Poll an API to Ingest and Automate Data from Any Tool
Friday, September 4, 2026
What it is
You can now create custom events by polling an external API. HubSpot periodically calls an external API on a schedule you define and captures new data as custom event occurrences. Think of it as a webhook in reverse: instead of the external system pushing to HubSpot, HubSpot reaches out and pulls. Each poll checks for items it has not processed before, up to 100 new items per poll, identified by a Unique Identifier you configure. Those events can then trigger automation, create reports, and segment or score records.
Why it matters
When a third-party tool has no out-of-the-box HubSpot integration, the alternative is a painful custom integration, developer time, and constant maintenance. Polling lets HubSpot act on new data from legacy, niche, or internal systems that have no webhook support. Paired with the workflows builder in Agent Hub, your triggers are no longer limited to what is in the marketplace.
The Take
Chris Carolan
This is the most consequential update on the board today and it is easy to skim past, because the words are dry and the impact is not.
If you have ever sat in a workflow wanting to trigger off something happening in an ERP or an internal system and simply could not, this is that. It also quietly answers a long-standing Data Hub question: a good share of what teams reach for custom coded actions to do — and pay for Pro Data Hub to get — is now reachable this way.
The part worth sitting with is why systems went un-integrated in the first place. It was rarely the API. It was that the ERP needs a company named one way and sales sells to a different name, so IT says we cannot connect these without a data lake in between. AI can handle that transformation now. What it cannot do is decide what the names are supposed to be — that is still the people and the process, and it is still the hard part.
Watch Us Discuss This
The full segment from the show, us working through this update start to finish.
Produced by Value-First Media