Understanding how long it takes for free trial users to convert into paying customers is crucial for optimizing your sales process and driving growth. If you’re not already tracking this metric, you could be missing out on key insights that help refine your customer journey.
With a simple HubSpot report, you can easily measure time to conversion. Here’s how to set it up.
Step 1: Create a Custom Property [Optional]
Before building your report, you’ll need a way to track the time difference between a user’s first interaction (like installing your product) and when they become a paying customer.
Option A: Use an Existing HubSpot Property
HubSpot already offers a built-in property called “Days to Close” for Deals or Companies.
If this aligns with your needs, you can use it without creating anything new.
Option B: Create a Custom Property
For more flexibility, consider setting up a custom property. In this example, we’re tracking the time between a customer’s first install date and their close date (when they convert).
- Add a new property: Name it “Days Between First Install & Close Date” (for Companies or Deals, depending on your setup).
- Set the field type to Calculation.
- Choose "Time Between" as the calculation type and format it as Duration.
- Alternatively, use a custom equation like this:
- if((([properties.closedate] - [properties.createdate]) >= 0),
round_down((([properties.closedate] - [properties.createdate]) / 86400000), 0))
- if((([properties.closedate] - [properties.createdate]) >= 0),
-
This property will serve as your key metric for tracking how long it takes users to convert.
Step 2: Build the Report
Once your property is set up and automated, it’s time to create the report. Here’s how to configure it:
- X-axis: Set this to the Close Date for Deals or Companies
- Y-axis: Average or Median of the "Days to Close" or “Days Between First Install & Close Date” in our case.
- Breakdown [OPTIONAL]: Break down by Source or Owner to get more granular insights.
This report will help you identify trends in your conversion cycle over different timeframes, giving you a clear understanding of what’s working, and what’s not.
For our setup at Koalify, we created this dashboard for “Days Between First Install & Close Date” on the Company level because we don’t use HubSpot deals. However, if your team does utilize deals, this approach can be easily adapted for your use case.
Check out our article on how we used HubSpot and Stripe to streamline our processes and improve our time to close.