At Partner Kickoff in February 2021, we announced new domain capacities that will go into effect on April 15, 2021. Partners will need to get within their new capacity by this date to register new domains or re-register existing ones. Partners who aren’t under their new capacity limit by July 1, 2021 will have commissions withheld until they’re under capacity.

Why change?

At Partner Kickoff, we introduced the immense opportunities coming for HubSpot partners. This is detailed even further in the recently published IDC white paper on the nearly $19B opportunity ahead for the HubSpot ecosystem. 

To unlock this opportunity, we’re on a multi-year journey to evolve the Solutions Partner Program and scale better, together. How do we do that? We move from a world with high conflict to one where we sell and service as one team. From minimal program requirements to one where we help you become qualified and credentialed. And, we also need to invest in world-class enablement and community. 

This specific change is part of our efforts to reduce conflict and sell and service and one team.

What is the change?

Today, you use a domain registration system to work deals with HubSpot. Domain registration is the system where partners can request to register a domain to establish ownership of the potential sales process with HubSpot. Domain capacity refers to the limit of how many domains you can register. These registrations are meant to be for leads that you have a business relationship with, who are interested in HubSpot software. 

Both partners and HubSpot's internal sales team have a significantly large domain capacity. But when everyone has a large capacity, registration rejection rate is high. And while it’s still possible to work a collaborative deal on a rejected domain, your CAM has to set it up manually. This antiqued process often leads to conflict, disjointed collaboration, and minimal visibility into the deal.

To give partners ample space to register their qualified leads, we’ll be lowering capacity for everyone, including our internal sales team.

This chart shows the new domain capacities by tier.

This change goes into effect on April 15, 2021. At that time, we won’t deregister any domains, but partners won’t be able to register any new domains or re-register existing domains until under capacity. 

In considering these adjustments, we looked at:

• How capacity correlates to partner success. We found that with capacities as high as they are today, there’s no correlation between a partner’s capacity and sold MRR. 

• What capacity is needed for a partner to reach the next tier. We took into account ASP (average sales price), close rates, and sales cycle, and made sure we added a healthy buffer for partners to be successful. 

• The average capacity partners currently use. When we looked at the data, we saw that only about half of deals where partners received sold MRR credit came from domains that they registered.

Keep in mind, when deal registration rolls out globally, partners will be able to register deals in addition to registering domains. This will make it easier to have a collaborative sales process with HubSpot even if you’re selling to a domain that isn’t registered to you.

You can also opt to watch a recorded walkthrough (8:48 - 11:11) of this change from when it was introduced during Partner Kickoff.

What happens if I don't get under my new capacity?

Partners who aren’t under their new capacity limit by July 1, 2021 will have their Q2 commissions check withheld until they are under capacity. This is to keep things as equitable as possible across the partner community. 

If you’re currently above or close to reaching your new capacity, you’ll receive an email notification from the HubSpot Partner Team in the coming few days. Please work with your CAM, who can help you audit your leads to get below capacity by April 15, 2021. You can also check your current capacity in your Capacity Manager.