How to use GPT for HubSpot customer emails: A complete guide

Let's be real: your team is probably spending way too much time writing emails in HubSpot. It’s a powerful tool, no doubt, but the manual grind of personalizing every single customer email can eat up an entire day.

Everyone's talking about using AI, specifically GPT, to fix this, but the "how" is a mess of confusing options. This guide is here to cut through the noise. We'll walk you through the three main ways you can use GPT for your HubSpot customer emails, look at what they can and can’t do, and show you how to move from simple AI assistance to actual, hands-off automation.

Understanding your options for using GPT with HubSpot emails

When people talk about using "GPT for HubSpot," they're usually talking about one of three different setups. Each has its own quirks, costs, and capabilities. Getting a handle on these is the first step to picking a solution that actually helps your team instead of giving them another tool to manage.

The three main routes are:

1. HubSpot's Native AI (Breeze): The AI tools built directly into the HubSpot platform. It's convenient, but it comes with some specific limitations and a tricky cost structure.

2. The Official HubSpot Connector for ChatGPT: An integration that lets ChatGPT look at your HubSpot data. It's great for research but has a major drawback when it comes to taking action.

3. Dedicated AI Platforms: Third-party tools designed to integrate deeply with HubSpot to automate the entire workflow of drafting, personalizing, and even sending customer emails.

So, let's get into the nitty-gritty of each one.

Option 1: Using HubSpot's native AI tools (Breeze)

HubSpot’s own AI, called Breeze, is probably the first place you'd look. It’s built right in, so getting started is pretty straightforward for teams already working in HubSpot all day.

What is HubSpot's Breeze AI?

Breeze is just HubSpot’s name for its collection of built-in AI tools. They're designed to help with creating content, analyzing data, and automating tasks across the platform. For customer emails, you can use it inside workflows to generate copy or summarize a contact's history to give your team some context. The whole idea is to give you AI features without ever having to leave the HubSpot ecosystem.

How to use Breeze AI for customer emails

You can use Breeze to write email content right inside the email editor or have it automatically generate copy as part of a workflow. For instance, you could have a workflow that kicks off when a lead downloads an ebook. An action in that workflow could then use Breeze to draft a follow-up email that mentions the ebook and sends it to the contact.

It’s handy for things like:

• Writing a first-touch email to a new lead.

• Coming up with a subject line for a marketing campaign.

• Summarizing a contact's recent activity for a sales email.

A look inside the HubSpot email editor where Breeze AI can be used to generate content like first-touch emails and subject lines.

Limitations and costs of Breeze AI

While it's convenient, Breeze has a couple of significant drawbacks. First, it only learns from what's inside your HubSpot portal. If all your juicy, important knowledge is tucked away in places like Confluence, Google Docs, or old support tickets in a different helpdesk, Breeze can't see it. The result? You get generic emails that don't have the full picture.

Second, and this is a big one, is the cost. Breeze runs on "HubSpot Credits." Every time you generate content or have an AI agent conversation, you use up these credits. This can lead to unpredictable bills, especially if your team is active. As your support volume grows, so does your AI bill, which makes scaling pretty tough to budget for. A single AI agent conversation costs a steep 100 credits, which can burn through your monthly allotment in no time.

HubSpot Plan	Starting Price/mo	Included HubSpot Credits
Marketing Hub Professional	$800	3,000
Marketing Hub Enterprise	$3,600	5,000
Customer Agent Conversation	N/A	Costs 100 Credits

Pricing info is from HubSpot's pricing page and can change.

Option 2: Using the official HubSpot Connector for ChatGPT

Another popular route is to hook up your HubSpot account directly to a paid ChatGPT subscription using the official connector. This gives OpenAI's model a secure window into your CRM data so you can analyze it.

What is the HubSpot Connector for ChatGPT?

The HubSpot connector for ChatGPT lets you ask questions about your HubSpot data using plain English, right from the ChatGPT interface. Instead of building out complex reports in HubSpot, you can just ask things like, "What were the last 5 interactions with Company X?" or "Show me contacts in the manufacturing industry who opened an email in the last month."

Using the ChatGPT Connector to inform emails

This connector is a fantastic research tool. Before you sit down to write an important email, you can use it to get a deep-dive on a customer without having to click through a dozen different screens in HubSpot.

