Manage knowledge base categories, subcategories, and tags

Last updated: June 11, 2025

Available with any of the following subscriptions, except where noted:

Service Hub Professional , Enterprise

You can use categories and subcategories to organize your knowledge base. You can also use tags to improve your search results and help your users find the right articles.

Before you get started

Before you begin working with this feature, make sure to fully understand what steps should be taken ahead of time, as well as the limitations of the feature and potential consequences of using it.

Understand requirements

Verify that you have one of the following user permissions:

Super Admin permissions.
Knowledge base settings permissions and a paid Service Hub seat will be required to create, edit, or publish knowledge bases and articles. Learn more about HubSpot's seats-based pricing.

Understand limitations & considerations

Categories or subcategories will not be visible on your live knowledge base if they do not have at least one article associated.
You can add up to 1,000 categories per knowledge base.
You can add up to 100 tags per knowledge base article and 5,000 tags per HubSpot account.

Create and customize knowledge base categories

You can create and edit the categories that you are using to organize your knowledge base. Each article must be assigned a category before it can be published.

To create a new category:
1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Service > Knowledge Base.
2. In the top right, click the Configure dropdown menu and select Categories.
3. Click Create category in the top left.
4. In the dialog box, enter a name and description for the category. If you have a multi-language knowledge base, you can enter a separate name and description for each language.
5. Click Create category.

The create a category dialog box, On the left sidebar menu, "Details" is selected. The main content area shows a "Category name " input field pre-filled with "Test Category", and a "Category description" text area pre-filled with "Test category descriptions." Two red arrows point from the right to these two input fields. At the bottom, there are "Create category" and "Cancel" buttons.

To reorder your categories:

1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Service > Knowledge Base.
2. In the top right, click the Configure dropdown menu and select Categories.
3. Click a category in the left sidebar and drag and drop it to its new position. By default, categories are organized alphabetically.

To edit a category's name and description:
1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Service > Knowledge Base.
2. In the top right, click the Configure dropdown menu and select Categories.
3. In the left sidebar, select the category.
4. In the top right, click Edit category.

The top right of the knowledge base category management screen shows two buttons: "Edit category" (highlighted with a red outline) and "Create subcategory" (dark gray).

1. In the dialog box, edit the name and description. If you have a multi-language knowledge base, you can enter a separate name and description for each language.
2. Click Update category.
To edit category appearance, icons, or featured articles:
1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Service > Knowledge Base.
2. In the top right, click the Configure dropdown menu and select Categories.
3. In the left sidebar, select the category.
4. In the top right, click Edit category.
5. In the dialog box, click Knowledge base home display in the left sidebar.
6. To display the category on your knowledge base homepage, click to toggle the Feature category on knowledge base home switch on.
7. If your layout contains icons, select Choose icons from library to use a standard icon, or Add your own images to upload a custom icon. To change the color of a standard icon, enter a hex value or click the color picker and select a color.
8. If your layout contains featured articles, click Add article in the Home page category articles section to set up to five featured articles.
9. Click Update category.

A screen for editing a knowledge base categories settings. The left sidebar has "Details", and below it, "Knowledge base home display" is highlighted. The main content area shows a "Display option" section with a toggle switched "ON" and a checkbox for "Feature category on knowledge base home." Below this, under "Category image," there's a radio button "Choose icons from library" selected, displaying a dotted box with "No icon selected" and a "Select icon" button. Further down, "Choose icon color" with a color picker or hex code input. Below this, there's a radio button for "Add your own images." Finally, under "Homepage category articles," there's a "+ Add article" link.

To delete a category:

1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Service > Knowledge Base.
2. In the top right, click the Configure dropdown menu and select Categories.
3. In the left sidebar, hover over the category and click Delete. All articles and subcategories must be removed from a category before it can be deleted.

To set your changes live in your knowledge base, click Update template in the top right.

Create and customize knowledge base subcategories

You can further organize your knowledge base articles by dividing categories into subcategories. By default, subcategories and articles are ordered alphabetically

To create a new subcategory:

1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Service > Knowledge Base.
2. In the upper right, click the Configure dropdown menu and select Categories.
3. In the left sidebar, select a category. Current subcategories will appear on the right.
4. In the top right, click Create subcategory.
5. In the dialog box, enter a subcategory name. If you have a multi-language knowledge base, you can enter a separate name for each language.
6. Click Create subcategory.

To reorder subcategories and articles:
1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Service > Knowledge Base.
2. In the upper right, click the Configure dropdown menu and select Categories.
3. In the left sidebar, select a category. Current subcategories and their associated articles will appear on the right.
4. Click a subcategory or article, then drag and drop it to its new position.

To change an article's category or subcategory:

1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Service > Knowledge Base.
2. In the upper right, click the Configure dropdown menu and select Categories.
3. In the left sidebar, select a category. Current subcategories will appear on the right.
4. Hover over the article within the subcategory and click Move.
5. In the dialog box, click the Category dropdown menu and select a category.
6. To also move the article into a subcategory, click the Subcategory dropdown menu and select a subcategory.
7. Click Move.

A dialog box titled "Move article" is displayed. It contains a required dropdown menu labeled "Category ". Below it, there's another dropdown menu labeled "Subcategory" with "Select a subcategory" as the placeholder text. At the bottom of the modal, there are two buttons: "Move" button and a "Cancel" button.

Please note: when you move an article into a different category and/or subcategory, the article URL will not be modified. Any changes to the article URL must be made in the article editor.

Create and customize knowledge base tags

To improve search results for your visitors, you can tag articles with keywords and phrases that readers would typically use to find them.

Please note: tags will not be visible to visitors, they are used to improve search results only.

To add tags to knowledge base articles:
1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Service > Knowledge Base.
2. Click the name of an article.
3. In the content editor, click the Settings menu and select Tags & metadata.
4. In the dialog box, click the Tags dropdown menu and select an existing tag. To create a new tag, type the name of your new tag, then click + Add "[tag name]" tag.

The "Settings" screen for a knowledge base article. On the left sidebar, "Tags & metadata" is highlighted. The main panel shows the "Metadata" section with a "Tags" input field. Below it, a search bar displays, followed by an 'x' icon to clear it. The text "No results found" appears underneath. A red arrow points to a blue link that says "+ Add "x" tag."

When you've finished adding tags to your knowledge base article, click Update or Publish to take the changes live.

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