Update an existing contact by email

This endpoint allows you to update an existing contact in HubSpot, identified by email.

Use case for this endpoint: Because this method allows you to update contact properties, it could be used by an integration to synchronize contact data from an external CRM by email address.

Note: This endpoint will return a 404 if there is no existing record with the specified email address. If you’re looking to automatically create or update contacts using an email address, you can use this endpoint.

Property notes

There are some properties that are worth noting in terms of updating a contact:

• Lifecycle Stage - This property denotes the stage at which the contact is in. Stages include ‘subscriber’, ‘lead’, ‘marketingqualifiedlead’, ‘salesqualifiedlead’, ‘opportunity’ and ‘customer’. These values are described in HubSpot’s Contacts application under “Contacts > Manage Settings > Lifecycle Stages”. Once a contact does become a “customer”, it will be reflected in HubSpot’s Sources application as such.
• Please Note The Lifecycle stage is not designed to move backwards. If you need to set this property to an previous stage, you will first need to set the value to "" (an empty string) and then set the new Stage
• HubSpot Score - This property cannot be updated through the API.
• Email address - It is possible to update the email address of contacts using this endpoint. The current email address must be used in the URL to identify the existing contact in HubSpot, and the new email would go in the JSON in the request body.
• If a property doesn’t exist yet, you can create a new custom property through the API by using the create property method.