By Mehdi HassanA lot of B2B teams love HubSpot as a CRM and want out of it as a website platform. That's a reasonable split: HubSpot is strong at contacts, email, workflows and sales tools, and plenty of teams want a design tool or codebase with more freedom for the site. The risk is that the website and the CRM are wired together in ways nobody wrote down. This hub explains what moves, what stays and how to rewire forms, tracking and personalization so marketing doesn't lose a single lead, then points to detailed guides for each destination.
Can you leave HubSpot CMS but keep HubSpot CRM?
Yes, you can leave HubSpot CMS and keep HubSpot CRM. HubSpot sells its CMS, now called Content Hub (formerly CMS Hub), separately from the CRM, Marketing Hub and Sales Hub. When the website moves, contacts, deals, email marketing, workflows, lead scoring and reporting all stay in HubSpot and keep working, as long as the new site sends data back.
Think of it as two jobs. The first is a normal website migration: design, build, content, URLs and SEO. The second is rewiring the connections that HubSpot made automatically when it hosted your pages: form submissions, page-view tracking, cookie consent, chat, meeting links and personalized content. Teams usually plan the first job carefully and discover the second one after launch, when a sales rep asks why new leads have no source.
What | After the website moves |
|---|---|
Contacts, companies, deals | Stay in HubSpot, unchanged |
Marketing email and workflows | Stay in HubSpot, unchanged |
Forms | Rewired: embed, API or collected forms |
Page-view tracking and attribution | Rewired: tracking code on the new site |
Chat and meetings | Rewired: embeds via the tracking code |
Smart content | Lost; needs a replacement |
Blog and website pages | Move to the new platform |
Campaign landing pages | Can stay in HubSpot if your plan includes them |
Why are teams leaving HubSpot CMS?
Teams are leaving HubSpot CMS mainly over total cost, design flexibility and developer experience. Total cost is the pressure we hear about most, and it pushes teams toward Webflow, Framer and headless options like Sanity and Payload. The CRM is rarely the problem; it's paying for a website tier on top of it.
- Cost. Content Hub is priced per tier and seat on top of other hubs. Check HubSpot's current pricing page for your exact numbers.
- Design freedom. HubSpot's theme and module system works, but designers often find Webflow or Framer faster for custom, animated marketing sites.
- Developer workflow. Developers used to React and Git often prefer Next.js over HubL templates and HubSpot's design manager.
- Performance and control. Teams want full control over scripts, images and rendering, which is easier on their own stack.
None of these mean HubSpot CMS is a bad product. It's a good fit for teams that want one vendor for everything and use smart content heavily. Our comparison of HubSpot CMS vs Webflow for B2B marketing sites goes deeper on that trade-off, including a three-year cost model.
Where should you move your website after leaving HubSpot CMS?
Move to Webflow if you want a visual builder with a solid CMS, Framer if speed of design and publishing matters most, and Next.js if you have developers and want full control. All three can keep HubSpot as the CRM. Pick based on who will edit the site day to day, not on which platform is most fashionable.
Destination | Best for | HubSpot forms | Read the guide |
|---|---|---|---|
Webflow | Marketing teams who want visual control and a strong CMS | Embed code in an Embed element | |
Framer | Small teams shipping fast, design-led sites | Embed or custom code component | |
Next.js | Teams with developers, complex sites, custom routing | Embed or Forms API | |
Stay on HubSpot | Heavy smart content users, one-vendor teams | Native |
We build on Webflow, Framer and Next.js, so we don't have a platform to push. Our honest rule of thumb: if the marketing team will make most changes and the site is under a few hundred pages, Webflow or Framer is usually the right call. If the site needs custom logic, a headless CMS or heavy programmatic pages, Next.js wins. For a broader list of options, see our guide to HubSpot CMS alternatives that keep your CRM.
How do you keep HubSpot forms working on the new site?
