A Guide to Build HubSpot Lead Scoring for Marketers and Sales Teams

Why You Need The Updated HubSpot Lead Scoring Guide

HubSpot’s new Lead Scoring experience is more powerful and flexible than the legacy “Score” property many teams have relied on for years. You can now model Fit (who they are) and Engagement (what they do) separately or together; score contacts, companies, and deals; and add time frames, decay, thresholds, associations, and AI-assisted scoring.

“Think of it like layers,” says Xcellimark’s Nancy Lambert. “Your total score is made of groups, rules, and criteria. Those layers give you control and better alignment with your sales process.”

This lead scoring guide helps you:

• Understand how Fit and Engagement work
• Automate sales alerts and workflows
• Build a complete lead scoring system
• Avoid common scoring mistakes

There are also short videos throughout this article so you can see some of the new lead scoring aspects demonstrated live.

What’s New in HubSpot Lead Scoring

There are several new aspects to HubSpot’s lead scoring tool. HubSpot has phased out the legacy score property in favor of the new Lead Scoring tool.

Discover the newest features that make it easier to qualify leads.

The latest lead scoring version supports:

• Objects: Contacts, Companies, and Deals
• Score types: Fit, Engagement, or Combined
• Scoring layers: Total limit → Group limits → Rules → Criteria
• Advanced features: Time frame, Decay, Thresholds, Associations, Aggregation, Per-value scoring, Frequency ranges, Score Limits, and AI scoring for contacts
• Reset options: You can reset engagement scores automatically through workflows (great for closed-lost leads)

“Deals are always a combined score,” notes Alexi Leimbach. “Contacts and companies can be Fit, Engagement, or Combined. It’s your choice.”

Overall Total Lead Score Ceilings:

• Marketing Hub Professional: totals the lead score up to 100 points
• Enterprise: totals the lead score up to 500 points

Understanding Fit and Engagement Lead Scores in HubSpot

Get clarity on how Fit and Engagement scores work together to provide a complete view of your prospects.

The Fit Lead Score shows you details about your lead based on demographics, firmographics, and company data such as job title, industry, company size, location, buying role, ICP (Idea Customer Profile) match, list membership, etc.

The Engagement Lead Score measures what your lead does and the actions he or she has taken, such as form submissions, page views, pricing page visits, CTA (Call to Action) clicks, email opens/clicks, meeting bookings, webinar attendance, event enrollments, etc.

The Combined Lead Score merges both Fit and Engagement scores and unlocks thresholds (A/B/C for Fit and 1/2/3 for Engagement), which simplifies handoffs and SLAs (Service Level Agreements) with sales much simpler.

“A1 is your ideal lead—best fit and most engaged,” says Austin Stillwell. “C3 is the opposite. Sales reps love this clarity.”

Step-by-Step – How to Build a HubSpot Lead Scoring Model

1. Create Your Combined Lead Score and Set a Sensible Total Limit

• Go to Marketing → Lead Scoring → Create score → Contact → Combined
• Name your lead score clearly (e.g., “Marketing Lead Score Combined)
• Set the total lead score limit based on your HubSpot plan (e.g., 100 for Pro)

Pro tip: Start with 100 and assign 50 to Fit and 50 to Engagement. You can rebalance later as you gain more knowledge.

2. Build a Lead Scoring Fit Group Using Contact and Company Data

• Job title: CEO/Owner/VP/Director
• Industry: Your ICP industries
• Company size: Employee or revenue ranges
• Buying role: Decision maker vs. influencer
• Tech stack: Uses platform X/Y (if captured)
  
  

B. Use Per-Value Lead Scoring (instead of Cloning Rules)

When adding a multi-value property (e.g., job title), click “Score individually” and set different points per value.

