If your team relies on HubSpot but no one truly owns it, your growth is at risk. Marketing slows down, sales waste time chasing bad data, and leadership loses visibility into what’s actually working. The longer this continues, the more it drags on revenue.
You need a dedicated HubSpot admin. The question is whether to hire one internally or work with a HubSpot partner agency, a team that already brings platform expertise.
According to HubSpot’s 2024 ROI Report, customers who work with Solutions Partners see 53% more inbound leads and close three times more deals than those who don’t. That level of impact comes from deep platform knowledge applied consistently.
This guide compares both options so you can decide which approach fits your team, workload, and goals.
Without a dedicated HubSpot administrator, your CRM becomes a liability. Automation fails. Reports become unreliable. Sales teams lose trust in the data. And your marketing efforts stall as your team scrambles to fix issues instead of driving results.
Most small and mid-sized businesses launch HubSpot with good intentions but no long-term plan for ownership. Over time, lead routing breaks down, contact records become inconsistent, and workflows stop functioning as expected. Internal requests pile up while teams work around a system they no longer trust. The portal becomes disorganized, and the friction affects revenue.
A qualified HubSpot administrator manages every operational layer of the platform. This includes CRM structure, lifecycle stages, automation workflows, lead scoring, and field mapping. They maintain integrations, enforce data quality, and align the system with your tech stack.
Admins also support CMS updates, landing page builds, email template maintenance, and troubleshooting across the entire portal. Their role is to ensure every team can execute without platform barriers.
Frequent workflow delays, data issues, or reporting errors often signal the need for dedicated HubSpot support. Watch for these indicators:
When these signs appear, it’s time to bring in someone with the technical expertise and platform experience to restore control and streamline operations. SmithDigital’s HubSpot Admin Support Services can help you stabilize your portal and reduce friction across your revenue teams.
Hiring someone internally gives you a full-time HubSpot specialist who understands your business context and can align closely with your internal operations. This path is often a good fit for companies with heavy CRM usage, complex workflows, or a high volume of marketing automation and sales hub activity. The right HubSpot administrator becomes a central resource across teams.
An internal HubSpot expert works directly with your team, learns your systems in depth, and provides faster responses to daily requests. Over time, their knowledge compounds, which leads to more effective optimization and fewer errors.
They can manage CMS development, support inbound marketing efforts, troubleshoot issues within the portal, and handle day-to-day administration tasks without delay. This level of integration supports more seamless coordination across your sales and marketing teams.
The hiring process is time-consuming and difficult to get right. You’ll need to assess a wide range of skills: CRM configuration, workflow logic, data structure, email and landing page builds, reporting, and integration experience. Salary expectations vary, and total costs quickly add up with benefits, onboarding, and training. If the admin leaves, their platform knowledge leaves with them, disrupting continuity and slowing down execution.
Hiring in-house also introduces overhead. You may need additional part-time resources for CMS or development projects during peak campaigns. And if your team lacks documented processes or technical oversight, even strong hires can struggle to maintain consistency.
Hiring a HubSpot admin internally works best when your business has the volume, budget, and internal alignment to support the role. If you’re running complex campaigns, need tight control of the portal, and can invest in long-term ownership of your CRM environment, this option can deliver strong ROI. Especially if you’re hiring the right person for the right use cases.
Working with a HubSpot partner agency gives you access to an experienced team that covers HubSpot administration, strategic consulting, and technical execution. This model is a good fit for companies that need expert support across marketing automation, CMS development, CRM optimization, and campaign execution without hiring multiple full-time team members.
Agencies bring structured expertise and scalable support. You get a bench of HubSpot experts who have experience working across dozens of portal setups, verticals, and custom use cases. They handle everything from onboarding and workflow design to custom integrations, inbox automation, and performance troubleshooting. Agencies also stay current with HubSpot platform updates and best practices, so you don’t have to.
One major benefit is speed. With the right partner, you can delegate complex HubSpot work, such as landing pages, data cleanup, and CMS enhancements, without waiting on internal bandwidth. That agility helps marketing teams execute faster and frees up your internal resources for higher-level strategy. For example, SmithDigital’s HubSpot Admin Support Services offer flexible admin help tailored to your business needs and portal complexity.
Agencies won’t have the same internal context as a full-time team member. That means your onboarding process must be structured, with clear goals and expectations. Response times can vary depending on your service plan and workload. Some companies also choose to pair agency support with a part-time internal admin to keep communication tight and ownership clear.
