Short answer
Marketing contacts are the HubSpot contacts you are allowed to send marketing emails and ads to, and they are the basis of Marketing Hub pricing. Contacts you do not market to can be set as non-marketing contacts, which keeps them in the CRM for sales and service without adding to your bill.
HubSpot Marketing Contacts explained
HubSpot charges Marketing Hub customers based on tiers of marketing contacts. A contact becomes a marketing contact when you set it manually, through a workflow, a form or an import. Unsubscribed, bounced and inactive contacts often stay marked as marketing contacts by mistake, which pushes firms into higher tiers.
Non-marketing contacts can still receive one-to-one sales emails and appear in reports. Changes from marketing to non-marketing take effect at the next billing update.
How Vantage Point helps: we run marketing-contact cleanups and set up workflows that keep your contact tier under control automatically.
Frequently asked questions
How often can I change marketing contact status?
You can change status at any time, but contacts set to non-marketing are only removed from your marketing contact count on the next update date in your billing cycle.
Can non-marketing contacts get emails?
They can receive one-to-one sales and service emails, but not marketing emails or ads.