You could ask it for things like:

• "What are the main issues mentioned in support tickets for Contact Y?"

• "Summarize the deal history for Company Z before I write a renewal email."

• "List the top three blog posts viewed by leads in the 'SQL' stage."

You can then take these insights and manually write a much more personalized and relevant email back in HubSpot.

The ChatGPT connector can query rich data like this HubSpot contact timeline to inform your email writing process.

A major limitation: The connector is a read-only research tool

Here's the catch, and it’s a deal-breaker for automation: the connector is read-only. It can look at your data and give you answers, but it can't do anything back in HubSpot. It can't draft an email in your portal, update a contact property, or send a message.

This creates a really clunky workflow. You have to ask a question in ChatGPT, copy the answer, flip back to HubSpot, find the right contact, and then paste the info and write the email yourself. It's a decent research assistant, but it actually adds a step to your process instead of removing one.

To use the connector, you'll also need a paid ChatGPT plan.

ChatGPT Plan	Price per user/month	Key Feature
Plus	$20	Expanded access for individuals
Business	$25 (billed annually)	Secure workspace for teams
Enterprise	Contact Sales	Enterprise-grade features and scale

Pricing info is from ChatGPT's pricing page and can change.

Option 3: Integrating a dedicated AI support platform

This brings us to the third option. The headaches with native tools and read-only connectors are exactly why dedicated AI platforms exist. They're built from the ground up to bridge the gap between all your company knowledge and your customer tools like HubSpot, enabling real, end-to-end automation.

Why a dedicated platform is the most effective solution

A dedicated AI platform solves the core problems we just talked about with the other two options.

• It Takes Action: It doesn't just read data; it can actually draft replies, tag contacts, and update fields right inside your existing workflows.

• It Unifies Knowledge: It connects to all of your knowledge sources, not just HubSpot. This means your internal wikis like Confluence and Notion, shared drives like Google Docs, and even conversations from helpdesks like Zendesk or Intercom.

• It Offers Predictable Pricing: The best platforms have flat-rate plans, so you aren't punished with a higher bill just because you had a busy month.

How to use eesel AI for HubSpot customer emails

A platform like eesel AI offers a smooth and effective way to automate your customer emails. Instead of a clunky, multi-step process, it creates a single workflow that just gets the job done.

• Get started in minutes, not months. You can connect eesel AI to HubSpot with one click and build your first AI agent yourself. No need to sit through a sales demo just to see if it works for you, unlike many competitors that require long calls just to get a peek.

• Connect to all your knowledge, not just HubSpot. This is where it gets powerful. You can connect eesel not just to HubSpot, but also to your past support tickets, help center articles, and internal docs. The AI drafts emails using the full context of your business, so it sounds like you and solves the siloed knowledge problem of native tools.

• Actually automate the work. With the eesel AI Agent, you can set up rules to automatically draft a personalized reply as soon as a message comes in. It does the work for you, right inside your tools, fixing that annoying read-only problem from the ChatGPT connector.

• Test with confidence. Before you let the AI talk to customers, eesel AI has a simulation mode that lets you test it on thousands of your past tickets. You can see exactly how it would have responded and what its resolution rate would have been, giving you peace of mind before you flip the switch.

• Benefit from transparent pricing. eesel AI has predictable, transparent pricing with no sneaky per-resolution fees. Your bill stays the same no matter how many emails the AI helps with, making it easy to budget without worrying about surprise credit charges.

Moving from AI-assisted to truly AI-automated

Look, HubSpot's native AI and the ChatGPT connector have their uses, but they won't get you to true automation. Breeze can get expensive and doesn't know your whole business, and the ChatGPT connector is a research tool that leaves your team doing all the manual work.

A dedicated platform like eesel AI is built to solve those exact problems. By connecting all your company knowledge and integrating directly into your HubSpot workflows to take action, it moves your team from just getting AI assistance to being truly AI-automated. This frees up your team to stop drowning in repetitive emails and focus on building great customer relationships.

Ready to stop juggling tabs and start automating your HubSpot customer emails?

Explore how eesel AI can transform your HubSpot workflows and start your free trial today.