Arrows Bet on HubSpot Partners

This reveals that winning on HubSpot is less about marketplace SEO and more about becoming part of HubSpot’s human sales channel. Arrows grew by making itself useful to HubSpot reps, solutions partners, and customers already working inside the CRM, while the marketplace contributed only 5% to 10% of pipeline. That is very different from Shopify or the iPhone, where the store itself is a primary discovery surface and install engine.

• Arrows describes HubSpot discovery as a chain of people, not a browse driven app store. The important nodes are HubSpot account teams, 7,000 plus solutions partners, other app partners, and content on LinkedIn and YouTube. The marketplace page matters mostly as a credibility check once someone already knows the app exists.
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• That structure fits HubSpot’s product model. HubSpot had about 200,000 customers as of early 2024, and partner influenced distribution is meaningful, with solutions partners and their referrals representing about 31% of customers at year end 2023. A smaller B2B buyer base naturally produces fewer casual installs than consumer or commerce platforms.
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• Shopify is the opposite benchmark. Shopify frames its App Store as a place where millions of merchants find tools, and has pushed the store into a core product surface for years. In that kind of ecosystem, ranking, reviews, and low friction installs can drive large volumes directly from the marketplace itself.
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If HubSpot keeps moving upmarket and investing in its platform motion, the marketplace should become more important over time. But the near term advantage stays with apps like Arrows that already have trust with partner agencies, customer facing HubSpot teams, and power users, because those relationships compound faster than marketplace traffic alone.