You keep HubSpot forms working by embedding the same HubSpot forms on the new site, submitting your own forms to the HubSpot Forms API, or letting HubSpot's collected forms feature capture submissions from plain HTML forms. Using the same form IDs means every workflow, list and notification triggered by those forms keeps working without changes.
Method | How it works | Good for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
HubSpot embed | Paste HubSpot's form script on the page | Fastest; keeps form logic in HubSpot | Styling control is limited |
Forms API | Your form posts to HubSpot's submissions endpoint | Full design control, custom validation | Must send the tracking cookie and page details |
Collected forms | Tracking code captures HTML form submissions | Simple forms on any platform | Less control over field mapping |
Native platform form plus integration | Webflow or Framer form syncs via a connector | Teams avoiding scripts | Attribution is often lost |
The detail that matters most is attribution. When a form is submitted through the API, include the visitor's HubSpot tracking cookie (hutk), the page URL and the page name, or HubSpot can't connect the submission to that visitor's earlier page views. Without it, new contacts show up with no original source, and your marketing reports go quiet. Also carry over consent fields if your forms collect marketing consent.
Hypothetical example: a demo form rebuilt with the Forms API
For example, suppose a team's demo request form triggers a workflow that assigns the lead to a sales rep and sends a Slack alert. On the new Next.js site the designers want a custom, multi-step form.
The developer builds the form in React and, on submit, sends the fields to a server route. The route reads the hubspotutk cookie, adds the page URL and title, and posts everything to HubSpot's form submission endpoint using the existing form's ID. Because the form ID hasn't changed, the workflow fires exactly as before. The team tests it by submitting from an incognito window with UTM parameters and checking that the contact shows the right original source.
How do you keep HubSpot tracking and attribution after the move?
You keep HubSpot tracking and attribution by installing the HubSpot tracking code on every page of the new site, making sure page views fire on client-side navigation, and keeping UTM parameters intact through to form submission. The tracking code is what ties anonymous visits to a contact once they convert.
- Install it once, sitewide. Add the tracking script in the site-wide head or footer code, not page by page.
- Handle client-side routing. Next.js and Framer can navigate between pages without a full reload, so the tracking code may only see the first page. Push the new path and a page view to HubSpot's queue on each route change, then confirm in HubSpot that visits show multiple pages.
- Respect consent. If you swap HubSpot's cookie banner for another consent tool, configure the tracking code to wait for consent, so you stay compliant and the data stays clean.
- Keep UTMs. Don't strip query strings in redirects; HubSpot reads them to set original source.
Once the basics work, connect website behaviour to pipeline properly. Our guide on connecting website analytics to HubSpot or Salesforce pipeline shows how to report from first visit to closed deal.
What happens to smart content, CTAs, chat and meetings?
Smart content stops working when you leave HubSpot CMS, because it only runs on HubSpot-hosted pages. Chat, meeting links and many CTAs keep working, because they load through the tracking code or their own embed scripts on any site.
Replacing smart content
Smart content shows different text or modules based on things like lifecycle stage, list membership, country, device or referral source. Start by listing where you actually use it; many teams find only a few modules do. Then pick a replacement for each: simple rules like country or device can be handled in the new front end, and personalization by CRM data can use a dedicated personalization tool or a server-side lookup on a Next.js site. Some personalization is better dropped, especially if nobody has checked whether it helps.
Chat, meetings and CTAs
HubSpot chatflows appear on external sites once the tracking code is installed and the chatflow targets the new URLs. Meeting scheduling pages can be embedded with HubSpot's meetings embed. For CTAs, check whether each one supports embedding on external pages; where it doesn't, rebuild it as a normal button linking to a HubSpot form or landing page.
What should stay in HubSpot after you move the website?
Campaign landing pages, marketing email and anything that depends heavily on smart content can stay in HubSpot after you move the website. Many teams keep a subdomain such as go.yourdomain.com on HubSpot for paid campaign pages, while the main site moves to the new platform.
