4 Must-Have HubSpot Academy Certifications for New Users (Start Here!)

Quick answer: If you just created a HubSpot account, the four certifications worth your time first are Inbound, HubSpot Marketing Hub Software, HubSpot Sales Hub Software, and Service Hub Software. Start with Inbound no matter what your role is, then add the one that matches your job. Below, we cover what each one actually teaches you, how long they take, and a recent change that fixed one of the most common complaints about getting certified.

You just opened a HubSpot account. Now what?

That question brings a lot of people to this page. HubSpot is genuinely powerful, but the platform doesn't come with a map. Open your account for the first time and you're staring at marketing tools, sales tools, service tools, and a settings menu with more tabs than you expected.

HubSpot Academy exists for exactly this moment. It's free, it's built by the people who built the software, and it's the fastest way to stop guessing and start using HubSpot the way it's meant to be used.

The problem isn't finding a course. HubSpot Academy has over 150 of them. The problem is knowing which ones actually matter when you're just getting started, and which ones can wait.

Why These Four (And Not the Other 150+ Courses)

HubSpot Academy's catalog covers everything from social media strategy to web development. Most of it is genuinely useful eventually. None of it is useful on day one.

The four certifications below cover the foundation everyone needs, plus the one that matches your specific role. Get through those first, and the rest of the catalog will make a lot more sense because you'll finally have the vocabulary and context to know what you're looking at.

Before You Start: A Common Misconception Worth Clearing Up

If you've researched this before, you may have read that the "Hub Software" certifications — Marketing Hub Software, Sales Hub Software, Service Hub Software — require a Professional or Enterprise HubSpot subscription to finish. That used to be true, and a lot of guides on this topic (and AI-generated summaries pulling from them) still repeat it.

It's no longer the case. HubSpot rolled out an Academy Practice portal, a free practice environment built specifically so you can complete the hands-on exercises for these certifications without needing access to a paid HubSpot account. The videos and quizzes were already free for everyone. Now the practical exercises are too.

That means all four certifications below are fully completable on a free HubSpot account, start to finish. If you ever run into an exercise that still seems to want a paid feature, that's worth flagging to HubSpot support directly. It shouldn't be the norm anymore.

1. Inbound Certification: Start Here, No Matter Your Role

Time to complete: About 3 hours
Cost: Fully free, no subscription required
Best for: Literally everyone — marketers, sales reps, founders, support teams

Inbound is the only certification on this list that isn't tied to a specific HubSpot tool. Instead, it teaches the thinking behind everything else: how to attract people with real value instead of interruption, how the "flywheel" model works, and how marketing, sales, and service are supposed to support each other instead of operating in silos.

This matters because most beginners start by learning buttons — how to build a form, how to send an email — without learning why those tools exist in the first place. Inbound fills that gap first, so the software certifications that follow actually click instead of feeling like a random list of features.

Why it's first: Every other certification on this list assumes you already understand the inbound approach. Skipping it is like learning to use a hammer before anyone tells you what you're building.

2. HubSpot Marketing Hub Software Certification: For Marketers and Content Owners

Time to complete: About 5 hours
Cost: Fully free, including the practical exercises (thanks to HubSpot's free Academy Practice portal)
Best for: Marketers, content creators, and small business owners running their own campaigns

This is your guided tour through HubSpot's core marketing tools: building buyer personas, segmenting contacts, creating landing pages, forms, CTAs, emails, and workflows, and reading the reporting tools well enough to know if a campaign actually worked.

The certification walks through these tools as a connected sequence, not a list of disconnected features. That's the part most self-taught HubSpot users miss. They'll build a form without thinking about where it routes, or send an email without a workflow behind it. This certification builds the habit of thinking in sequence: persona → content → capture → nurture → report.

Why it matters: Most new users only ever touch a fraction of what's available in Marketing Hub. This certification forces you through the parts you'd otherwise skip, which is usually where the actual leverage is.

3. HubSpot Sales Hub Software Certification: For Sales Reps, Founders, and Consultants

Time to complete: About 2 hours
Cost: Fully free, including the practical exercises (via the Academy Practice portal)
Best for: Sales reps, founders managing their own pipeline, and consultants

This certification covers the HubSpot CRM from the sales side: setting up deals and pipelines, logging activity, automating follow-ups, and building a process that doesn't depend on your memory to function.

