Indies are making $280k+ ARR on HubSpot in 2024

Building in and for the right market changes everything.

As of 2024, HubSpot's marketplace - the store for apps that extend its premium platform - is generating in the neighborhood of $69.6 million per month for 3rd-party publishers - for just 1,251 paid products. This makes for an average of $56k MRR ($668k ARR) per product.

Below is a current rundown of the 2024 marketplace $ numbers — specifically the earning potential for solopreneurs and small publishers.

I've also put together a more detailed, interactive version of this data.

Since 2021, I've been diving into HubSpot's app marketplace as a builder and avid data nerd. For individuals and small teams building software HubSpot can be a goldmine with the perfect mix of ingredients independent publishers need to sell valuable software without massive marketing or support effort.

An Exclusive Market, Vast Potential

If you're not familiar, HubSpot is a premium-priced platform that serves customers who have valuable, recurring, critical business problems - marketing and sales teams.

Thankfully these dept's are usually the best-funded within a business, with budgets to pay for the tools they need. HubSpot's user base is massive (194,000+ customers currently) and its marketplace is a well-designed sales channel that they've given massive tailwinds.

Most amazingly they charge zero listing or transactions fees and it's still a market ripe for new entrants.

Like any market, there are outliers that pull the average numbers up, and some products are produced by large publishers with strong tailwinds outside of HubSpot that help drive their adoption.

But the vast majority of products are produced by independent publishers, many of whom who are earning significant revenue by extending HubSpot's platform and leveraging its marketplace for acquisition.

High leverage + lower effort

When we look at independent publishers exclusively, the average income earned is $27k MRR ($324k ARR).

If we focus on the smart middle of this pack - and drop the outliers that can pull the average up - products are earning on average $23.4k MRR ($281k ARR) from only 150 customers.

Many of these are simple products that solve a single problem well, and are fueling a solid revenue stream through even a small customer base.

Frankly, many of these products aren't amazingly executed or supported - but they have found valuable pain to solve within a targeted ecosystem and are earning for it.

Building products that can sell themselves

As a long-time product nerd, my approach has always been to uncover and anticipate customer needs, working to craft solutions for desires they may not even know they want yet. In the journey of building software businesses with limited resources, I've become an increasing fan of tapping into areas where customer demand has already been solidly demonstrated.

I can’t afford to bet on products that require massive amounts of marketing or customers to be successful. I have to focus my efforts on innovating where there is already proven, high-value demand to create products that can largely sell themselves.

To help myself better understand HubSpot's marketplace dynamics, I've culled together a ton of data about the its products, landscape of publishers, customers' satisfaction, and did the legwork to estimate revenue across products and categories (which requires a couple assumptions that are noted below).

HubSpot's App Marketplace 2024

Data from Feb 14, 2024 ❤️

I find this data and type of analysis invaluable for building worthwhile products — I hope it's useful to you too. If you have any questions, just let me know on X / Twitter.

Catalog & Publishers

• 1,543 total products.
• 90% of these products (1,388) are made by third-party publishers with the remainder (155) made by HubSpot itself.
• The 1,388 third-party products are produced by 1,219 publishers.
• The majority of third-party publishers are independent teams with smaller products (≈1,160 publishers), with the remainder the common big name publishers or large software platforms linking into HubSpot (≈70 publishers).

Product Categories

• Categories with most competing products: 1. Sales Enablement (193), 2. Analytics & Data (121), 3. CRM (114), 4. Lead Generation (113), 5. Calling (106)
• Categories with fewest competing products: 1. Subscription Management (1), 2. Knowledge Base (2), 3. Payment Gateways (2), 4. Field Service Management (4), 5. Learning Management System (4)
• New marketplace categories with no competition yet: Brand Protection, Drop Shipping, E-Merchandising, Employee Engagement, Payroll, POS, Product Reviews, Shopping Cart

Product Pricing

• 15% of all products (227) are completely free.
• 23% of all products (350) offer free and paid plans.
• The majority of products, 62% (966) are paid only.
• For paid products, the average plan price is $2,008 and median plan price is $263.

Product Demand

• Free-only products - average installs 4586 / median installs 97.
• Paid products (may include free plan or be paid-only) - average installs 1668 / median installs 82.
• The highest demand categories (highest median installs; free and paid) - 1. Payment Gateways (1929/product; 2 products), 2. Social Media (649/product; 14 products), 3. Advertising (578/product; 11 products), 4. Wordpress (483/product; 8 products), 5. Webinar (227/product; 14 products)

Product Revenue

• Third-party products with paid plans (1,251) generate an estimated total of $70M in sales via HubSpot's marketplace every month.
• The monthly revenue for third-party paid products (all publishers) with a median number of installs (82) is an average of $119k MRR / median $26k MRR ($315k median ARR).

