A deal pipeline in HubSpot is an ordered series of deal stages that represents your sales process, from the first qualified conversation to closed won or closed lost. Every deal belongs to one pipeline and sits in one stage of it at a time.
Every HubSpot portal with deals has at least one pipeline. Each pipeline holds a list of stages in order, ending with a closed won and a closed lost stage. Each stage has a win probability that feeds weighted pipeline amounts, and you can make certain properties required when a deal moves into a stage. Depending on your subscription, you can create more than one pipeline, for example one for new business and one for renewals.
The pipeline is where sales process becomes data. Board views show deals as cards moving across stages. Reports use stage entry dates to measure conversion between stages and time spent in each. Forecasts and weighted pipeline depend on the stage each deal sits in. If stages do not match how the team really sells, every one of those numbers is off.
Good stages describe something the buyer has done or agreed to, not something the rep hopes will happen. "Demo completed" and "Proposal sent" are checkable. "Interested" is not. Each stage should have a short written exit criterion, so two reps would put the same deal in the same place.
Keep the pipeline short enough that every stage gets used. Stages that no deal ever enters, or that most deals skip, are a sign the pipeline was designed in a meeting rather than taken from real deals. Review pipelines at least once a year, and before you change stages, check which workflows, reports and forecasts rely on them.
Ostrava Robotics, a fictional equipment maker, had one pipeline with eleven stages, and three of them held no deals in a year. The sales lead cut it to six stages with written exit criteria and moved service renewals to a second pipeline. Stage conversion reports became readable and forecasts stopped mixing new and renewal revenue.
As few as possible. Use a separate pipeline only when the sales process is truly different, for example new business versus renewals or partner deals. The number of pipelines you can create depends on your subscription.
There is no fixed number, but most B2B teams work well with five to seven open stages. Every stage should be one that deals actually enter, with an exit criterion a manager can check.
Ancil connects to HubSpot read-only in about 60 seconds. Nothing changes in your portal without your approval.