Add gender to HubSpot contacts
HubSpot has no standard gender property. Create one, then let a Zap or a Make scenario fill it for every new contact from the first name, or from the email address when the first name is missing. Existing contacts go through one CSV export and import.
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Create the properties first
In HubSpot, open Settings → Properties → Contact properties and create a property called Gender. A single-line text field is the safest type: NameGender returns male, female or an empty value, and a dropdown rejects any value that is not one of its options.
Create a second number property called Gender probability. Lists and workflows can then filter on it, so a salutation is only personalised when the probability is high enough, for example 90 or above. Without it, a 55% guess and a 99% answer look identical in the CRM.
Leave the property empty for contacts NameGender cannot answer. An empty value is honest: the name was unknown, or the address was a role address such as info@. Filling it with a default would put the same guess on every hard case.
Zapier: New Contact → Find Gender → Update Contact
Add NameGender to your Zapier account with the invitation link on this page, then build a Zap with three steps. Trigger: HubSpot, New Contact. Action: NameGender, Find Gender, with the contact’s First Name in the name field and the country code if you store one. Action: HubSpot, Update Contact, with the contact ID from the trigger, Gender from the NameGender step in your Gender property and Probability in Gender probability.
When First Name is often empty, set the NameGender step’s type of value to Email and map the Email field instead. Only the part before the @ is read: jane.doe@example.com is looked up as Jane.
A Zap with three steps needs a paid Zapier plan; the free plan runs two-step Zaps. Make’s free plan runs the same flow: HubSpot’s watch-contacts trigger, NameGender’s Get Gender from a Name, then HubSpot’s update-contact module.
Existing contacts: one export, one import
Running a Zap over thousands of existing contacts is slow and spends one Zapier task per contact. Export the contacts instead, with Record ID, First Name, Email and Country. Upload the file in the NameGender dashboard, map the first-name column and the optional country column, and check the estimated cost before starting.
Import the enriched file back into HubSpot and match on Record ID, mapping the gender and probability columns to the two properties you created. Repeated first names are looked up once and joined back to every row, so a 20,000-contact export with 4,000 distinct first names costs about 4,000 credits.
After that, the Zap only has to handle new contacts.
Questions
Does HubSpot have a built-in gender property?
No. Create a custom contact property; a single-line text field accepts every value NameGender returns.
Does an unknown name cost a credit?
Yes. Every lookup costs one credit, including names that come back unknown and role addresses such as info@.
Can I run this on the free Zapier plan?
Not with three steps; the free plan runs two-step Zaps. Make’s free plan runs the same flow.
Should I use the country field?
When you store one, yes. Andrea is male in Italy and female in Germany, and the country changes the answer only where it matters.
Related pages
Fill a gender field on new Salesforce leads and contacts from the first name or email, keep the probability, and carry the value through lead conversion.
Fill a GENDER audience field for new Mailchimp subscribers from the first name or email, then segment and personalise only where the answer is confident.
Append a gender column to a customer list, CRM export or lead database, with a confidence field you can filter on and no monthly reset on purchased credits.
Reading the gender field alone discards everything that says whether to believe it. What each response field means and the thresholds behind confidence.
Check it against your own list
Every number on this page is reproducible with a free key. If your data breaks it, that is the more interesting result.