HubSpot’s existing customers have nearly stopped spending more. For every $100 they paid HubSpot a year ago, they now pay about $101, the company told investors on November 4, 2026. 1 Source 1 HubSpot Q3 2026 earnings call, November 4, 2026, CFO Kate Bueker: “Net revenue retention was 101%, down about 1 point quarter-over-quarter driven by a step-up in budget sensitivity, which was also more pronounced down market.” Transcript: The Motley Fool. Back in February, HubSpot had told the same investors to expect that figure to rise this year.
It fell, and the $101 flatters it. The figure already includes a renewal price increase of up to 5%, which HubSpot’s CFO said would hold it up in 2026. Take that out, and what existing customers choose to buy on top, the extra seat or the higher tier, is close to flat, and may be shrinking.
None of this says HubSpot is in trouble. It earned a 22.6% operating margin (non-GAAP) last quarter, up from 19.9% a year earlier, on $947.6 million of revenue. The claim is narrower. The companies already paying HubSpot are spending less freely, HubSpot says so itself, and if yours is one of them, your next renewal should go differently.
Key figures
- About $101 for every $100. What HubSpot’s existing customers pay now compared with a year earlier, after upgrades, downgrades and cancellations. HubSpot calls it net revenue retention: 101% in Q3 2026, down from 105% in Q4 2025. Source: HubSpot Q3 2026 earnings call, November 4, 2026.
- Up to 5%. The renewal price increase HubSpot’s CFO said would support that figure in 2026. Source: HubSpot Q4 2025 earnings call, February 11, 2026.
- 18% down to 12%. HubSpot’s revenue growth in constant currency, from Q1 2026 to its guidance for Q4 2026 (23% to 12% as reported). Source: HubSpot quarterly results, May 7 and November 4, 2026.
- 11 to 13 cents of every dollar. What existing customers take away each year through cancellations and downgrades, before upgrades are counted. HubSpot puts its customer dollar retention “in the high 80s.” Source: HubSpot Q3 2026 earnings call.
- 2 to 3 times the credit usage. In the regions piloting HubSpot’s seats-and-credits pricing, at a lower average selling price. Source: HubSpot Q3 2026 earnings call.
HubSpot planned for customers to spend more
The $101 has a name in HubSpot’s earnings reports: net revenue retention. 2 Definition 2 Net revenue retention: what a company’s existing customers pay now as a share of what the same customers paid a year earlier, after upgrades, downgrades and cancellations. 101% means $101 for every $100. New customers are not counted. In February HubSpot reported it at 103.5% for 2025, up from 101.8% the year before, and credited “the benefit from our pricing change.” It told investors to expect another one to two points in 2026. 3 Source 3 HubSpot Q4 2025 earnings call, February 11, 2026, Bueker: “For the full year of 2025, net revenue retention was 103.5%, up from 101.8% in 2024, reflecting continued momentum in seat expansion and the benefit from our pricing change. Looking ahead to 2026, we expect to grow net revenue retention by another 1 to 2 points year-over-year.” Q4 2025 was 105%.
By August it was 102%. CFO Kate Bueker put the drop down to “customer budget optimization,” which offset the seats and credits customers were still adding. 4 Source 4 HubSpot Q2 2026 earnings call, August 5, 2026, Bueker: “net revenue retention was 102%, down 1 point year-over-year as continued seat and credit expansion was offset by other net upgrade headwinds as a result of customer budget optimization.” In November it was 101%, driven by “a step-up in budget sensitivity,” most of all among smaller customers. HubSpot now expects the full year to land about two points below 2025. 5 Source 5 HubSpot Q3 2026 earnings call, November 4, 2026, Bueker: “We now expect full year 2026 net revenue retention to be down about 2 points year-over-year.” February’s forecast was 2025 plus 1 to 2 points; the current expectation is 2025 minus about 2. Against what it forecast in February, that’s a miss of three to four points.
How much of the $101 is the price increase?
More of it than the headline suggests. Asked about retention on the February call, Bueker said customers coming up for renewal “would see up to a 5% pricing increase, and that did help support net revenue retention in 2025. It will support net revenue retention in 2026, again to a similar amount.” 6 Source 6 HubSpot Q4 2025 earnings call, February 11, 2026, Bueker, answering an analyst: customers coming up for renewal “would see up to a 5% pricing increase, and that did help support net revenue retention in 2025. It will support net revenue retention in 2026, again to a similar amount.”
So the $101 is what customers pay after their renewal increase. Nobody outside HubSpot can split it exactly, and HubSpot doesn’t publish the split. 7 Editor's note 7 Why we can’t give the exact split: not every customer renews in a given year, “up to 5%” is a ceiling, and HubSpot doesn’t publish how much of net revenue retention the increases account for. The direction holds either way: any part of the 1% that comes from list-price increases is growth customers didn’t choose. The direction isn’t in doubt, though. Whatever share of that last dollar comes from list prices is growth the customer didn’t choose, and the part they did choose is smaller still.
The published increase is also the floor of what renewals cost. Our breakdown puts it at 5% on paper and 8 to 12% in practice for a growing company, once seat additions and contact tiers creep up. What HubSpot’s renewal increases add up to over a few contract terms is the number most buyers never run.
In June we wrote about vendors raising prices on customers who can’t easily leave. Five months on, HubSpot’s own numbers show the other half of that bargain. Customers who can’t leave are still finding ways to spend less.