If you’re looking to hire a HubSpot admin but can’t justify a full-time role, or you need top-tier expertise quickly, outsourcing is often the better move. It’s also a strong choice for businesses new to the platform, those scaling fast, or teams that want predictable costs and less overhead. A HubSpot partner agency is often the right fit for companies focused on optimization, speed, and strategic execution without adding headcount.
Cost is one of the biggest factors when evaluating how to hire a HubSpot admin. But smart decisions require more than comparing base salary to a retainer. You need to evaluate total cost, support capacity, and how quickly you need results.
According to Glassdoor, the average salary for a HubSpot administrator is $98,143 per year, with a typical range between $74,680 and $130,514. When you factor in benefits, payroll taxes, onboarding, software tools, and training, the actual cost of a full-time hire usually exceeds $120,000 annually.
HubSpot partner agencies typically charge monthly retainers ranging from $3,500 to $7,500, depending on scope and specialization. This gives you access to a full team that can support CRM configuration, CMS development, automation workflows, data hygiene, and campaign execution. For many SMBs, this model delivers broader coverage without expanding headcount.
An internal hire adds management overhead. You’ll need to train, supervise, and review their work across the CRM, CMS, and sales hub. Agencies come with their own delivery processes, project oversight, and quality controls. That reduces the time burden on internal teams—especially those already handling multiple martech platforms.
The true ROI comes from how quickly your HubSpot setup improves. A skilled admin can optimize lifecycle stages, clean up reporting, and improve lead-to-close workflows. But if they lack HubSpot-specific experience, results are often slower.
Agencies with deep HubSpot administration experience deliver faster, more consistent results. They bring ready-built templates, tested solutions, and implementation knowledge gained from managing dozens of portals. According to HubSpot’s 2024 ROI Report, companies that work with HubSpot Solutions Partners generate 53% more inbound leads and close three times more deals than those that do not.
If you have a consistent workload, technical oversight, and long-term CRM needs, hiring in-house can deliver strong value. But if you need help across multiple hubs, want a faster return, or prefer to minimize internal strain, SmithDigital’s HubSpot Admin Support Services may be the more efficient model. It all comes down to matching the support model to your growth stage and internal capacity.
There’s no universal answer. Choosing between an in-house hire and a HubSpot partner agency depends on your internal bandwidth, portal complexity, and urgency. Matching the model to your team’s skill set and growth stage is key to getting the right HubSpot support.
Early-stage businesses or companies new to the platform often benefit from the flexibility and range of an agency model. For these teams, using HubSpot without in-house expertise quickly leads to performance gaps. Agencies can help you grow with the platform and support foundational CRM and marketing automation needs.
Mid-sized companies with steady lead generation programs and more platform experience may prefer to hire a HubSpot administrator. When CRM updates, workflow builds, and reporting requests become daily occurrences, having someone in-house can increase execution speed and reduce cross-team friction.
Some organizations even blend both models—using an agency for CMS development or custom integration work, while keeping an internal admin to manage the day-to-day portal requests.
If your portal includes multiple hubs, custom objects, or integrations with other tools in your martech stack, a HubSpot partner agency may be the better fit. These teams bring deep knowledge across a range of use cases and can provide quicker solutions to complex technical problems.
Simpler use cases, such as managing lead scoring, running landing pages, or updating contact workflows, can often be handled by a single HubSpot admin embedded in your team. The best fit depends on how much of your marketing team’s time is already spent inside the CRM and what kind of technical depth your campaigns require.
If your team lacks CRM or CMS experience, an agency helps you avoid mistakes and scale more efficiently. But if you already have marketing ops staff with HubSpot expertise, or team members spending time inside the platform daily, then hiring a full-time admin may help you streamline operations.
When choosing between models, look at what’s currently slowing your team down. Is it execution bottlenecks, unclear platform ownership, or lack of capacity? Each model solves a different piece of the puzzle. Finding the right one means being honest about your gaps and aligning support with your goals.
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer when it comes to HubSpot administration. The right choice depends on your internal resources, the complexity of your HubSpot portal, and how quickly you need to see results.
An in-house HubSpot admin can offer fast turnaround and deep alignment if your team has the structure and workload to support it. A HubSpot partner agency provides broader expertise and scale without the overhead of hiring and training.
If you're ready to stabilize your portal, accelerate campaign execution, and get more out of your CRM investment, SmithDigital’s HubSpot Admin Support Services can help. Let’s build a support plan that fits your goals.