Pros
- Campaign teams keep building landing pages without developer help
- Smart content and HubSpot A/B testing keep working on those pages
- Paid campaign URLs and tracking don't change mid-campaign
- The main site migration has a smaller, cleaner scope
Cons
- Two places to manage design, so brand consistency takes effort
- You still need a HubSpot plan that includes landing pages
- Visitors can notice a jump between two templates
- Two sets of SEO settings and redirects to look after
If you keep landing pages in HubSpot, rebuild their template to match the new site's design, so the jump isn't obvious. Our guide to CMS setup for marketing websites explains how to give your team editing freedom on the main site, which often reduces how many pages need to stay in HubSpot at all.
How do you plan a HubSpot CMS migration step by step?
You plan a HubSpot CMS migration by auditing the HubSpot integrations first, then the content and URLs, then building, rewiring and testing before you switch the domain. Most failures come from skipping the integration audit, not from the build.
Audit HubSpot dependencies
List every form, its workflows, smart content modules, CTAs, chatflows, meeting links, URL-based lists and lead scoring rules.
Audit content and URLs
Crawl the site, export the URL list and decide what to keep, merge or redirect. Export blog posts with HubSpot's export tool or its blog posts API.
Choose the destination
Pick Webflow, Framer or Next.js using the table above, and decide which pages stay in HubSpot.
Build and import
Design and build the new site, import blog content and re-host images, since HubSpot file URLs won't be maintained once you leave.
Rewire HubSpot
Install the tracking code, connect forms using the same form IDs, embed chat and meetings, and replace smart content.
Move redirects
HubSpot's URL redirect tool only works while HubSpot hosts the domain. Recreate every redirect on the new platform.
Test end to end
Submit every form with UTM parameters from a fresh browser and confirm the contact, source, workflow and notification in HubSpot.
Switch the domain and monitor
Point DNS to the new host, then watch Search Console, 404s and new-contact sources daily for the first few weeks.
The SEO side follows the same rules as any platform move; our website migration SEO checklist covers redirects, metadata and post-launch monitoring in detail.
How much does leaving HubSpot CMS cost, and how long does it take?
Typical ranges we see quoted for website migrations run from about $1,500 to $25,000 depending on size, and a HubSpot exit is commonly quoted at 6 to 10 weeks. Both vary a lot with page count, blog size and how much HubSpot wiring needs to be rebuilt.
- Typical migration price range agencies quote, by site size
- $1.5k–$25k
- Typical quoted timeline for a HubSpot CMS exit
- 6–10 weeks
- Designify website package, up to 6 pages, fixed price
- $8,000
The cost that quotes forget most often is the form-to-CRM rebuild: custom forms on the API, attribution testing and fixing URL-based workflows. Our HubSpot CMS migration cost guide breaks that out line by line, and our broader website migration cost guide compares every platform move. To keep a fixed budget fixed, agree the list of forms and integrations up front; our guide to change orders and scope creep explains why. At Designify, migration work is scoped on the intro call, and we include redirects and SEO checks in any migration we take on.
Which HubSpot migration guide should you read next?
Read the guide for your destination next, then the cost guide before you ask for quotes. If you're hiring help, our guide to choosing a Webflow or Framer migration agency lists the questions to ask, including how they'll handle HubSpot forms and tracking.
- HubSpot CMS to Webflow migration guide: blog export, form embeds and what to leave in HubSpot.
- HubSpot CMS to Framer migration guide: Framer-specific form embedding and attribution checks.
- HubSpot CMS to Next.js: the Forms API, tracking and lead routing for a custom front end.
- HubSpot CMS vs Webflow: a three-year cost model and a design flexibility verdict.
- HubSpot CMS migration cost and timeline: what drives the price, including the CRM rewiring.
- Webflow to HubSpot CMS: when moving into HubSpot is the better call.
- Headless CMS migration: if you're pairing Next.js with Sanity, Payload or another headless CMS.
