What it is: a login area on your own domain where customers see their HubSpot support tickets, reply to them, and file new ones through a support form. HubSpot's newer docs call it the support portal.
What it costs: it needs Service Hub Professional or Enterprise. Professional lists at $90 per seat per month billed annually ($100 monthly), plus a required $1,500 onboarding fee. Customers log in as contacts, not as paid users.
How to set it up: go to Service > Customer Portal, click Get Started, pick a domain, a support form, the inbox that gets portal tickets, which tickets each customer may see, and who may log in.
Where it stops: it shows tickets only, in one language per portal, and its Status column is the ticket's pipeline stage.
HubSpot Customer Portal at a Glance
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Plan needed | Service Hub Professional or Enterprise |
| Price | Professional $90 per seat per month billed annually, $100 monthly, plus $1,500 onboarding |
| What customers can do | View tickets, reply in the thread, file tickets through a form, close tickets if allowed |
| Who sees what | Own tickets, all company tickets, or company tickets for selected contacts |
| Ticket list columns | 6 defaults, up to 10 properties you choose |
| Login | Invite through an access group, or open self-registration; passwordless sign-in available |
| Main limits | Tickets only, one language per portal, original conversation thread only |
Three decisions to make before you switch it on:
Decide these first
- Should a customer see only their own tickets, or every ticket from their company? B2B teams with several users per account usually want company tickets, at least for admins.
- Will your pipeline stage names make sense to a customer? The portal shows the stage as Status, so "Waiting on engineering" reads better than "Tier 2 escalation."
- Who updates a ticket when engineering ships the fix? If nobody moves the stage, the portal keeps saying the old status.
In this article
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
What the HubSpot Customer Portal Is
The customer portal is Service Hub's self-service ticket area. A customer logs in on your domain and gets a list of their support tickets with the status of each. They can open a ticket to read and reply to its conversation, and file a new ticket through a support form. Each form submission creates a ticket tied to the logged-in contact, so the form does not need an email field.
In 2026 HubSpot rebuilt the portal on its CMS. A HubSpot partner's write-up of the May 2026 release describes better search, sorting, and filtering, and full conversation visibility. That write-up says portals activated on or after February 2, 2026 get the new version by default, and older ones need a one-time migration. HubSpot's own docs now call the new version the support portal and say it "replaces the legacy customer portal." The menu still says Customer Portal.
The portal is one piece of Service Hub. If you are still choosing a help desk, our HubSpot Service Hub review and HubSpot ticketing system guide cover the rest.
What Customers Can See and Do
See their tickets
The ticket list shows Subject, Requested by, Create date, Ticket owner, Last activity date, and Status by default. You can add up to 10 properties, rename and reorder them, and customers see only the properties you pick. On mobile, the card view shows at most two.
Reply in the conversation
HubSpot's docs say anything in a ticket's conversation thread is visible to customers who can view that ticket. If a ticket has several threads, only the original one shows.
File new tickets
Connect a support form that includes ticket properties and is linked to an inbox or help desk. Portal tickets go to the help desk by default unless you pick an inbox.
Close tickets and reply after closing
Two settings on the Tickets tab: "Allow customer to close tickets from the portal" and "Allow customers to reply to closed conversations." Each pipeline needs a closed stage assigned for these to work.
Switch to company tickets
When you allow company access, customers can switch between My view and Organization tickets.
What they never see: notes and comments. HubSpot's docs name those as the way to keep internal discussion private, so an agent can write "engineering says this is a race condition" on the ticket without the customer reading it.
How Much the HubSpot Customer Portal Costs
There is no separate portal fee. You get it with Service Hub Professional or Enterprise, and you pay per seat for the people answering tickets. Enterprise lists at $150 per seat per month with a $3,500 onboarding fee. Free and Starter do not include the portal.
