HubSpot Integration: Your CRM on Every Call
Connect your HubSpot user to Backdrop. Read-only access to the CRM records, activities, and conversations you can see in HubSpot, live on calls.
Backdrop is the live in-call sales assistant: it pushes the right discovery questions and surfaces the right answers while you're on the call. With HubSpot connected, the account's history is on hand too: the contacts, the deal, and every touch that came before.
How it works
Backdrop connects to HubSpot through HubSpot's own MCP server, using OAuth. The connection is personal: it belongs to your HubSpot user, not your workspace, and only you can use it. It is also read-only.
Once connected, Backdrop looks things up in HubSpot in three places:
- Before the call. The prep brief for a meeting on your calendar draws on HubSpot for the company, the people attending, the deal, and recent activity.
- During the call. Backdrop looks up the account and the people on the call as it starts, and keeps looking as the conversation turns.
- Ask Backdrop. When you ask Backdrop a question, during a call or outside one, it searches HubSpot alongside your other connected tools.
Backdrop reads on demand, as part of answering a question or preparing a brief. It does not bulk-export or continuously sync your HubSpot account.
What Backdrop reads
Data flows one way, from HubSpot to Backdrop. Backdrop reads only what your HubSpot user can see, and only these kinds of data:
| What Backdrop reads | Why |
|---|---|
| Contacts, companies, deals, and other CRM records, including activities such as calls, emails, meetings, notes, and tasks | Identify who is on the call and the account behind it, read the deal's current state, and recall what happened on earlier touches. |
| Property definitions | Read the fields on those records, including your custom properties, and label them correctly. |
| Owners | Resolve record owners into names, for example "deal owned by Dana". |
| Campaigns and campaign attribution | See which campaigns brought the account in and what it engaged with. |
| Inbox conversations and their channels | Pick up recent chat and email threads with the account. |
| Marketing email analytics | See how the marketing emails the account received performed. |
| Your HubSpot user details | Confirm which HubSpot user and account the connection belongs to. |
Backdrop never creates, edits, or deletes anything in HubSpot, and it never registers webhooks.
Before you start
- A Backdrop account and the Backdrop desktop app. See installing Backdrop.
- A HubSpot user. Your HubSpot permissions apply: records your user can't see in HubSpot stay hidden from Backdrop too.
- Sensitive Data. If your HubSpot account has HubSpot's Sensitive Data setting turned on, HubSpot blocks activity and conversation data from Backdrop. Contacts, companies, and deals still come through.
Install and connect HubSpot
In the Backdrop app, open Knowledge from the sidebar.
Find HubSpot, or type its name in Search integrations…, and click Connect on its card.
In the Personal row, click Connect. Your browser opens HubSpot's sign-in page. While you finish there, Backdrop shows Waiting… with a Cancel button.
Sign in to HubSpot, choose the HubSpot account you want Backdrop to read, review the permissions HubSpot lists, and grant access. Backdrop only ever uses the read access described in What Backdrop reads, so nothing in HubSpot is changed.
When the HubSpot card turns green and reads For you, you're connected.
You can also connect HubSpot while you set up Backdrop, in the Connect your tools step, or later from the Connect your own tools row of the setup checklist on the home screen.
Why HubSpot's approval screen may mention Nango
Backdrop uses Nango to store and refresh connection credentials securely, so
HubSpot's approval screen may name Nango, or api.nango.dev. That is
expected.
Configure HubSpot
There's nothing to configure. Backdrop reads HubSpot on demand, so there are no field mappings, sync schedules, or sync directions to set. What Backdrop can see is decided by your HubSpot user's permissions; to change it, change them in HubSpot.
Use it on a call
- Before the call, open the meeting in Backdrop. The brief draws on HubSpot for the company, the people attending, the deal, and recent activity.
- During the call, ask Backdrop about the account, for example "what stage is this deal in, and who owns it?" or "when did we last talk to them, and about what?".
- Outside a call, ask Backdrop the same kind of question to prepare or to write your follow-up.
Disconnect HubSpot
- Open Knowledge and click Manage on the HubSpot card.
- In the Personal row, click Disconnect, then confirm.
What happens to your data:
- Nothing in HubSpot changes. Backdrop never wrote to it, so there is nothing to undo.
- Backdrop stops reading HubSpot and deletes its stored connection.
- What Backdrop already produced stays in your Backdrop account: meeting briefs, Ask Backdrop conversations, and call notes that drew on HubSpot. To have it deleted, email support@getbackdrop.ai. See the Privacy Policy for how long Backdrop keeps data.
You can connect HubSpot again at any time.
Uninstall Backdrop from HubSpot
Disconnecting in Backdrop is enough to stop it reading HubSpot. To also remove Backdrop's access on HubSpot's side:
- In HubSpot, click the settings icon and go to Integrations > Connected Apps.
- Find Backdrop and click Actions > Uninstall.
- Type uninstall to confirm, and click Uninstall.
HubSpot's guide covers this in more detail: uninstall an app. Uninstalling has the same effect on your data as disconnecting. If you haven't disconnected in Backdrop first, the HubSpot card shows Expired - please reconnect the next time Backdrop tries to read HubSpot; disconnect it there, or click Reconnect to connect again.
Troubleshooting
- "Connection timed out, please try again": the HubSpot sign-in wasn't finished within two minutes. Click Connect and try again.
- "This integration is already connected. Disconnect it first.": HubSpot is already connected for you. Disconnect it, then connect again.
- The card reads "Expired - please reconnect": HubSpot no longer accepts Backdrop's access, for example after it was uninstalled in HubSpot. Click Reconnect.
- Backdrop can't see a record you expect: check that your own HubSpot user can see it. Backdrop never sees more than you do.
- Backdrop sees records but no activities or conversations: your HubSpot account likely has Sensitive Data turned on. See Before you start.