If your franchise runs on HubSpot and your locations still feel bolted on, you're not doing it wrong. HubSpot is built around a single company. A franchise is a corporate team, a development pipeline and dozens of separate businesses, and GoHighLevel was built for exactly that shape: one sub-account per location, managed from a corporate account above them.
This guide covers why franchisors make the move, what actually changes, how to tell whether it's right for your brand, and a step-by-step plan for switching without dropping leads along the way.
Why franchisors outgrow HubSpot
HubSpot is a strong CRM. The problem is the fit, and it shows up at the location level.
Locations are bolted on. To put franchisees in HubSpot, you either build one portal with a team per location and lean hard on permissions, or you give each location its own portal and split your data, templates and reporting across accounts. Both work. Neither is what HubSpot was designed around.
There's no standard build to push. When location 12 opens, someone recreates the pipelines, templates and workflows by hand, or copies them over and hopes nothing drifts. A year in, no two locations are set up the same way.
The location tools live somewhere else. Franchisees need texting, missed-call text back, review requests and booking. In a HubSpot setup those are often separate tools each location buys on its own, which is how corporate ends up with no idea what's being sent to customers.
Costs follow seats and tiers. Adding locations and users means adding seats and climbing tiers. Check your own invoice and contract against how many people actually log in. Many franchisors find they're paying for far more than they use.
None of that means HubSpot is broken. It means a franchise has to work around it.
What changes on GoHighLevel
The structure is the big difference. On GoHighLevel, corporate works from the agency account and every location gets its own sub-account. Each location runs its own leads and customers. Corporate sees across all of them.
One build for every location. GoHighLevel's snapshots package pipelines, automations, calendars, templates and funnels so corporate can push the same build into every sub-account. Location 40 opens on the system location 4 runs today. We cover that setup in detail in how to set up GoHighLevel for a franchise.
Location tools are built in. Texting, missed-call text back, review requests, calendars and AI call answering live inside each sub-account, on scripts corporate approves. That's the franchisee CRM layer, and it stops locations buying their own.
Franchise development gets its own pipeline. The development side runs in its own pipeline, from inquiry through FDD delivery, discovery calls and award, with follow-up that keeps going for the months between stages.
Is moving right for you?
Moving platforms is real work, so be honest about why you're doing it. Run this with whoever touches HubSpot today:
- Do your locations need their own accounts, rather than a team inside corporate's?
- Does every new location get set up by hand?
- Have franchisees bought their own texting, review or AI phone tools?
- Is corporate paying for HubSpot features nobody at the brand uses?
- Would one standard build across every location fix more than it breaks?
- Does your marketing team rely on anything in HubSpot that you haven't confirmed GoHighLevel covers?
If you answered yes to most of the first five and no to the sixth, the move is probably worth it. If the sixth is a yes, check that gap first. And if the real issue is that nobody owns the CRM, a new platform won't fix that on its own. It needs an owner either way.
How to migrate from HubSpot to GoHighLevel
1. Inventory what's actually in use
Before you build anything, list every pipeline, workflow, sequence, template, form, integration and report in HubSpot, and mark which ones are live and working. Most accounts have years of automations nobody can explain. You only migrate what earns its place.
From our work. We run the CRM for a 35-unit franchise. When we started, some locations used it every day, some had logged in once and some never had. The franchise development automations had been switched on two years earlier and left alone, and nobody could say which ones still fired. We started with an inventory of every automation, template and pipeline, kept what worked, fixed what was close and retired the rest. That same inventory is step one of any platform move.
2. Design the account structure
Decide the agency account, one sub-account per location, and where franchise development lives. Then decide what corporate owns, what franchisees can switch on and what never gets automated. This is the most important decision in the project, so write it down.
3. Build the master snapshot
Build the standard location setup once: pipelines, calendars, the missed-call text back and review request automations, the AI call answering script, and the email and text templates in your brand's voice. Test it in one sub-account before it goes anywhere else.
4. Export and map your data
Export contacts, companies and deals from HubSpot as CSV files. Map HubSpot properties to GoHighLevel custom fields, deal stages to opportunity stages and lists to tags. Split records by location so each sub-account gets only its own customers, and clean duplicates before you import, not after.
5. Rebuild the automations worth keeping
HubSpot workflows don't transfer, so this is where the inventory pays off. Rebuild the ones that worked, improve the ones that were close and leave the rest behind.
6. Set up texting and email properly
Texting from GoHighLevel to US numbers needs carrier registration (A2P 10DLC) before it can send reliably, so start it early. Set up your sending domains so email lands in inboxes instead of spam. Port or replace each location's phone numbers.
7. Pilot, then roll out
Move two or three locations first, and run franchise development in parallel for a short window so no candidate falls through the gap. Fix what the pilot shows you, update the snapshot, then roll out to the rest of the system in waves. Train each location's owner before their switch, not after.
8. Cut over and close HubSpot
Once every location is live and the development pipeline has fully moved, keep a complete HubSpot export for your records, then cancel. Check your contract's renewal date early so you're not paying for another term you won't use.
Frequently asked questions
Why do franchisors move from HubSpot to GoHighLevel?
Because of how locations fit. HubSpot is built around one company, so a franchise has to bolt locations on with teams, permissions or separate portals. GoHighLevel gives every location its own sub-account under a corporate agency account, lets corporate push one standard build to all of them, and includes the location tools franchises need, like texting, missed-call text back and review requests.
Can you move HubSpot data into GoHighLevel?
Your records, yes. Contacts, companies and deals export from HubSpot as CSV files and import into GoHighLevel as contacts and opportunities, with custom properties mapped to custom fields. Workflows, email templates, sequences and reports don't transfer. They get rebuilt, which is a good moment to retire the ones nobody uses.
How long does a HubSpot to GoHighLevel migration take?
It depends on how many locations you have, how much of HubSpot is actually in use, and whether SMS registration is already done. The parts that take longest are rarely the data import. They're deciding what the standard location build should be, rebuilding the workflows worth keeping and getting texting approved.
Do we lose anything leaving HubSpot?
Possibly. If your marketing team relies on HubSpot's deeper marketing reporting, content tools or integrations, check that GoHighLevel covers what you actually use before you switch. Run the inventory first, so the decision is based on what your team uses every week, not on feature lists.
Ready to move off HubSpot? We plan and run franchise migrations to GoHighLevel, development pipeline and every location. See how we build and run GoHighLevel for franchises, or get a CRM audit: 30 minutes looking at your current setup together, then a written plan for what to move, what to rebuild and what to leave behind.