along with Breeze AI agents and Agent Hub.
How does HubSpot make money?
HubSpot makes almost all of its money from subscriptions to its hubs and bundles, sold in Starter, Professional and Enterprise editions. Many customers begin with free tools and upgrade over time, and in 2026 the company began charging for some AI agents based on completed tasks. It reported $3.13 billion in revenue for 2025.
Sources
- Our Story, HubSpot hubspot.com
- HubSpot, Inc. annual report on Form 10-K for 2025 sec.gov
- HubSpot, Inc. 2026 proxy statement sec.gov
- HubSpot Reports Q2 2026 Results sec.gov
- HubSpot newsroom hubspot.com
- HubSpot, Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org
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