Quick summary
How to do it: a Zendesk to HubSpot migration has five steps: map Zendesk fields to HubSpot properties and pipeline stages, set up Service Hub, move the data with a migration tool or the import tool, run a two-week pilot, then do a final delta migration and switch your support email over. Plan on 6 to 10 weeks.
What moves and what doesn't: users, organizations, tickets, conversations, attachments and help center articles can all move. Macros, triggers, automations, views and Explore reports are rebuilt by hand as HubSpot snippets, workflows, views and reports.
What it costs: the import tool is free, migration tools run from about $500 to $2,000+, and managed partners start around $5,000. Then Service Hub Professional at $90 per seat per month billed annually, plus $1,500 onboarding.
Zendesk to HubSpot Migration at a Glance
| Route | What it moves | Cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| HubSpot import tool | Contacts, companies, tickets, notes and other activities from CSV files | Free | Small teams that can live without full conversation history |
| Zendesk Data Sync app (HubSpot) | Users, organizations and tickets, with conversations; no archived tickets | Custom field mapping needs Data Hub Starter | Running both tools side by side during the move |
| Migration tool (Help Desk Migration) | Tickets, contacts, companies, agents, notes, attachments, tags, side conversations | Priced by record count; free 20-record demo | Most teams with real ticket history |
| Managed partner (SmartBug Media and others) | Everything above, plus planning and rebuilding automations | From $5,000, per SmartBug | Large or complex accounts |
Three things to settle before you move a single record:
Decide these first
- How much history do you need? Two years of tickets is a different project from open tickets only. The answer picks your route.
- Which Service Hub tier? Workflows, the knowledge base and the customer portal start on Professional, so price that before you plan around them.
- What replaces each Zendesk integration? List every app you run in Zendesk, especially the one that sends bugs to engineering.
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What Moves From Zendesk to HubSpot, and What You Rebuild
If you are still deciding whether to switch, start with our HubSpot Service Hub vs Zendesk comparison. This guide assumes you have decided. The core objects line up cleanly: HubSpot's Zendesk Data Sync app maps Zendesk users to contacts, organizations to companies, and tickets to tickets by default. Configuration is the part that doesn't move.
| In Zendesk | In HubSpot | Moves or rebuilt |
|---|---|---|
| Users | Contacts | Moves |
| Organizations | Companies | Moves |
| Tickets, with comments | Tickets, with notes and emails on the timeline | Moves, with the right export |
| Ticket statuses | Ticket pipeline stages | Mapped by you |
| Custom ticket fields | Custom ticket properties | Create first, then map |
| Help Center articles | Knowledge base articles | Moves with HubSpot's importer |
| Macros | Snippets and templates | Rebuilt |
| Triggers and automations | Workflows | Rebuilt |
| Views | Ticket views | Rebuilt |
| SLA policies | SLAs | Rebuilt |
| Explore reports | Reports and dashboards | Rebuilt |
| Marketplace apps | HubSpot Marketplace apps | Replaced |
On macros, HubSpot's migration guide splits canned responses in two: snippets of 500 characters or less for chat, notes and emails, and templates for full emails with subject lines. Help Desk Migration says automations, triggers and macros "don't map 1:1 to HubSpot Workflows," and exports them as a reference document for you to rebuild from. Use the rebuild to drop rules nobody remembers writing.
HubSpot's own advice is the same: don't just copy your Zendesk processes across. A migration is the cheapest moment you will get to simplify pipelines, statuses and routing.
The Four Ways to Migrate Your Zendesk Data
1. HubSpot's import tool (free)
Export from Zendesk, clean the files, and import them into HubSpot. The import tool creates and updates contacts, companies and tickets, associates them with each other, and creates calls, emails, meetings, notes and tasks, though it can't update activities it already created. The catch is conversations. Zendesk's CSV export "does not include deleted tickets, ticket comments, or ticket descriptions," so history means turning the JSON export into note or email rows yourself.
2. HubSpot's Zendesk Data Sync app
HubSpot's Data Sync app connects the two accounts, on Zendesk Suite Team, Growth or Professional. Ticket sync is one way, and you can sync ticket conversations into HubSpot. It syncs existing data straight away, but its listing says "Archived tickets will not sync," and Zendesk archives most tickets 120 days after they close. It suits a side-by-side period, not full history. Custom field mappings need Data Hub Starter or higher.
3. A migration tool
HubSpot's guide names Help Desk Migration alongside Trujay and Import2 as tools with a pre-built Zendesk connector, and Help Desk Migration has a certified app on the HubSpot Marketplace. It moves tickets, contacts, companies, agents, attachments, public and private notes, tags and side conversations. A free demo moves 20 real records so you can check the mapping before you pay.