For a five-person support team on Professional billed annually, that is $450 a month, or $5,400 a year, plus the $1,500 onboarding in year one. Professional also includes one knowledge base with up to 2,000 articles, which is usually where customers find the portal link. Our Service Hub pricing breakdown covers seats, onboarding, and the costs that sit outside them.
How to Set Up a Customer Portal in HubSpot
- 1
Open the portal settings
Go to Service > Customer Portal (or More > Service > Customer Portal) and click Get Started. You need customer portal settings permissions.
- 2
Name it and pick a domain
The name shows in the browser tab. Choose a connected domain and a slug. The portal uses the domain's primary language, and multi-language portals are not supported.
- 3
Choose a support form
Pick No support form, or create a basic one. Use a form with the ticket properties your team needs to triage, such as product area and how urgent it is.
- 4
Set ticket permissions
Pick the inbox or help desk for portal tickets, then decide what customers see: tickets associated with their contact, all tickets from their primary company, or company tickets only for contacts that match filters you set, such as a role property.
- 5
Configure access
Require access group membership, which emails selected contacts a registration link, or allow self-registration. Sign-in options, including passwordless, live in private content settings. Portals on a HubSpot system domain do not send membership emails, so connect your own domain.
- 6
Customize the ticket list, then turn it on
Add the properties customers should see, check the theme and brand kit, and switch the Portal toggle on. Log in as a test contact before you announce it.
Limits to Know Before You Rely On It
Where it is strong
- Built into Service Hub, no extra app or fee
- Customers see their own or their company's tickets
- Internal notes stay private
- Up to 10 ticket properties on the list
- Passwordless sign-in
Where it stops
- Tickets only, no deals, invoices, or custom objects
- One language per portal
- Only the original conversation thread shows
- Status is the pipeline stage, which someone has to move
- Needs Professional, at $90 or more per seat
If customers need more than tickets, such as project status, invoices, or usage data, the native portal is the wrong tool. HubSpot partner SpotDev notes it "was built around one object: the ticket." The usual routes are a custom portal built on HubSpot's APIs, or a no-code builder such as Softr, which offers a HubSpot data source.
The Most Expensive Mistake: A Status That Never Changes
A portal's main promise is "you can check your ticket anytime." For a B2B SaaS team, many of the tickets customers check are bugs and feature requests waiting on engineering. The portal shows the ticket's stage. It knows nothing about the Linear or Jira issue behind it.
So the ticket sits at "Waiting on engineering" while the fix ships, until an agent notices and moves it. Customers who check the portal see a stale status, then email to ask, which is the exact ticket the portal was meant to prevent. Before launch, decide how each engineering stage reaches the ticket: a person, a HubSpot workflow, or an integration.
Showing Engineering Progress in the Portal
For teams whose engineers work in Linear, IssueLinker connects the two. From the HubSpot ticket, support creates a Linear issue in one click, optionally drafted by AI from the ticket conversation with screenshots and files attached, or links an existing issue.
Then the status comes back without anyone touching the ticket. IssueLinker writes the Linear status to ticket properties, and a status rule moves the ticket to a pipeline stage you choose when the issue reaches a Linear state, say "Fix in progress" when engineering starts and "Fix shipped" when it is Done. The portal's Status column shows that stage, so the customer sees the change. Comments sync both ways too, and Linear comments arrive as HubSpot notes, so engineering's discussion stays out of the portal.
IssueLinker works on any HubSpot plan, but the portal itself needs Professional. See the HubSpot Linear integration for the full feature list, or our guide to integrating Linear with HubSpot for the other options.
Keep the portal status in step with engineering
IssueLinker creates the Linear issue from the HubSpot ticket and moves the ticket's stage when the issue changes, so customers see progress in the portal. $39 per month flat, unlimited users, 14-day free trial.
Who IssueLinker Is Not For
If your tickets rarely need engineering, the portal works on its own and you don't need a connector. IssueLinker also connects HubSpot to Jira and GitHub, but if your support runs on Zendesk or Intercom rather than HubSpot, this post and IssueLinker are not for you. See pricing for the current plans.
