HubSpot discount approval on Sales Hub Professional or Starter

By Kayabyte

Your reps give discounts and you want a manager to say yes above a limit, for example 15 percent. HubSpot’s quote approvals are part of Revenue Hub, and the deal approval step is Enterprise only. This guide is for teams on Sales Hub Professional or Starter who track the discount on the deal. If you work from quotes, start with the quote-based discount approval guide.

Step 1: put the discount on the deal

Create a number deal property such as Discount % (Settings > Properties). Custom number properties can have a minimum and maximum, which stops typos such as 150 (HubSpot guide); HubSpot notes these limits are not enforced in workflows. Add the property to the deal sidebar and make it required at the stage where the discount is agreed (pipeline settings, conditional stage properties with Required ticked, HubSpot guide).

Step 2: tell a manager (Starter and Professional)

Starter: on the board view, the stage’s Automate menu can create a task, send an internal email or edit a record when a deal enters the stage (HubSpot guide). Point it at a “Discount review” stage. HubSpot’s article describes no condition on a property value, so plan for it to fire for every deal that enters the stage.
Professional: a deal workflow can enroll deals where Discount % is above your limit and create a task or notification for the manager. Workflows need Professional or Enterprise (HubSpot guide).

Step 3: hold the deal until the answer

On Professional, pipeline rules can restrict skipping stages and limit who edits a deal in a “Waiting for approval” stage (HubSpot guide). The manager sets an Approval status property and moves the deal. Weak spots: whoever can edit the property can approve themselves, Super Admins and workflows bypass the rules, and skipping into Closed won is always allowed. There is no single record of who decided.

Where HubSpot’s own tools stop

Quote approvals need Revenue Hub Professional or Enterprise, and the deal approval process needs Sales Hub Enterprise. On Starter nothing can read the discount and block a move.

Full disclosure: we built an app for this

Deal Approvals & Stage Gate lets you set a condition on a discount property (or amount, deal type, owner team or any deal property): small discounts move freely, larger ones need sign-off. Approvers can be named users, teams or the owner’s team lead, and Pro supports up to five steps in a row, for example sales manager and then finance. The decision, comment and history stay on the deal. It works on Free, Starter and Professional. Limit: it moves a deal back after HubSpot has saved the change, so it cannot stop the stage change in advance.

Free covers one pipeline with one approval step and 20 requests a month; Pro is USD 29 per month per HubSpot account, with a 14-day Pro trial and no card. Marketplace listing.

FAQ

Can I require approval for discounts on Sales Hub Starter? Not as a block. Starter can notify someone when a deal enters a stage, and an app can add the approval step.

Does a HubSpot workflow have an approval action? No. HubSpot’s workflow actions include tasks and notifications, but no approve or reject step.

Do discount approvals need Enterprise? HubSpot’s own deal approval step does. Quote approvals need Revenue Hub Professional or Enterprise.

Questions or corrections: support@kayabyte.dev. HubSpot is a registered trademark of HubSpot, Inc. Kayabyte is an independent developer and is not affiliated with HubSpot.