Failed HubSpot Certifications? Here's Your Recovery Plan

Pro tip: The lockout is designed as study time: HubSpot tells failed candidates to use the 12 hours to review the content and the study guide, and provides an emailed breakdown grouped into correct and incorrect questions to steer that review. Retaking replaces your score rather than averaging with it. If the certification includes practical exercises, a retake of the exam does not require redoing exercises you have already had graded, but HubSpot does require the exercises to be finished before the exam result expires, and that result runs on the same clock as the badge would have. For a renewal rather than a failure, HubSpot allows you to sit the exam without rewatching the content, and dates the new badge from the recertification date rather than the original.

• Assuming every HubSpot certification is genuinely free
  The courses are, but not every badge is. The HubSpot Marketing Hub Software certification page states that the videos, quizzes, and workbooks are free to all users while the practical exercises require a Professional or Enterprise subscription, and the certification requires those exercises. Check the practical exercise count on the course page before you invest five hours.
• Starting the exam and then leaving the page
  HubSpot states that the exam must be finished in one sitting and that closing or leaving the page locks you out for 12 hours. The timer keeps running while you are away, and running past three hours fails the attempt. Close other tabs, silence notifications, and treat it as a fixed block.
• Passing the exam and never submitting the practical exercises
  The badge is not awarded until the exercises are graded. HubSpot states that your exam result lasts only as long as the badge would have lasted, so letting it expire means retaking the exam too. Submit exercises immediately and allow 5 to 7 business days for anything graded manually.
• Studying for the retired Inbound Marketing Certification
  The Inbound Marketing Certification Course page now shows a retired notice. The current foundational certification is the Inbound Certification, 7 lessons and 2 hours 45 minutes. Older study guides and third-party summaries frequently still describe the retired course.
• Sitting a certification under the wrong name
  The certificate prints the name on your HubSpot profile, not a name you type at exam time. Fix it in Profile and Preferences before you sit, then recheck the certificate from the Completed list in My learning. The one exception is the Solutions Partner Certification, whose badge carries the company name and is not transferable.
• Leaving certifications on a work email address you are about to lose
  HubSpot lets you transfer certifications to a new email address, but only if you have access to both addresses; otherwise you must contact support. Partner-specific certifications will not transfer into a non-partner account at all. Move them before you leave the employer.
• Treating all badges as having the same shelf life
  HubSpot states that certifications for HubSpot products and software last one year while all others last two, and its terms add that badges expire one year from the end of the month following the grant month unless otherwise specified. Use the Expiring Soon filter in the in-app Learning Center rather than counting months from the date you passed.
• Expecting to see which questions you got wrong in order
  HubSpot sends a breakdown grouped into correct and incorrect, not in the order you answered, and it never releases the correct answers. Request the breakdown on the result screen, then map each incorrect item back to a lesson yourself.
• Trying to share practical exercise work across a team
  HubSpot requires each person to submit their own completed exercises and test for grading, even when several users share one HubSpot account. The buyer persona exercise in the HubSpot Marketing Software Certification is the only current exercise that can be submitted as a team.
• Recertifying by taking the exam without checking what changed
  HubSpot allows you to take the exam again without going through the content, but states that it updates course content annually or biannually and recommends reviewing. A year-old memory of a HubSpot tool is the most common source of a failed renewal, because the software changes faster than the methodology does.

• All online and completely free
• Inbound Marketing most popular
• Content Marketing, Email, Sales certs available
• Watch all videos before attempting
• Multiple attempts allowed
• Great for marketing career entry