How Do You Build a Renewal Date Reminder in HubSpot?

How do you get HubSpot to remind your team before a customer renews?

Store the renewal date in a date property on the deal, then build a deal-based workflow that waits until a set number of days before that date and creates a task for the right person. HubSpot workflows can delay until a date property, so the reminder fires on time without anyone watching a calendar.

This tutorial is for a specific reader: a small B2B team that sells annual contracts, tracks customers in HubSpot, and keeps getting surprised by renewals. Someone notices a renewal two days before it happens, and the conversation that should have started a quarter ago starts in a panic.

I set this up for clients who want renewals handled by a system rather than by memory. It is a short build, and it removes one of the most avoidable sources of churn in a small SaaS or services business.

Where should the renewal date live in HubSpot?

Put it on the deal that represents the contract. Each signed contract gets a deal, and that deal holds the renewal date. If you sell multi-year contracts or several products with different terms, a deal per contract keeps each date separate. A single date on the company record breaks as soon as one customer has two contracts.

Some teams prefer the company record because it feels simpler. That works only if every customer has exactly one contract with one renewal date, forever. In my experience, that stops being true the moment a customer adds a second product or signs a mid-term expansion.

So my default is the deal. If you also want the next renewal date visible on the company for quick reference, you can copy it there later. The deal stays the source of truth.

If you are unsure how deal properties should be structured overall, my tutorial on required properties for HubSpot deal stages covers how I decide which fields a deal must carry.

How do you create the renewal date property?

Create a custom deal property named "Renewal date" using the Date picker field type, which HubSpot describes as storing a date value. Give it a clear description so everyone knows it means the date the current contract term ends. One clear meaning per property prevents arguments and broken reports later.

Go to your property settings, choose the deal object, and create a new property. Name it plainly. Avoid names like "Renewal" or "Contract date" that could mean several things. In the description, write exactly what goes in it, for example "the last day of the current contract term."

Put the property in a sensible group, such as contract details, and add it to the deal record view so reps can see and edit it. A property nobody can find is a property nobody fills in.

Before you build anything on top of it, decide who is responsible for entering the date when a deal closes. Usually it is the rep who closed it, sometimes finance. Write that down.

How do you fill in renewal dates for existing customers?

Backfill them with an import. Export your closed won deals, add the renewal date for each one in a spreadsheet using your contracts as the source, and import the file back to update the existing deals. Check a sample of records afterwards to confirm the dates landed on the right deals.

This is the step teams want to skip, and it is the step that matters most. A reminder workflow is only as good as the dates it reads. If half your customers have no renewal date, half your renewals will still be surprises.

Be careful with imports. Follow HubSpot's import documentation for updating existing deals rather than creating new ones, and test with a small batch first. I explain how I plan property work before any import in how to plan CRM properties before importing contacts, and the same discipline applies to deals.

Going forward, make the renewal date part of your closing process. A deal should not be marked closed won without it.

How do you build the reminder workflow?

Create a deal-based workflow that enrolls deals with a renewal date set. Add a "Delay until a date property" step, choose your renewal date property, and select "Before date" with the number of days you want, such as 90. Then add a task action. HubSpot's delay settings let you choose days, hours, or minutes.

The delay is the heart of this setup. According to HubSpot's documentation, the date property delay can run on the date, before it, or after it, and you can set the time of day the next action runs. That means a deal can sit quietly in the workflow for months and wake up exactly when you need it.

For enrollment, keep it simple. Enroll closed won deals that have a renewal date. Exclude deals you have marked as churned or not renewing, so nobody gets reminders about customers who have already left.

Name the workflow clearly, such as "Renewal reminder: 90 days." Six months from now, someone will need to understand what it does at a glance.

What should the reminder task say?

The task should tell the owner what to do, not just that a date is coming. Use a title like "Renewal in 90 days: book account review" and a short description listing the steps: review usage, check open support issues, confirm the decision maker, and schedule a call. Associate the task with the deal so context is one click away.

Use HubSpot's Create task action in the workflow. Set the assignee to the person responsible for the account, and set a due date that gives them a few days to act. The exact assignment and due date options depend on your HubSpot setup, so check HubSpot's documentation for what your portal supports.

The description is where most teams underinvest. A task that just says "renewal" gets snoozed. A task that says what a good renewal conversation needs gets done. If you also send customers a renewal email sequence, my piece on what an annual renewal email sequence should say pairs well with this internal reminder.

Should you add more than one reminder?

Yes, for most annual contracts. I like three touchpoints: 90 days before for the account review, 60 days before to confirm the renewal plan and any pricing changes, and 30 days before to send paperwork. Each reminder is another date-based delay followed by its own task, in the same workflow or separate ones.

The exact timing depends on your contracts. If your agreements require notice of non-renewal a set number of days before the end date, your first reminder must come well before that notice deadline. Read your own contract terms and work backwards.

Keep the tasks distinct. Each one should name the stage of the renewal and the specific action. Three identical "renewal coming up" tasks train people to ignore all three.

How do you test the workflow before trusting it?

Create a test deal with a renewal date a few days out, set a short delay, and enroll it. Confirm the task appears for the right person with the right text and association. Also test a deal whose date has already passed, because HubSpot moves those records straight past the delay to the next action.

That last behavior surprises people. HubSpot's documentation says that if a date has already passed when a record enters the delay, the record moves on to the actions after the delay. If you turn the workflow on for all existing customers, any deal with an old renewal date will create a task immediately.

That can be useful, since it surfaces overdue renewals, but it can also flood someone's task list on day one. Decide in advance whether you want that, and clean up old dates before you switch the workflow on.

What should you do next?

Create the Renewal date property on deals, backfill it from your contracts, and build one workflow that creates a clear task 90 days before each renewal. Test it with a sample deal, check how past dates behave, then add 60 and 30 day reminders once the first one works reliably.

After a full quarter, look at which renewals still went badly and ask whether the reminder fired, whether the task was clear, and whether the owner acted. The workflow solves timing. The team still has to have the conversation.

If you want help setting up renewal tracking and the CRM automations around it, reach out. I build HubSpot automations for B2B teams and I am happy to look at how your renewals are handled today. Let's chat.