Do you know where your HubSpot credits are going this month? 

If you had to answer that right now without checking your portal, you probably wouldn’t be able to answer the question… And that’s exactly the problem. 

Most HubSpot users can’t answer the same question.  

And by the time they do check, the credits are already gone: reset, expired, and spent on automations and monitoring tools running quietly in the background while nobody was watching.

See, it’s rarely the big, obvious decisions that drain credits. It’s the small ones, like:  

• Turning on one too many features at once 
• Monitoring a contact list that’s way too broad 
• Letting a workflow run on thousands of records without realising each execution has a cost 

At RedPandas, we’ve audited enough HubSpot portals to know that credit waste usually follows the same patterns and is fairly easy to avoid. 

In this article, you’ll learn exactly where your credits might be disappearing, why it keeps happening, and what to do about it.

Mistake #1: Turning on Too Many Credit-Based Features at Once 

It’s easy to assume that if HubSpot includes credits in your subscription, you should try out every AI-powered feature available.  

In reality, switching on several tools at the same time makes it very difficult to understand which one is actually producing value. 

When teams experiment with multiple features simultaneously, a few things tend to happen: 

• Credits get spread across several tools without meaningful results from any of them 
• Nobody knows which tool contributed to pipeline, lead quality, or support efficiency 
• Leadership loses visibility into where credits are actually being spent 

This often happens with features like: 

• Buyer Intent 
• Prospecting Agent 
• Customer Agent 
• AI Workflow Actions 
• Data Studio dataset operations 

Each of these tools draws credits differently depending on how often they run. Credit usage varies by feature, and some features may run repeatedly through automation or monitoring processes. 

The safest approach is to activate one high-impact use case at a time, measure the outcome, and only then expand usage. 

When credits are tied to measurable outcomes rather than experimentation, they become far easier to manage and justify.

Mistake #2: Monitoring Too Many Contacts With the Prospecting Agent 

HubSpot’s Prospecting Agent can be extremely useful when used strategically. But, it also often becomes one of the fastest ways to burn credits if it’s applied too broadly. 

According to HubSpot’s current product catalogue, Prospecting Agent typically consumes: 

• 100 credits per monitored contact per billing period 
• 10 credits for deep research on a company 

At first glance, those numbers may seem manageable. But the math changes quickly when you’re monitoring dozens or hundreds of contacts. 

For example: 

• Monitoring 10 contacts could cost 1,000 credits in a billing period 
• Monitoring 50 contacts could reach 5,000 credits 
• Monitoring 100 contacts would scale far beyond most monthly allocations 

The problem here is the scope.  

Prospecting Agent is most effective when used on a short list of high-value accounts where deeper insights actually help sales start better conversations. 

A smaller, well-defined monitoring list usually delivers far better results than trying to watch large segments of the market.

Mistake #3: Adding Too Many Companies Through Buyer Intent 

Buyer Intent is another feature that can be incredibly useful when used deliberately. But many teams misunderstand where the credit usage actually occurs. 

HubSpot explains that the key action that consumes credits is adding companies from buyer intent signals into your CRM.  

That means simply viewing signals isn’t always the cost driver; instead, the real cost appears when those companies are imported and tracked. 

HubSpot’s current rate documentation indicates that monitoring a company’s intent signals typically consumes around 10 credits per month. 

On its own, 10 credits seems small. However, the cost compounds quickly if companies are automatically added at scale. 

For example: 

• Adding 20 companies may use around 200 credits 
• Adding 100 companies may reach 1,000 credits 
• Adding 200 companies may cost you 2,000 credits 

The problem in this situation lies in whether sales teams are actually following up with those companies.  

If dozens of companies are added but no one engages them meaningfully, those credits are, at best, wasted. 

At the end of the day, HubSpot’s Buyer Intent feature works best when it feeds a focused outreach strategy, not a broad monitoring exercise. 

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Mistake #4: Letting AI Workflow Actions Run in the Background Unnoticed

Workflow automation is powerful inside HubSpot, but it can also be a quiet source of credit usage if AI steps are added without careful planning. 

HubSpot’s AI-related workflow actions consume credits each time the action runs. If a workflow processes large volumes of records, those actions can execute hundreds or thousands of times without anyone realising. 

Consider an example of a common situation that teams on HubSpot experience: 

• A workflow includes an AI step to generate summaries or suggestions 
• The workflow processes 500 contacts in a month 
• Each execution costs credits 

Even if each action only costs a small number of credits, large workflow volumes multiply that cost quickly. 

This doesn’t mean AI workflows should be avoided. It simply means they should be used where the automation is solving a real operational bottleneck, such as: 

• Writing personalised follow-up messages 
• Generating summaries for sales handoffs 
• Enriching notes or insights automatically 

When AI workflows replace meaningful manual work, the credit usage becomes easier to justify. 

Mistake #5: Misjudging Customer Agent Usage

Customer Agent is another tool where the value depends heavily on how it is deployed. 

This HubSpot feature typically consumes credits after an initial free access period, and conversations may cost around 100 credits per text interaction, depending on configuration. 

The challenge is that businesses often launch the agent widely across their site without thinking through what conversations it should actually handle. 

A poorly configured agent might end up responding to: 

• Low-value website queries 
• Conversations that should go directly to a sales rep 
• Questions that already have clear answers in the knowledge base 

And this leads to credits being used on conversations that don’t improve customer experience or reduce workload. 

Customer Agent is typically far more effective when it is given a specific role, such as: 

• Handling repetitive support questions 
• Routing visitors to the correct department 
• Answering product FAQs during early research 

When you set up Customer Agent for solving predictable problems, it also becomes easier to accurately predict your credit usage every billing cycle, so you spend smarter. 

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The pattern behind all of these scenarios is surprisingly consistent.  

Credits are rarely lost because a tool is bad or because HubSpot is unclear about pricing. 

They’re lost because automation, monitoring, and AI features are enabled faster than the organisation develops a clear plan for how those tools should support pipeline, productivity, or customer experience. 

Frequently Asked Questions About HubSpot Credits

Don’t Let Another Month of HubSpot Credits Go to Waste 

Every billing cycle you don’t address this is a billing cycle you’re paying for tools that aren’t working for you. 

If the same features are running the same way next month without a plan behind them, the same credit waste happens again: quietly, automatically, without anyone flagging it. 

At the end of the day, that’s a setup problem… And setup problems are fixable. 

If you’re not sure where your credits are actually going, a HubSpot audit is the fastest way to find out.  

You’ll see exactly which features are consuming credits, whether those features are tied to any real outcomes, and where you can tighten things up before the next reset hits. 

If you want to know if your HubSpot portal is set up to get the most out of every credit, book a free HubSpot Audit with our growth specialists today.  

You’ll walk away with insights to maximise your monthly allowance and portal, regardless of whether you work with us or not. 

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