If you're a founder doing your own sales right now, this is the certification that turns "I think I followed up with everyone" into a system you can actually trust.

Why it matters: A CRM only saves time if it's set up correctly from the start. This certification teaches the setup, not just the navigation, which is the difference between a CRM that runs itself and one that becomes another spreadsheet you have to babysit.

4. Service Hub Software Certification: For Support, Success, and Account Teams

Time to complete: About 2 hours
Cost: Fully free, including the practical exercises (via the Academy Practice portal)
Best for: Customer support reps, account managers, and customer success roles

This certification covers mapping the customer journey, setting up tickets and conversations, using the help desk tools, and building a knowledge base customers can use to solve problems on their own.

It's the certification people skip most often, usually because support gets treated as an afterthought to marketing and sales. That's a mistake. Retained customers are the cheapest growth a business has access to, and this certification is the fastest way to make sure support isn't quietly working against the rest of the system.

Why it matters: Marketing and sales can hand off a great lead, but if the experience falls apart after the sale, none of that earlier work holds up.

What Order Should You Actually Take Them In?

The honest answer: it depends on your role, not on doing all four in sequence just because they're on this list.

• Marketer or content owner: Inbound → Marketing Hub Software
• Sales rep, founder, or consultant: Inbound → Sales Hub Software
• Support, success, or account manager: Inbound → Service Hub Software
• You wear multiple hats (common for founders and small teams): Inbound first, then whichever Hub Software certification matches where you spend the most time right now. Add the others later, once the first one is second nature.

Inbound comes first for everyone. After that, resist the urge to knock out all three software certifications back-to-back just to collect badges. Get good at the one tied to your actual job before adding the next one. Half-finished certifications teach you less than one certification you've actually put to use.

What Happens After You're Certified (The Part Nobody Tells You)

Here's the gap these certifications won't close: they teach you each tool on its own. They don't teach you how those tools are supposed to work together for your business specifically.

That's a different problem, and it's the one most new HubSpot users run into a few months in. You'll have a certificate for Marketing Hub Software and a certificate for Sales Hub Software, but your marketing and sales tools still won't be talking to each other in a way that makes sense for your sales cycle, your team size, or your goals. The certifications teach the platform. They don't teach your strategy.

That's normal, and it's not a sign you did the certifications wrong. It's just where self-taught HubSpot knowledge tends to hit a ceiling. You know how to use the tools, but no one's helped you connect them into one system that's actually working toward the same goal.

If you've gotten this far and HubSpot still feels like a pile of separate tools instead of one connected system, that's a conversation worth having with someone who does this for a living, not because you did anything wrong, but because that's a different kind of problem than a certification is built to solve.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are HubSpot Academy certifications actually free?

Yes, fully. The lessons, quizzes, and workbooks have always been free for every certification. For a while, the "Hub Software" certifications (Marketing Hub Software, Sales Hub Software, Service Hub Software) also required a paid HubSpot subscription to complete the hands-on practical exercises. That's changed. HubSpot now offers a free Academy Practice portal specifically so anyone can complete those exercises without a paid account. If you read elsewhere that you need a paid plan, that information is outdated.

Which HubSpot certification should I get first?

Inbound, regardless of your role. It's free, takes about 3 hours, and gives you the strategic foundation that makes every other HubSpot certification make more sense.

How long does it take to get HubSpot certified?

Most of these certifications take between 2 and 5 hours of lessons, plus a timed exam at the end (usually 60–90 minutes). You can spread the lessons across multiple sessions, but the exam has to be completed in one sitting.

Do HubSpot certifications expire?

Yes. Most expire after one to two years, and you'll need to retake an exam to renew. HubSpot updates the platform often, so renewal exams test you on what's changed. It's not just a formality.

Do I need a paid HubSpot account to take these courses?

No. Every lesson, quiz, and practical exercise across all four certifications can be completed on a free HubSpot account, including the hands-on portions for the software certifications. HubSpot's Academy Practice portal gives you a sandbox to complete those in without needing a Professional or Enterprise plan.

Are HubSpot certifications recognized by employers and clients?

Generally, yes. They're one of the more widely recognized free credentials in marketing and sales, and they show up in HubSpot's public certification directory. They're a strong signal of platform familiarity. They're not a substitute for hands-on experience, which is exactly why the "what happens after" section above matters as much as the certifications themselves.