Our company is looking to move away from HubSpot’s payment system and start using a different provider like PayPal or Square instead. The main concern we have is whether we can make this transition smoothly without forcing our existing customers to go through the hassle of entering their credit card information all over again. Is there some kind of automated process or API integration that would allow us to transfer the stored payment methods from HubSpot to the new payment gateway? We have hundreds of recurring customers, and asking them all to update their billing info manually would probably result in a lot of lost subscriptions. Has anyone here successfully done this type of payment system migration before? What was your experience and what steps did you take to preserve the customer payment data during the switch?
been there, done that with our saas migration from hubspot to paypal. honestly the tokenization issue is a pain but we made it work by batching the cutover. instead of all at once, we migrated customers in groups based on billing cycles which spread out the workload and let us fix issues as they came up. pro tip - hubspot’s export features can atleast give you customer contact info to make targeted outreach easier.
Unfortunately, you’re facing one of the most challenging aspects of switching payment processors. The tokenized payment data is essentially locked to HubSpot’s system and cannot be exported or transferred to PayPal or Square due to security protocols. I handled a similar migration last year moving from a smaller processor to Square, and the reality is that customers will need to re-enter their payment information. However, there are ways to minimize the impact. We implemented what I call a ‘soft cutover’ strategy where we gave customers 60 days advance notice through multiple touchpoints - email campaigns, in-app notifications, and even SMS for high-value accounts. The messaging focused on improved security and better payment options rather than just the technical necessity. The timing of your migration request is crucial. We found that requesting payment updates during natural interaction points like subscription renewals or service upgrades resulted in much higher completion rates compared to standalone requests. Also, consider offering a temporary payment pause option for customers who need extra time to update their information rather than losing them entirely. Square’s integration documentation is particularly solid if you’re leaning that direction, and their customer portal makes the re-entry process relatively painless.
The technical reality is that payment tokens cannot be migrated between processors, but I found success using a phased approach when we switched from HubSpot to PayPal two years back. Rather than a mass migration, we triggered payment method updates based on customer behavior patterns. High-value customers got white-glove treatment with dedicated account manager calls, while standard accounts received automated prompts during their next login or purchase attempt. The crucial part was maintaining service continuity by keeping HubSpot active for existing subscriptions while routing new transactions through PayPal. We also leveraged HubSpot’s webhook capabilities to create smart triggers that prompted payment updates at optimal moments like successful product usage milestones or support ticket resolutions when customer satisfaction was high. This behavioral targeting approach resulted in an 89% voluntary update rate over four months, significantly reducing churn compared to blanket email campaigns. The key insight was treating it as a customer experience challenge rather than just a technical migration.
I went through this exact scenario about two years ago when we migrated from Stripe to a different processor. Unfortunately, there’s no direct way to transfer tokenized card data between payment providers due to PCI compliance and security regulations. Each processor creates their own encrypted tokens that can’t be shared with competitors. What we ended up doing was implementing a gradual transition approach. We kept both systems running simultaneously for about 6 months. Existing customers stayed on the old system until their next billing cycle, then we presented them with a simple one-click update flow during checkout. We offered a small discount incentive for updating their payment info early, which helped speed up the process. The key was making the re-entry process as frictionless as possible - we pre-filled all the customer information we could legally transfer and only required the new card details. We also sent personalized emails explaining the change and its benefits. Honestly, we only lost about 8% of our recurring customers during the transition, which was much better than we expected.