Revenue Estimation Assumptions

Since many products have multiple plans and pricing, estimating revenue accurately requires a fair bit of research, some elaborate calculation, and a couple of assumptions -

• When a product has multiple plans I've assumed the vast majority of its installs (starting at 70% and dropping no lower than 55%) are on its cheapest plan, including a free plan if it exists. The number of remaining installs is presumed to significantly decrease across each remaining plan.
• When a monthly plan offers annual subscription discounts, I've assumed 20% of this plan's installs are on discounted pricing.

Marketplace Tailwinds

The primary reason for an independent publisher to build for HubSpot is to be able to create high-value with less effort and cost (by extending the value of a premium platform with a smaller, valuable product for a massive user base who is coming to you through a sales channel that's freely promoted and free to use).

If we're evaluating this marketplace to understand this opportunity we need to measure the products that create their value by primarily extending the value of HubSpot to its users.

A key way to tell is by asking 'which way does the data flow?' - a product can bring data into HubSpot, take data out, or do both. Those that bring data in are likely enhancing the value of HubSpot to its users. Those that only take data are likely enhancing the value of another product and its users (who may also be HubSpot users, but the HubSpot marketplace isn't likely the primary driver of marketing and sales for the product).

• 82% of third-party products (1,272) bring data into HubSpot.
• 18% of third-party products (271) only take data out of HubSpot.

Where All of This Overlaps for Indie Builders

Overlapping these dimensions - we're able to evaluate the independent products that are creating value in and through HubSpot's ecosystem, based on real-world sales –

• 1,388 products are made by third-party publishers
• of these, 1,320 are made by independent publishers
• of these 1,184 have paid plans that we can measure revenue of
• of these 954 bring data into HubSpot, increasing platform's value to its users

For these 954 paid products from independent publishers -

• Demand - average 332 installs / median 63 installs
• Revenue - average $324k ARR / median $57k ARR

The demand for these 954 products as a whole is strong (generating $309M ARR collectively). The average numbers look very attractive, but the best performers in this group definitely pull these numbers up. When we look at the median annual revenue across all of these products it drops significantly to $57k ARR - which isn't nothing, but isn't terribly amazing either…

The interesting catch to this is – many of these products in this group are not very well executed or supported. They have found valuable pain to solve within a targeted ecosystem and are earning for it — but as you look across the marketplace you see how a well-conceived, well-positioned, and well-supported product could likely capture a significant share of customers.

✨ Performance in the Smart Middle

What is the performance of the products in this target group that are at the middle of the pack and a bit above average?

This subset of products have managed to capture at least the median number of customers from our total target group (63 installs), up to the number of customers captured by the products that are performing at the 80% mark (330 installs).

Importantly, this group omits the top 20% of outliers that drive up our average numbers.

These are the type of products we're aiming to match if we compete in this market. They're the type of products that can be built by a smart, small team, and represent the sales and revenue that are possible with relatively small marketing and support.

• Demand - 148 installs average
• Revenue - $281k ARR average

The average product with this pack has 148 installs (customers) and generates $23.4k every month ($280.5k ARR). It's also worth noting – many of these products are simple products that solve a single problem well – and fuel a solid revenue stream through a relatively small customer base, with less customer support required.

Becoming Above Average

All of the numbers above are nicely focused on the safe middle, but the ability to become an outlier is definitely in reach, even with relatively simple functionality.

A product that can solve a specific and valuable problem, makes its value clear to customers, and supports it users well can become an extraordinary performer in this marketplace much easier than elsewhere.

Some great examples of independent publishers making a killing helping HubSpot's customers –

• OrgChartHub - Estimated $422K MRR ($5.0M ARR) • Installs 6040 • Average Price / Install $70 • Org charting tool that helps sales people visually map customer relationships; all of product UX/UI is within HubSpot.
• Datawarehouse - Estimated $644K MRR ($7.7M ARR) • 16 similar products • Combined Installs 7,570 • Average Price / Install $85 • Smaller publisher with catalog of highly related but targeted products, each with straightforward functionality.
• Breadcrumbs - Estimated $1.5M MRR ($18.1 ARR) • Installs 1,171 • Average Price / Install $1,293 • A well designed, bit more functionally rich product that provides high-value lead scoring to sales teams.

Btw, if you happen be behind one of these and I've wildly mis-estimated your revenue, I'd love to know. Again, they are estimates, but with enough thought put into them that I'd expect that they are directionally correct.

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Build with Tailwinds

There is a ton of actionable insight builders can draw from this market data and analysis.

I've put together a more detailed, interactive version of this data, if you're interested in digging deeper.

Building a product isn't really the issue – especially now.

Understanding our customers is critical, but understanding which market to build for first (and where to build within it) is vital to finding the tailwinds it takes to succeed.

Knowing the right product to build is the real challenge - one that's high-value and able to coast on the tailwinds of a market and demand that already exists.

I hope all of this is helpful to others looking for the right ideas to bet upon - and the right places to build them.