• CEO/Owner: +10
• VP/Head: +7
• Manager: +4
• Student/HR (if not target): –5
  
  

C. Model AND/OR Logic with List Membership (for Fit only)

The new HubSpot lead scoring tool introduces criteria additively; it doesn’t chain conditions with AND/OR inside a single rule. If you need complex logic, build it as a segment (previously called “active list”) and score “Belongs to all/any/none of these lists.”

Examples:

• ICP Match List (industry + size + region) = +12
• Do-Not-Target List (vendors, competitors, students) = –30
  
  

D. Add Lead Scores from Associated Company Properties (with Guardrails)

• Click Add object → Associated company. This allows you to score on company industry, employee count, revenue, etc.
• Open Association settings to:
• Filter by Association label or Primary Company only
• Add Company-level filters (e.g., Industry = Automotive)
• Control Aggregation when multiple associations could inflate scores:

• • Sum (adds all matches), Average, Minimum (count once), or Maximum

“Aggregation helps prevent score inflation when a company is linked to many contact records,” Alexi notes. “Use Minimum to count once, or Average to smooth extremes.”

3. Add Lead Scoring Engagement Group (Behavior-Based Scoring)

A. Select Your Event Types (examples using sensible weights)

• Form submission (Demo/Pricing): +30–40
• Pricing page view: +15 (time-boxed)
• CTA click (high-intent offer): +10 (cap at 3 times)
• Marketing email click (campaign): +5 (frequency-based)
• Meeting booked: +35–50
• Webinar attended: +15 (registered only: +7)
  
  

B. Use Frequency to Reward Intensity

For email or CTA clicks, you can assign different points by frequency:

• At least 10 clicks in the last 30 days → +15
• 1–9 clicks → +5
  
  

C. Add a Time Frame for Recency—or Decay for Gradual Fade

• Time Frame (criterion-level): “In the last 7/14/30 days:” once the window passes, the points drop off entirely.
• Decay (group-level): Starts at 1 month minimum; reduces the whole group by a percentage over time (e.g., –25% per month).

Rule of thumb: Use Time Frame to capture short-term intent (pricing page, recent email activity). Use Decay to model long-term waning interest across the full Engagement group. You can’t use both in the same group.

D. Limit Runaway Behaviors

When someone is click-happy, use the “Limit score to” control (e.g., cap email click points at 20). Leave high-intent actions (e.g., Pricing form) uncapped.

4. Set Thresholds for Sales-Ready Handoff

Create clear lead scoring tiers that align marketing and sales.

For Combined lead scores, HubSpot maps your Fit and Engagement groups into:

• Fit: A (best), B, C
• Engagement: 1 (best), 2, 3

This produces a simple grid (A1 = highest Fit + highest Engagement).

Go to Settings to customize the numeric ranges that define A/B/C and 1/2/3 to match your pipeline and volume.

Suggested starting point (out of 100 total; 50/50 split):

• Fit:

• A = 38–50
• B = 24–37
• C = 0–23
• Engagement:
  
  
  • 1 = 35–50
  • 2 = 18–34
  • 3 = 0–17

“Make thresholds meaningful for sales,” Nancy advises. Tell reps they are alerted at A1, A2, or B1—that’s the sweet spot.”

5. Test and Validate Your HubSpot Lead Scoring Model

• Preview distribution to see average lead scores and how contacts cluster across ranges and thresholds.
• Test a contact (e.g., a known hot lead) to ensure the score matches your expectations.

If your top leads aren’t ranking as A1/A2/B1, adjust points, group limits, or thresholds, and preview again.

6. Automate Lead Scoring with HubSpot Workflows

A. Route Hot Leads to Sales Automatically

• Trigger: Lead scoring threshold updates to A1, A2, or B1
• Actions:
   
  • Assign or rotate to Contact Owner (don’t override if Owner exists)

• • Send internal email/Slack to the Contact Owner with context: name, company, Fit score, last engagement
  • Create a new Task (ex: Call within 1 hour)
  • Enroll in an email Sequence (if applicable)