4. A managed partner or custom API work
HubSpot partners plan the move, run the migration and rebuild automations for you. SmartBug Media says its plans start at $5,000 and take at least four weeks. With developer time you can also script it against both APIs, which Zendesk opens on every plan.
How Much a Zendesk to HubSpot Migration Costs
Help Desk Migration doesn't publish a flat price. It charges by record volume, counting tickets, contacts, companies and agents, while attachments, comments and notes don't add to the total. The cost per record falls as volume grows, and the wizard shows your price after the free demo.
The bigger number is usually Service Hub itself. Most Zendesk teams need Professional, because ticket workflows, the knowledge base and the customer portal start there. HubSpot lists it at $90 per seat per month billed annually, or $100 monthly, plus a required one-time $1,500 onboarding fee. Enterprise starts at $150 per seat with $3,500 onboarding. A five-person team on Professional pays $5,400 a year, plus $1,500 in year one. Our Service Hub pricing breakdown covers the rest.
How to Migrate From Zendesk to HubSpot, Step by Step
- 1
Plan the mapping (weeks 1 to 4)
List every Zendesk field, status, group, macro, trigger and app. Decide which become HubSpot properties, pipeline stages, teams, snippets and workflows, and which you drop. HubSpot's guide budgets 2 to 4 weeks for this.
- 2
Turn on Zendesk's export
Zendesk's JSON, CSV and XML exports work on Suite Growth and higher and on Support Professional and Enterprise, not on Team plans, and they are off by default. The account owner has to ask Zendesk support to enable them. Use JSON if you need comments: CSV leaves them out.
- 3
Set up Service Hub before you import
Create pipelines, ticket properties, inboxes, routing, SLAs, snippets and templates first, so imported tickets land in the right stage. Turn off workflows that could email customers when records arrive, as HubSpot's guide recommends.
- 4
Run a sample migration
HubSpot suggests a sample of about 10% of records. A migration tool's demo does the same job. Compare a few tickets side by side, including attachments and internal notes, and fix the mapping before the full run.
- 5
Move the help center
In HubSpot, go to Settings > Content > Knowledge Base, choose Import knowledge base, then Smart copy, and paste your Zendesk help center URL, or upload a CSV. Each import takes up to 400 articles, tables don't import, and URL paths change, so plan redirects.
- 6
Pilot, then cut over
HubSpot's guide recommends a two-week pilot with part of the team, then training in small groups. At go-live, run a delta migration of tickets created since the full run, point your support address at HubSpot, and keep one Zendesk license for about a month in case you need old data.
The Most Expensive Mistake: Losing the Engineering Handoff
Teams spend weeks mapping fields and forget the path that matters most to their customers: how a bug gets from a ticket to engineering, and how the customer hears that it's fixed.
In Zendesk that path is often an app. Linear's own Zendesk integration, on Linear's Business and Enterprise plans, adds a sidebar for creating or linking Linear issues, and it can reopen the Zendesk ticket when the linked issue is completed. Linear doesn't offer the same integration for HubSpot. So on go-live day, agents can't escalate from the ticket, and open bugs lose their link back to the customers waiting on them.
Do this before cutover:
Rebuild the escalation path
- Export a list of open Zendesk tickets that are linked to engineering issues, with the issue IDs.
- Pick and install the HubSpot replacement for your tracker integration, and test it in the pilot.
- Relink those open tickets to their issues in HubSpot, so the customer still hears when the fix ships.
Reconnecting HubSpot Tickets to Linear
If engineering works in Linear, IssueLinker replaces the Zendesk integration inside HubSpot. Every ticket gets an IssueLinker card. From it, 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. That second option is how you relink the open bugs you carried over.
After that, comments sync both ways, Linear comments arrive as HubSpot notes, and the Linear status is written to ticket properties. A status rule can also move the ticket to a pipeline stage you pick, say "Fix shipped," when the issue reaches a Linear state. That does the job the Zendesk app did when it reopened tickets. On Professional, HubSpot workflows can create or link Linear issues automatically.
IssueLinker works on any HubSpot plan and also connects HubSpot to Jira and GitHub. See the HubSpot Linear integration, or our guide to integrating Linear with HubSpot for the other options.
Keep bugs moving on day one in HubSpot
IssueLinker creates and links Linear issues from HubSpot tickets and syncs comments and status back, so your escalation path survives the migration. $39 per month flat, unlimited users, 14-day free trial.
Who This Guide and IssueLinker Are Not For
If you are moving from Zendesk to something other than HubSpot, our Zendesk alternatives guide fits better. If your support team rarely sends tickets to engineering, you don't need a tracker connector; the import tool or a migration tool covers the move. See pricing for the current IssueLinker plans.
