HubSpot Knowledge Base: Setup, Articles and Access

Which HubSpot plans include the knowledge base?

When we checked HubSpot's documentation in October 2026, the knowledge base needed Service Hub Professional or Enterprise, and anyone creating articles or changing settings needed an assigned Service Hub seat. Professional accounts get one knowledge base with up to 2,000 articles. Enterprise accounts can run several knowledge bases, with up to 10,000 articles per account.

One number we left out on purpose: HubSpot's pages disagree on how many knowledge bases Enterprise allows. One page gives 25 and two others give 100. If you plan to run more than a handful, confirm the limit in your own account before you design around it. If you are still choosing a tier, our Professional vs Enterprise comparison covers the wider differences.

Older accounts may also see the word "legacy". HubSpot's migration page says remaining knowledge bases were scheduled to move to the new tools automatically between November 2025 and January 2026. Most settings in this guide only exist in migrated knowledge bases.

How do you set up a HubSpot knowledge base?

Go to Service > Knowledge Base and click Set up your new knowledge base. Enter a title, pick the article language, choose the domain and a URL slug, then select a home page template and the starting categories. Click Done, and the knowledge base is ready for articles. Connect your custom domain first if you plan any private content.

• Five home page templates: Content Rich (each category with five articles), Tiles (category, icon and description), Minimal (category with an icon), Cards (one category per card) and Classic (each category with two articles).
• Language slug: if the knowledge base language differs from your domain's primary language, HubSpot recommends ticking Use language slug in URL.
• Default categories are preselected during setup. Keep only the ones you will fill; you can create custom categories afterward.
• Moving from another tool? HubSpot's Smart copy import pulls articles from Freshdesk, Help Scout, Zendesk or Intercom, and a CSV import needs URL, Title, Category and Article Body columns. Each import is limited to 400 articles, tables don't import, and everything lands in the primary language.

A knowledge base usually ships as part of a wider Service Hub rollout, alongside tickets, help desk and routing. Our HubSpot implementation checklist shows where it fits.

How do you write and publish knowledge base articles?

Click Create article, add a title and subtitle, and write the body with the rich text toolbar. Then open Settings to set the URL slug, language, category, subcategory, tags, meta description and audience access. Preview it on desktop, tablet and mobile, then publish now or schedule it. Every article needs a category before it can be published.

• Styling lives in the theme. HubSpot notes that colors and fonts are edited in the knowledge base theme, not in each article.
• Head HTML: each article has a Head HTML field for a code snippet, such as a tracking or verification tag.
• Preview links can be copied and shared, but only other HubSpot users in your account can see them. Use this for review before publishing.
• Scheduling covers both publish and unpublish, which helps with release notes or time-limited offers.

Write each article to answer one question. Put the answer in the first paragraph, then the steps, then the edge cases. That is the structure customers scan for, and it is the same structure we use on this page.

How should you organize categories, subcategories and tags?

Use categories for the main topics customers recognize, subcategories to split a busy category, and tags for the words people type into search. Manage categories from Configure > Categories. HubSpot allows up to 1,000 categories per knowledge base, up to 100 tags per article and up to 5,000 tags per account. Tags are never shown to visitors.

• Order: categories, subcategories and articles sort alphabetically by default. Drag them into the order customers need.
• Featured content: in Knowledge base home display you can feature a category on the home page, choose an icon and, if your layout supports it, set up to five featured articles.
• Moving an article keeps its URL. HubSpot says moving an article to another category or subcategory doesn't change the URL; slugs are edited only in the article editor.
• Empty categories hide themselves. A category or subcategory isn't shown until it has at least one article visitors can access, including when every article in it is private.
• Deleting is blocked while any articles, drafts, archived articles, subcategories or language variations are still attached.

Name categories after what the customer is trying to do ("Billing", "Getting started", "Integrations"), not after your internal team names. If support and product use different words for the same thing, the tags are where both versions belong.

How do you style a HubSpot knowledge base?

Open Configure > Theme to set primary, secondary, accent and body colors, fonts for headings, body and links, the home page and article layouts, and header and footer styles. Then use Configure > Header and Footer to edit the logo, menus, support options and social links. Preview the theme across templates, languages and devices before publishing.

• No custom themes: HubSpot says knowledge base customization isn't supported in the design manager or with custom themes. For deeper changes, add code snippets to the site header and footer in settings.
• Article layout: the article page offers options such as Left sidebar or Right sidebar.
• Header support options can show a customer portal link, a sign-in link for restricted content and a support form.
• Brand colors appear by default in the color pickers, so set your brand kit before you start.

