Clearbit was the enrichment layer for a lot of B2B stacks. Then HubSpot acquired it. Then it became Breeze Intelligence. A lot of teams, including a steady stream of customers and prospects we talk to every week, have had to decide what to do. This is the honest version of that decision for a team that was using Clearbit heavily.
I am George, founder of Leadpipe. A note on bias: Leadpipe competes with the identification piece of Clearbit Reveal. I will try to be fair about where Breeze Intelligence is still good and where it is not. The goal of this post is to help you decide, not to sell you.
The short version
The Clearbit product, post-acquisition, is not the same product. Some of it got better (HubSpot integration, UI). Some of it got worse (pricing predictability, integration friction for non-HubSpot users, API cadence). For teams that live inside HubSpot, Breeze Intelligence is a reasonable enrichment layer. For teams that are API-first, multi-CRM, or agency, the migration breaks more than it fixes.
The patterns below are what we hear consistently from teams running the migration. The exact pain varies. The shape of the pain does not.
What Clearbit used to be
For reference, pre-acquisition Clearbit was three things:
- Reveal. Company-level website visitor identification via reverse IP lookup.
- Enrichment. Person and company enrichment via API.
- Prospector (later sunset). Contact lookup / export.
For API-first teams, Clearbit’s clean endpoints and reasonable cadence were the appeal. You could drop Reveal into a Slack bot, enrichment into a CRM webhook, and build most of a lightweight identity stack in a weekend.
What changed
Post-acquisition, the product reorganized under HubSpot Breeze Intelligence. The major shifts:
- Integration tightened into HubSpot. Breeze is natively threaded through HubSpot workflows, lists, and properties. That is a meaningful upgrade if you already live in HubSpot.
- Pricing moved inside HubSpot seat math. The old standalone Clearbit SKUs restructured. Pricing predictability for non-HubSpot customers got murkier.
- API cadence slowed. Features that shipped under the Clearbit name got re-sequenced against HubSpot’s release cycle.
- Support funneled through HubSpot. Which is excellent if you have a HubSpot CSM and a pain if you do not.
- Reveal became something different. Company-level identification absorbed into Breeze. The standalone Reveal product as it existed is not what you buy today.
None of this is criticism of HubSpot. Acquirers do what acquirers do. But if you were using Clearbit because it was API-first and CRM-agnostic, the product you renewed in 2025 was not the product you signed with in 2021.
What predictably breaks in the migration
Four patterns, in roughly the order they hurt the most.
1. Non-HubSpot CRM workflows get slower
The most common pain we hear about. Teams running HubSpot for one part of the stack and a different system (Salesforce, Pipedrive, custom data warehouse) for another part suddenly find that getting Clearbit/Breeze data into the non-HubSpot system requires more hops than it used to. What was a clean API webhook becomes a multi-step sync routed through HubSpot’s data model.
For teams fully on HubSpot, this is not a problem; it is an upgrade. For mixed-CRM teams, it is a regression that lands on RevOps.
2. Reveal company-level data shape shifted
Pre-acquisition pipelines were keyed on specific field names in the Reveal payload. The Breeze payload does not match exactly. Fields got renamed, some were deprecated, some merged into broader objects. Anyone who built downstream automation against the old shape has to audit every integration and patch the field mapping.
This is the kind of work that sounds small in a planning doc and eats real engineering hours once you are in it.
3. Pricing conversations get harder
Renewal quotes come through HubSpot’s seat-based structure instead of the old standalone Clearbit SKUs. On paper the line items are not wildly different. In practice, the bundle incentives nudge teams toward buying more HubSpot than they planned to buy. That is rational HubSpot go-to-market, but it surfaces a procurement decision teams are often not ready for.
For teams already living in HubSpot, the bundle math can work. For teams running HubSpot in one corner of the stack, it pushes the procurement conversation in a direction the buyer did not start.
4. Support routing changed
Direct Clearbit CSMs got routed through HubSpot’s support structure post-acquisition. Teams already on HubSpot Enterprise with a dedicated CSM did not feel much. Teams that were Clearbit-first, with no other HubSpot footprint, often felt the gap during the transition. Eventually the CSM coverage gets sorted out. The interim is the part nobody plans for.
What actually got better
I want to be fair.
- HubSpot workflow triggers on Breeze data are clean. If you trigger lifecycle stages or list memberships off enrichment fields, Breeze native is nicer than old Clearbit-to-HubSpot sync.
- UI is more modern. The Breeze interface is a real improvement over late-era standalone Clearbit.
- Breeze Intent (the company-level intent layer) is actually useful if company-level signal fits your motion. For enterprise ABM teams, this is a reasonable addition.
- HubSpot’s commitment is real. This is not going to be a “sunset in 12 months” product. The investment is meaningful.
For HubSpot-native teams, the migration story is “the product got more native and more integrated.” That is genuinely true. The pain I described above is specific to teams that wanted Clearbit precisely because it was HubSpot-agnostic.
