The Ultimate Guide to HubSpot Certification Options (For Beginners and Experts!)

In the fast-paced world of digital marketing, you never really run out of things to learn.

Luckily, there are countless resources and digital marketing courses available online to sharpen your skills, whether you’re a beginner or expert who’s been around the block a few times.

At IMPACT, our go-to recommendation is IMPACT+, but we're obviously a little bit biased there.

That aside, we look to HubSpot Academy’s wide variety of certification courses that cover their HubSpot Marketing, Sales, and Service hubs, as well as a wealth of knowledge around marketing, sales, and service strategy best practices.

For those of you not familiar with it, HubSpot Academy is an online learning center for marketers, salespeople, designers, and developers to learn the latest in industry best practices and continually improve their work.

It’s not just for users of the marketing automation software.

What are HubSpot Academy courses and certifications?

HubSpot Academy’s courses and certifications are free educational resources meant to help anyone involved in the digital marketing industry up their game.

The academy offers both regular courses and certification courses on many different topics including email marketing, content marketing, inbound sales, and much more.

Both certification courses and regular courses include a number lessons in which experienced HubSpotters provide in-depth insight on the subject at hand.

These come in the form of short, on-demand videos as well as corresponding slide decks and transcriptions of the lectures.

Regular HubSpot Academy courses are separate from certifications, and have no exam at the end. They tend to be shorter, and are more hyper-focused on one specific topic, like paid media strategy or custom reporting in HubSpot.

These courses are super helpful when you have a specific area of inbound or HubSpot that you are wanting to learn more about.

For the HubSpot certification courses, after completing all of the lessons and other learning materials like quizzes, you will take the final certification exam that tests you on what you’ve learned.

If you pass (usually over 75% correct), you receive a printer-friendly certification, as well as the option to include reward badges for each certification on your LinkedIn profile.

Just remember, most certifications are only valid for one or two years, so you’ll have to go back and get re-certified every so often; but this is good!

The courses are regularly updated based on new tactics and insights, so you’ll likely learn something new with each re-certification.

To help you determine which of HubSpot’s certifications is right for you (although we recommend them all), here’s a breakdown of each of our favorites, its purpose, and what you’ll learn after being certified.

HubSpot marketing certifications

1.) Inbound certification

The inbound certification is a staple for anyone who is looking to grow their business in the digital landscape.

This course breaks down the fundamentals of inbound marketing, the inbound methodology and the flywheel, and teaches you how to apply them to your business.

In this course, you will be introduced to the inbound methodology and then go deeper, learning how to run a successful inbound business, from marketing to sales to services.

This certification includes courses on growing your business with the flywheel model, creating a company purpose, setting business goals, creating buyer personas and more.

Lessons: 6
Time: 1.54 hours
Availability: Free to everyone

2.) Inbound marketing certification

Whether you’re new to digital marketing, just starting a business, or simply want to gain a better understanding of reaching your audience online, getting your Hubspot inbound certification is a great first step.

For me personally, completing the inbound marketing certification was the first time I ever learned about search engine optimization, calls-to-action, and countless other fundamental areas of digital marketing I use each day at IMPACT.

Different from the inbound certification, which is dedicated gaining an understanding of the broader concepts, the Hubspot inbound marketing certification breaks down inbound marketing techniques in a concise, easy to understand format, and highlights how you can use different tactics to better drive leads down your funnel and win more business for your company.

Lessons: 10
Time: 3.57 hours
Availability: Free to everyone

3.) Email marketing certification

Email marketing is a crucial component of lead nurturing.

When done properly, a successful email marketing strategy can close leads in the sales funnel and eventually make your customers loyal promoters of your brand.

However, because email marketing can be tough to master, HubSpot’s email marketing certification takes you through the entire process, providing insight on:

• How to build an email marketing strategy that works
• Segmenting your audience to ensure you’re sending the right message to the right person at the right time in their lifecycle stage
• What a high-performing email looks like
• How to accurately measure the success of your email marketing efforts

Lessons: 9
Time: 3.17 hours
Availability: Free to everyone

4.) Content marketing certification

At the center of any effective digital marketing plan is a great content strategy.

Content is an amazing tool to draw visitors to your website, build trust with your audience, establish thought leadership, and ultimately grow your business.

