What is HubSpot’s Stripe Data Sync Integration?
HubSpot Data Sync for Stripe is a free offering in the HubSpot App Marketplace under the app name “Stripe” that leverages HubSpot’s Data Sync Platform. It’s intended to be used by HubSpot customers who use Stripe as their system of record for billing and payments and subscription management, not for customers who use HubSpot Commerce/Payments or other solutions that use Stripe only as a payment processor.
What are the benefits of HubSpot’s Stripe Data Sync?
The HubSpot Data Sync platform originated in 2021 using technology from the acquisition of PieSync. Apps that use Data Sync, including the Stripe app have benefits including:
- (1) A one or two-way sync, enabling you to potentially send data into Stripe.
- (2) Records are indexed internally to efficiently detect changes to records in either system that might need to be updated.
- (3) All historical records are included in the sync. Records are matched to potential existing records via unique identifiers such as email address for Contacts. If there isn’t a match, the record will go through the sync engine on its own and create one in HubSpot.
- (4) The incremental sync looks for updates in HubSpot every five minutes, while the Stripe side uses webhooks to send Stripe updates into HubSpot in near real-time.
What are the downsides of HubSpot’s Stripe Data Sync?
The biggest downside of using HubSpot’s Stripe Data Sync App is that it was built to move data between two systems (extract it from one, and load it into another), but not to transform Stripe data in a way that makes it usable.
Due to the nature of Stripe’s complex object model and the fact that Stripe can be configured and used to manage subscriptions in many different ways, it’s near impossible to use the integration to do the things you’re likely looking for, like:
- syncing HubSpot Contacts & Companies in a way that makes sense (more here)
- understanding the current and historical MRR/ARR for a given HubSpot Company
- seeing MRR change events by type (new, upgrade, downgrade, churn)
- running trend reporting on your subscription revenue metrics
- triggering automations like Slack alerts and email sequence enrollments via Workflows
- dealing with complex Stripe concepts (e.g. proration, tiered and graduated billing)
Another notable downside is that it’s not possible to test Stripe Data Sync using a test/sandbox Stripe account. Even when the App is installed in a HubSpot Sandbox or Development account, it requires a production Stripe instance to connect to.
Additionally, you can only map any of the “custom” available Stripe Customer fields with HubSpot Data Hub Starter+, which is around $15/user extra.
How is HubSpot’s Stripe Data Sync Configured?
There are a limited number of configuration options between Stripe and HubSpot Objects:
- Stripe Customers can only map to HubSpot Contacts
- Stripe Invoices can only map to HubSpot Invoices
- Stripe Payment Transactions can only map to a HubSpot Custom Object
- Stripe Products can only map to HubSpot Products
- Stripe Subscriptions can only map to a HubSpot Custom Object
For in depth information on each syncable object, see:
Mapping Stripe Customers to HubSpot Contacts & Companies with Stripe Data SyncMapping Stripe Invoices to HubSpot Invoices with Stripe Data SyncMapping Stripe Subscriptions to a HubSpot Custom Object with Stripe Data SyncMapping Stripe Payment Transactions to a HubSpot Custom Object with Stripe Data SyncMapping Stripe Products to HubSpot Products with Stripe Data Sync