What teams move to
The teams we see migrating off Breeze Intelligence rebuild the Clearbit footprint with a different shape: a tighter stack of best-of-breed layers around a shared identity graph instead of one vendor covering moderate breadth.
| Capability | Old (Clearbit) | Common replacement pattern |
|---|---|---|
| Website visitor identification (person-level) | Not really in Clearbit | Leadpipe, 30-40%+ match rate, full contact data |
| Website visitor identification (company-level) | Clearbit Reveal | Leadpipe (company is a field on every ID) or a dedicated company-level tool |
| Person enrichment API | Clearbit Enrichment | Leadpipe enrichment + waterfall |
| Company enrichment API | Clearbit Enrichment | A dedicated firmographic provider, often layered behind a Clay or n8n waterfall |
| Form enrichment / shortening | Clearbit Forms | Either a replacement form-enrichment tool or in-house, depending on volume |
| Intent data | Never a Clearbit core strength | Orbit person-level intent for person-level signal |
The shape of the new stack is different. Teams move from “one vendor with decent breadth” to “a tighter stack of best-of-breed with a shared identity layer.” Clearbit alternatives goes deeper on the options.
When Breeze Intelligence is still the right answer
I do not want this post to sound like a uniform “leave Clearbit.” If any of these fit, staying on Breeze is defensible.
- You are a HubSpot-first team. Marketing, sales, and CRM all live in HubSpot. Breeze is native and getting more native. Leaving costs you integration leverage you are not getting back.
- Company-level data is enough for your motion. If you sell enterprise and company-level intent is all you need, Breeze Intent is fine.
- You want fewer vendors, not more. Some teams optimize for vendor count. Breeze inside HubSpot is one bill, one CSM, one contract.
- Your enrichment needs are moderate, not heavy. For light enrichment use cases, Breeze’s accuracy and cadence are adequate.
When Breeze is not the right answer
Three patterns I see repeatedly.
1. API-first teams that are not on HubSpot. You lost the thing you bought Clearbit for. A best-of-breed stack (identification provider + enrichment provider + intent provider) is cheaper and more flexible.
2. Agencies with multiple client stacks. If your agency runs marketing for 15 clients across different CRMs, a HubSpot-gravity tool is the wrong center. White-label visitor identification fits better.
3. Teams that want person-level intent, not just account-level. Breeze Intent is account-level. Person-level intent is a different shape of signal. You cannot get person-level out of Breeze today.
Migration checklist, if you are leaving
We learned this the hard way. If you are leaving, do these in order.
- Inventory every Clearbit/Breeze dependency. APIs, webhooks, workflows, forms, Salesforce packages, spreadsheets, internal scripts.
- Map each to its new destination. Some will map to your new identification provider, some to a new enrichment provider, some to intent, some to “we do not need this anymore.”
- Run the new stack in parallel for 30 days. Do not cut over cold. Compare outputs.
- Rebuild triggers, not just fields. Downstream automation keyed on old field names will break silently. Audit every workflow.
- Plan the renewal cliff. If your renewal is 45 days away and you have not finished the migration, you will either pay for overlap or risk a gap. Start 90 days out.
What this says about the category
The category lesson is larger than Clearbit. When data infrastructure gets acquired into a platform, the acquirer’s pricing, integration, and priority gravity pulls the product toward the platform. That is rational. It is also, for API-first or multi-CRM customers, a structural mismatch.
The move we are seeing across the market: teams splitting data infrastructure from application platforms. Identity, intent, and enrichment become specialized layers. Applications (CRM, marketing automation, sales engagement) consume those layers. The specialization is better because it can optimize for the layer’s job instead of the platform’s job.
Leadpipe is built that way on purpose. The identity graph is the product, not a feature of a larger suite. That matters because it means we do not bundle in directions that do not help you. See what is identity resolution and the Leadpipe vs Clearbit comparison for the specific version of that argument.
What teams say they would do differently
The lessons we hear repeatedly from teams who have run the migration:
- Start earlier. Most teams wait too long after the acquisition announcement and end up paying for several months of a product they are unhappy with. The migration takes longer than the renewal countdown wants it to.
- Audit field-level dependencies up front. Automation breakages from renamed fields surface in production, weeks after cutover. Catching them during design is much cheaper than catching them in a Slack thread on a Friday.
- Run parallel longer. 30 days is the minimum. 60 surfaces more edge cases, particularly around quarterly workflows that do not fire in a 30-day window.
- Push more data into the identity graph. Relying on enrichment calls for data you could get once and cache is inefficient. This is where the Leadpipe shape helps: every identified person comes with 100+ data points already attached, so downstream systems do not have to re-enrich on every event.
Leadpipe identifies 30-40%+ of your US B2B visitors with full contact data on the Pro plan at $147/mo. No credit card to start the 500-lead trial. Start identifying visitors →
