HubSpot has two kinds of email templates: sales templates for one-to-one emails you send from a contact record, the inbox or a sequence, and marketing email templates for bulk emails built in the drag and drop editor. You create sales templates under Templates with New template, and marketing templates by saving an email as a template from the File menu in the email editor.
The limit most people hit first is on free accounts. As of October 2026, HubSpot's help says free accounts created on or after September 18th, 2024 can create three sales templates per account, and older free accounts can create five. Snippets, the shorter reusable blocks, are capped at 3 per free account. If your team shares one free portal, those few slots go fast.
Sales templates versus marketing templates
| Sales templates | Marketing email templates | |
|---|---|---|
| Used for | One-to-one emails and sequences | Bulk emails such as newsletters |
| Where you build them | Templates tool, or Gmail with the HubSpot Sales Chrome extension | Drag and drop email editor, File then Save email as template |
| Who can manage them | Depends on subscription and seat | Super Admin or Design tools permissions |
| Not supported for | Images-only templates won't attach | Blog and RSS emails |
| Tracking | Template ID property records which template was used | Reported through marketing email tools |
Mixing these up is the classic mistake. If you're writing a follow-up to one prospect, you want a sales template. If you're designing the monthly newsletter layout, you want a marketing template. For the bulk side in more depth, see my guide to HubSpot email marketing.
Creating a sales template
- Go to Templates, click New template in the top right, then From scratch.
- Enter a name and a subject line. Subject lines have a 256 character limit, and HubSpot recommends keeping them under 45 characters.
- Choose Shared with everyone or switch it to Private, and pick a folder if you use them.
- Write the body. Use the Personalization dropdown for tokens, and the Insert dropdown for snippets, documents, scheduling links or video.
- Make sure there's text in the body, because templates with images only won't attach.
- Click Save template, then send it from a record, your inbox via the sales extension, or a sequence.
One formatting trap from HubSpot's help: curly brackets in templates cause problems with its template rendering service. Use a custom token instead when you want the sender to fill something in.
Access depends on both the account's subscriptions and each user's seat. If the account has Sales Hub or Service Hub Professional or Enterprise, users with a Core Seat can still use templates. Private templates can only be deleted by the person who made them or a super admin with a paid seat.
Snippets for the bits you retype
Snippets are short reusable text blocks you can drop into templates, chats, notes and logged activities on contact, company, deal, ticket and custom object records. You give each one a shortcut, then type the # symbol followed by that shortcut to insert it. As of October 2026, Starter, Professional and Enterprise accounts can create up to 5,000 snippets, and users need a Core, Sales or Service Hub seat to access them.
Each snippet has a 2,500 character limit, and languages with double-byte characters such as Japanese can hit it sooner. On the HubSpot mobile keyboard you can reach up to 100 snippets and only see the ones you own.
Personalization tokens and custom tokens
A token pulls in a property value from the contact, company, deal, ticket or sender when you send. Always set a fallback value for when the property's empty. Sender tokens come from your own Profile and Preferences, so check your phone number and job title are right there before you rely on them.
Custom tokens, which you name in the Custom token field, only work in sales templates. They prompt the sender to type a one-time value, and that value doesn't save to any property. If you forget to fill it in, the email can still send with the unfilled token text showing. Here's a subtler catch: if you type a value into a property token and that property's blank on the record, HubSpot updates the record with what you typed.
AI-generated and uploaded templates
HubSpot's AI assistant can draft sales templates. Click Generate template with AI, choose an email type, describe what you're selling and who to, summarise the content and tick the tones you want. It needs Give users access to generative AI tools and features switched on in your AI settings. HubSpot warns that AI output can be wrong and tends to be less consistent in non-English languages, so proofread before anyone sends it.
On the marketing side, you can export the HTML of an email built in another tool and upload it, and AI recreates it in the drag and drop editor, either as an email or a saved template. You can upload up to 100 templates per month, images need to be publicly accessible, and HubSpot's default footer is added so CAN-SPAM information is present.
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Send limits that apply to template emails
Templates don't have their own send cap, but the emails you send with them do. HubSpot's limits run over a rolling 24-hour period and don't reset at a set time of day. Your email provider has its own limits too, which HubSpot can't override. A team inbox connected to HubSpot has a limit of 50 total recipients per message across To, CC and BCC.
If you add templates to sequences, the sequence limit applies: users with a Sales or Service Professional seat can send up to 500 sequence emails a day, and Enterprise seats up to 1,000. Bulk enrolment sends a maximum of three emails per minute. If you're planning that, here's how HubSpot sequences work.
What I'd set up first
I'd build three sales templates before anything else: a first follow-up, a meeting confirmation and a nudge after no reply. Then I'd move every line your team types more than once a week into snippets. I'd add tokens with fallback values, and custom tokens for the one personal line each email needs. I'd skip AI templates until you've got one you know works, then use AI to make variations of it.
Templates and snippets are the quickest win I see when a sales team wants hours back each week. I run AI training and workshops for teams, and help businesses with AI enablement and workflow automation, so the busywork runs itself and people get time back. Most of that work is with SaaS marketing teams and small businesses. Here's how we can work together.
Frequently asked questions
How many email templates can I create in HubSpot for free?
As of October 2026, free accounts created on or after September 18th, 2024 can create three templates per account. Free accounts created before that date can create five.
What's the difference between a HubSpot template and a snippet?
A template is a whole reusable email. A snippet is a short reusable text block you can insert into templates, chats and notes with a # shortcut.
Can I use HubSpot sales templates for bulk emails?
No. Sales templates are for one-to-one emails. For bulk emails, save a marketing email as a template in the drag and drop editor.
Why won't my HubSpot template attach to my email?
Templates must include text. Templates with images only won't attach to your email in HubSpot or your email client.
Can I import an email template from another tool into HubSpot?
Yes. Export the email's HTML, then upload it and HubSpot uses AI to recreate it in the drag and drop editor. You can upload up to 100 templates per month.
