7 things to think about when you’re purchasing HubSpot templates from the HubSpot Marketplace

First off – if you don’t know what the HubSpot Marketplace is, it is an ‘online store’ where you can purchase HubSpot landing page templates, site page templates, blog templates and email templates. In order to purchase templates, you need to be signed in to your HubSpot account, and once you have paid for the template (through PayPal or Stripe) it will automatically get added to your HubSpot account – ready to use. At the moment the marketplace is very simple and lacks a lot of functions – one being some kind of search/category function, which means that if you’re searching for a ‘real estate template’ you just have to browse through all templates in order to (hopefully) find one with that name. At the moment you can only categorise the templates by template type and ‘drag & drop layout’ or ‘fixed layout’ and sort them by most downloaded, newly added, ascending/descending price.

However, they are currently in the process of building a new marketplace that (I’ve heard) will fix this problem and many more.

What to think about when you’re purchasing templates from the HubSpot Marketplace

Spoiler alert, there’s really no right and wrong – it’s all up to you and your own good judgement. I just want to share some of the things that I personally would think about if I was going to purchase templates. My insights are gathered from reviews/feedback from a lot of different templates on the marketplace as well as my knowledge from building a couple of templates for the marketplace(designer/developer side of things).

Check out the template provider.

In the right sidebar there’s a section where the template creator/company can introduce themselves. If there’s no information about them, it might be a red flag. Either from the introduction or anywhere else from the page (e.g from the email address – if they have a company email address), find out the company website address and check it out and decide if you like what you see or not.

Also, check out what certifications they have (in the same sidebar). If they don’t have any, they might not be the best HubSpot template builders. Please note that this is not 100% accurate – I e.g. have 6 HubSpot certifications, but in my profile there’s only 2 displayed. This is because 1.) the new certifications(inbound sales, email marketing, growth-driven design) are not displayed at all and 2.) I have e.g. completed the HubSpot certification in another account, which means that it will not be displayed in my ‘personal’ provider profile.

Contact the template provider.

In the ‘about’ section in the sidebar, there a ‘contact’ button where you can send an email to the template provider. It might be a good idea to reach out and ask some questions before purchasing a template. That way you will see how long it takes before they respond and if they are willing to help you or not. If you purchase a template and need some help, it’s useful to know if they are willing to help you or not (and how long you have to wait before they help you).

Make sure you know you have to pay for ‘additional help’.

I’ve read in the feedback about some providers having crazy rates for helping people that already have bought the template. It might be a good idea to reach out to the provider asking them how much they charge for helping you – before you purchase the template. Even though you might not need help, it’s always good to know. Also, the things explained in #2 comes in to play here as well.

Template description & compatibility.

The template provider can’t format the template description text, so all the text is just one paragraph. Still, the description should somewhat explain what you can do with the template. Some template providers have some kind of explanation or how-to on/linking from their demo page. That should give you an idea f it is the right template for you and if you understand how to ‘use’ it.
In the ‘about this template’ sidebar there’s a ‘compatibility’ section where you want to check if the template is compatible with the platforms you’re targeting. Personally I think it is particularly important for email templates, as they usually work differently in different clients.

N.B. make sure you are able to edit the template the way you want. Normally you can’t edit much more than the text and some paddings & margins – if the template you’re purchasing is branded with other colors than the ones you want, are you able to change e.g. the footer background color? If you know HTML and CSS it’s no problem – if not, you should look for a templates where you can pick a color for the different elements with a color picker module.

Reviews, rating and purchases.

Obviously look at the reviews and ratings at the bottom of the page to get an understanding of the template and template provider. Unfortunately not a lot of people leave reviews.
The purchases will show you if the template has been ‘good enough for other people to purchase’, but do not stare blindly at it. Remember that a lot of templates get ‘hidden’ without the search/category function. But still, it will show you if other people think that they get the right amount of value for the price they are paying.

Always look at the demo.

The template image doesn’t always tell the whole truth about the template, so I suggest that you check out the live demo and play around with it. Resize the window, view it on mobile and tablet in order to decide if it looks like you want on all screens.

Use good judgement!