Growth is slowing, and HubSpot expects that to last into 2027
In constant currency, HubSpot’s revenue grew 18% in the first quarter of 2026, 17% in the second and 17% in the third. It has guided the fourth to 12%. As reported, the slide looks steeper (23%, 20%, 17%, 12%), because a weaker dollar flattered the first half. 8 Source 8 HubSpot quarterly results: Q1 2026 revenue $881.0M, up 23% as reported and 18% in constant currency (May 7, 2026); Q2 $911.7M, up 20% and 17% (August 5, 2026); Q3 $947.6M, up 17% on both bases (November 4, 2026). Q4 2026 guidance: $945.0M to $947.0M, up 12% on both bases.
Take that out, and what existing customers choose to buy on top, the extra seat or the higher tier, is close to flat, and may be shrinking.
The company expects net new annual recurring revenue to fall this year, and the number of customers it adds in the fourth quarter to come in below the third quarter’s 5,300. Bueker told analysts the “increased headwinds will persist throughout the remainder of the year and into 2027.” 9 Source 9 HubSpot Q3 2026 earnings call, November 4, 2026, Bueker: “We now expect net new ARR to decline year-over-year in fiscal 2026” and “these increased headwinds will persist throughout the remainder of the year and into 2027.” Q4 net customer additions are expected below Q3’s 5,300. On October 6 HubSpot announced a reorganization that “flattened the organization.”
CEO Yamini Rangan’s explanation splits by customer size. Larger companies want to see AI work on their own data before they buy, and their deals now go through bigger committees with the CEO, CTO and board involved. “Down market, customers are more price-sensitive and focused on optimizing costs.”
There’s a second number that explains why a small slowdown in buying hits so hard. HubSpot keeps its customer dollar retention, the revenue it holds before anyone upgrades, “in the high 80s.” 10 Editor's note 10 HubSpot reports customer dollar retention, its gross retention before upgrades, as “stable and healthy in the high 80s” (Q3 2026 call). High 80s means roughly 11 to 13 cents of every existing-customer dollar is lost each year to cancellations and downgrades before upgrades and price increases count. Roughly 11 to 13 cents of every dollar existing customers paid walks out each year through cancellations and downgrades, and upgrades plus price increases have to refill the bucket. In 2025 they more than refilled it. This year they’re barely keeping up. It’s the same pattern behind why companies are quietly leaving HubSpot, now in HubSpot’s own reporting.
What budget optimization looks like inside the account
We spent sixteen years as a HubSpot partner, sitting on the customer’s side of these renewals. The cut is rarely the whole account. It’s the seat that belonged to someone who left in the spring and never got reassigned, or the hub bought for a project that never launched.
None of it can happen mid-contract. HubSpot’s terms allow a downgrade only at your next renewal date, on a new Order Form, 11 Source 11 HubSpot Customer Terms of Service, General Terms, section 2.5 Downgrades, last modified September 16, 2026: “You are not permitted to downgrade your Subscription Service during your Current Term. You may downgrade your Subscription Services at your next renewal date upon completion of a new Order Form.” so a year of small decisions all land on one date. That’s why the effect shows up first among smaller customers. A company with a lean marketing team notices an idle seat long before an enterprise does.
What is HubSpot’s seats-and-credits pricing?
It’s HubSpot’s answer, and it changes what you’ll be budgeting for. In a pilot that began in the Nordics and Benelux, HubSpot replaced separate hubs with a single go-to-market seat that opens every capability, and moved every usage-based feature onto one pool of credits. The step from Starter to Pro costs less. 12 Source 12 HubSpot Q3 2026 earnings call, November 4, 2026, CEO Yamini Rangan: the pilot “provides access to all HubSpot capabilities through a go-to-market seat, removing hubs. It reduces the price jump from starter to Pro across marketing, content and data hubs and brings all usage-based features under a single credit mechanism.” Also: “Compared to regions outside the pilot, credit usage is 2 to 3x higher. Pro+ customer volume is higher, while average selling price is lower.” Rangan reported credit usage two to three times higher than outside the pilot. More customers are buying Pro or above, though at a lower average selling price.
From the fourth quarter it covers every new customer in EMEA. Existing customers and other regions wait on the results.
For a buyer, it means a lower price to get in and a bill that moves with what you use. HubSpot hasn’t said what the change does to a typical customer’s bill, and higher usage at a lower selling price doesn’t tell you. Plan for credits the way you’d plan for a utility, with a monthly forecast and a cap, not the way you’d plan for a license.
Before your next renewal
Negotiate the increase, not only the seat count. HubSpot’s own forecast counts on renewal increases to hold retention up, and a vendor whose existing customers are cutting back has every reason to keep the ones who stay. Ask for the increase to be capped or waived, and get it in the Order Form.
Then right-size before the date, because it’s the only date you get. Count the seats that logged in over the last quarter and the hubs that actually ran something, and decide what goes before the renewal paperwork arrives. The HubSpot renewal calendar counts back from your contract end so the decision isn’t made in the last week.
If you’re outside EMEA, ask your rep when seats and credits reaches existing customers, and what last quarter’s usage would have cost under it. You want that answer before it’s in your contract.
None of this means leaving. It means the renewal is a negotiation again, possibly for the first time since you signed. And if the numbers make you wonder what it would cost to stop renting the stack altogether, our HubSpot cost breakdown runs that comparison line by line.
The research is free. So is the diagnosis. 60 seconds →