What is the difference?
Subscribers
Contacts
Subscribers counts the number of paid or non-paid users with active, periodic access to a product or service. The metric applies to subscription-based business models including SaaS, media, telecommunications, and entertainment, and captures total access holders at a point in time regardless of payment status.
Contacts are individual people that your business has an identified, ongoing relationship with, typically stored in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and often associated with an account or company. In CRMs such as HubSpot and Salesforce, Contacts usually represent people who have been qualified beyond an initial expression of interest and may be associated with opportunities, customers, or former customers. Depending on your CRM configuration, Leads may exist separately or be converted into Contacts once qualification criteria are met.
A SaaS company ends the quarter with 4,200 paid subscribers and 1,800 freemium (non-paid) subscribers, for a total of 6,000 subscribers.
Formula: Count(Subscribers) = 4,200 + 1,800 = 6,000
The paid-to-freemium ratio (70/30) matters as much as the total. A high freemium proportion signals conversion opportunity; a high paid proportion signals stronger monetization.
Your company exhibits at an industry conference and collects 500 email addresses from attendees who express interest in learning more about your product. These individuals are initially captured as leads. After the event, 100 of those leads book a demo, request pricing, or have a qualifying conversation with your sales team. Those 100 individuals are now considered Contacts, as they have demonstrated clear intent and are actively engaged in your sales process.
Date created: Oct 12, 2022
Latest update: Aug 17, 2026
Date created: Oct 12, 2022
Latest update: Jun 4, 2026