How do search and SEO settings work in the knowledge base?

Each article has its own URL slug and meta description, which appears in search results under the title. Tags improve the knowledge base's own search. By default, HubSpot adds a no-index tag to the knowledge base search results page only, so other public article pages stay crawlable unless your robots.txt file blocks them.

• Domain and slug: set them in Settings > Content > Knowledge Base. HubSpot warns that saving a new slug immediately changes the URLs of your live articles, so plan redirects before you change it.
• Search results page: HubSpot recommends keeping the default no-index setting to avoid security and user experience issues.
• Related articles and last updated date: both are toggles on the Template tab. HubSpot adjusts related articles based on visitor attributes and article performance, and updates the date whenever an article is published or republished.
• Private articles behind SSO aren't crawled by search engines, so keep content you want found in public articles.

A public knowledge base is also content that search engines and AI assistants read. Clear question-style titles, a direct first paragraph and an honest meta description do more than any setting here.

How do you restrict access to knowledge base articles?

In each article's settings, Control audience access offers Public, Access group membership required, or Single sign-on (SSO) required. You can also set the whole knowledge base to an access group or SSO in Access Control settings. Both need a connected custom domain; HubSpot says private content doesn't work on default domains such as hs-sites.com.

• Access groups are built from contacts, and adding them can send registration emails. HubSpot shows a checkbox to confirm when publishing an article would send more than ten.
• Email limit: each contact can receive at most five membership emails per day, such as invitations and password resets, which matters if you invite a large customer base at once.
• SSO needs your IT administrator to create a HubSpot application in your identity provider. It can be set up for one HubSpot-hosted subdomain per identity provider account, and you can narrow access further by segment.
• SSO overrides membership. Requiring SSO for an article that was set to member registration makes it inaccessible to those contacts.
• Turning SSO off makes content set to "Private - Single sign-on required" public, and content set to the version "with segments" inaccessible. Switch to the segments option first if the content must stay private.

Access rules are only as good as the segments behind them. Our HubSpot segments guide covers how to build segments that stay accurate.

Can you run multiple knowledge bases or languages?

Yes, in two different ways. Multiple knowledge bases need Service Hub Enterprise and suit separate audiences, products or brands, each with its own domain, slug and template. Language variations are available on Professional and Enterprise: you add languages in settings, translate category names, then create a translated variant of each article.

• Translate categories first. Untranslated categories show a Needs translation label, and you can't save or publish category changes until every language has a name. HubSpot's AI can fill translations with Translate all supported.
• Language groups: if translated articles already exist as separate articles, select them and use Add to language group with one primary article.
• Brands add-on: each knowledge base is assigned to a brand based on its domain.
• Deleting a knowledge base also deletes its articles, categories, subcategories and tags, so export or move content first.

How do knowledge base articles connect to tickets and chat?

In help desk, agents click Insert in the reply editor and choose Knowledge base articles to send a link instead of retyping an answer. In chat, the Knowledge base & support bot template shares articles and then offers a ticket or a human. You can also add a Help tab so visitors browse and search articles inside the chat widget.

• Bot templates that use the knowledge base, Knowledge base & support bot and Concierge bot, need Service Hub Professional or Enterprise.
• Help desk chatflows can only use the Support bot, Knowledge Base + support bot and Offline bot templates.
• Route the misses: before using the Knowledge base & support bot, choose the users and teams who get conversations an article couldn't resolve.
• Notes too: agents can insert an article into an internal note, which helps when training new team members on the right answer.

The knowledge base works best when it is part of the ticket process, not beside it. Our HubSpot help desk guide covers the workspace where agents insert articles.

How do you measure knowledge base performance?

Open Service > Knowledge Base, click the Analyze tab and pick a date range. Article health shows total views, chat widget views, average time on article and helpful or unhelpful ratings. Search metrics show total searches, the most searched terms with their result clicks, and the search terms that returned no matching article.

• No-results terms are your writing backlog. Each one is a question customers asked that you haven't answered, or answered with different words. Add the article or the tag.
• Unhelpful ratings point to articles to rewrite first. Pair them with ticket reasons to see which gaps still create tickets.
• Feedback creates contacts. When an unknown visitor leaves feedback, HubSpot asks for an email and creates a contact record. Choose the consent option on the Feedback tab with your legal team.

Review the Analyze tab on a fixed schedule, such as monthly, and assign each no-results term to an owner. A knowledge base that nobody reviews slowly drifts out of date, and customers notice before you do.

HubSpot knowledge base checklist