Whether you’re new to content marketing, or just looking for ways to sharpen your skills, HubSpot’s content marketing certification will get you on the fast track to success.

The content marketing certification includes classes on generating content ideas, how to use content to tell a story, the building blocks behind an effective long-term content strategy, and tips on promoting, repurposing, and analyzing existing content. It truly is a must-have certification for any modern marketer.

Lessons: 16
Time: 6.06 hours
Availability: Free to everyone

5.) HubSpot marketing software certification

New to HubSpot marketing software? You’ll need to check this certification out.

The HubSpot marketing software certification walks you through the entire HubSpot marketing automation platform, including all the tools available, their purpose, and how to use them in your digital marketing strategy to drive more conversions.

Each class also includes a demonstration of each tool in action so you can start using HubSpot like a pro in no time.

Lessons: 16
Time: 4.05 hours
Availability: HubSpot Pro or Enterprise customers only

6.) Contextual marketing certification

User experience can make or break the success of your website.

In today’s highly competitive business climate, your visitors are expecting a personalized, user-friendly experience, and delivering on this expectation will help potential leads see you as a trustworthy, reliable option.

Unfortunately, failing to do so often has the reverse effect.

The contextual marketing certification helps you create a website that is tailored to your specific user's needs and preferences so you can ensure that each visitor has an experience that meets their expectations.

Note: This course is only available to HubSpot customers and the company does include the disclaimer that in order to be successful with this certification, you should have a minimum of 500 contacts in your contacts database, as well as be familiar and comfortable with lead segmentation strategies.

Lessons: 6
Time: 1.17 hours
Availability: HubSpot customers only

Sales certifications

7.) Inbound sales certification

For those on the sales side of the spectrum, the inbound sales certification is key to getting you started with the methodology.

Similar to the inbound marketing certification, the inbound sales certification covers the fundamentals of the inbound sales methodology and how it aligns with modern buyers.

After completing this certification, you’ll better equipped to identify potential buyers, earn the attention of those buyers, and personalize your message to fit their unique needs.

Lessons: 5
Time: 2.11 hours
Availability: Free to everyone

8.) Frictionless sales certification

In order to help your sales team grow better, you need to find ways to remove friction in their processes. This certification focuses on how to use the frictionless selling framework so that your team can spend more time selling.

This course starts by helping you identify the friction that is holding your sales team back, then teaches you how to remove that friction and enable your sales team. You will also focus on how to align your team with your target buyer by prioritizing your buyer's needs.

Lessons: 4
Time: 1.01 hours
Availability: Free to everyone

9.) HubSpot sales software certification

Just like the marketing software certification, the HubSpot sales software certification shows new users how to use HubSpot CRM and covers the core features that will enable them to spend less of their time doing manual tasks and more of their time selling to potential buyers.

By walking you through each feature step-by-step (as well as sharing valuable insight of how to leverage each feature in your sales strategy), this certification will not only allow you to master this software, but to develop a stronger selling strategy as well.

Lessons: 3
Time: 1.08 hours
Availability: Free to HubSpot sales users

Design certifications

10.) Growth-driven design certification

How can you design your website to ensure peak performance?

The growth-driven design (GDD) certification will not only reveal a smarter approach to web design, but also provide an in-depth explanation on how to implement this type of design on your own website.

Furthermore, the course also shares insight on how price your GDD packages, transitioning your team to a growth-driven design mindset, and much, much more.

Lessons: 7
Time: 4.12 hours
Availability: Free to everyone

11.) HubSpot CMS for developers certification

The HubSpot CMS for developers certification was made to help web developers learn how to build and manage websites on the HubSpot CMS.

With this certification, developers learn how to use the CMS tools to create a wide variety of assets, and how to maximize your effectiveness with these tools to streamline your process and increase your productivity.

This certification is made for experienced web developers, and most of the topics covered will require a professional-level understanding of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to fully comprehend. 

Lessons: 6
Time: 1.52 hours
Availability: Free to everyone

Time to get started

With so many amazing resources at your fingertips, it's time to get started. These classes are the ones we find the most useful, but we also encourage you to explore.

Choose a course related to something you know little about — and use it to expand your knowledge!

And remember, new courses (and new material) are added frequently, so check back in on old favorites to see the updates. 

🔍 Related: Free Inbound Marketing Courses and Training