How do Tiers and Tier Points work?

You progress through tiers by earning sold and managed points. As you’d expect, sold points are earned by selling to new or existing customers (Sold points can also come from increases in a customer’s subscription that don’t come from deals, like discount changes at renewal), and managed points are earned by servicing your existing customers. And when you sell to clients that are based in specific growth markets you can receive more points. See current growth markets.

The current point conversion rates are:

Currency conversion rates are factored into the point values for local currencies. In order to prevent market volatility from causing volatility in tier performance, point values may not reflect current market conversion rates.

Your sold and managed points expire over time.

As your sold and managed points grow, you’ll earn new tiers. 

There are four tiers,

• Gold
• Platinum
• Diamond
• Elite

To attain a tier you must earn that tier’s total points (which are a combination of sold and managed points). While you grow through a combination of sold and/or managed points, each tier requires that you earn a minimum number of sold and minimum number of managed points. Elite tier has some additional requirements.

Example

You can see how Tier points help you move through tiers with the following example: Partner A and Partner B both aim to achieve platinum status and both have the same number of total points:

While both partners have exceeded the total combined points for platinum status, Partner A has 250 sold points, which is below the 270 sold points minimum needed to earn platinum status. Partner A must earn 20 additional sold points to be eligible for platinum Status.

To qualify for a partner tier, you must have a median client tool usage of 3 or more for the past 90 days. 

Find out how we calculate median client tool usage

To calculate this, we first count how many unique tools each of your sold or managed clients used in the past 90 days. From there, we take the median across all clients that count toward your sold and/or managed MRR tier credit. Using a tool might mean launching a marketing campaign or publishing content. Both your management activity for the client and their own activity count toward tool usage.

Solutions Partner Certification

To qualify for a tier you must also have a valid Solutions Partner Certification. This means at least one employee at your company must pass the partner certification exam once every 25 months. Find out how to become partner certified.

Once you’re credited with a tier, you keep that tier for at least six months. As you earn higher tiers you unlock access to more partner benefits.

Tier changes take place on a calendar basis. You have the opportunity to move up tier once a month, while moving down in tier only takes place twice a year during tier adjustment.

Every month you have the opportunity to move to a higher tier. If you have achieved the sold, managed and combined tier points minimums on the 15th of the month for a tier higher than your current one, then you will earn that higher tier (Note: Elite tier has special additional requirements). Since managed credit can take time to reflect, we recommend aiming to meet the requirements of your goal tier by the 13th of the month.

Special Elite Requirements

Special criteria must be met before a partner is granted Elite status, these include,

• achieving an Average C$R (Customer Dollar Retention) of at least 85%,
• holding at least 100 user certifications among your employees,
• being invited.

These Elite-access special criteria are subject to change.

How do we calculate C$R and Average C$R?

C$R is a measure of the install base dollars you would be expected to retain over a 12-month period if you maintained your current retention rate. 

To calculate your C$R we first work out the percentage of your install base dollars that you have retained for a specific month (i.e. that have not canceled). We don’t take downgrades or portal-cancellations by multi-portal customers into account for this, only cancellations.

We then  ‘annualize’ this monthly figure, meaning that we take that month's result and multiply it by itself 12 times. You can think of the resulting number as, "If things continue in the same way for the next 12 months, where would we be at the end of those 12 months?"

The formula for this looks like,

((beginning-of-month install base dollars - cancellation dollars in-month)÷beginning-of-month install base dollars)*^12                          

Your ‘Average C$R,’ which is used when considering partners for Elite status, is the average of each month’s C$R calculations over the past 12 months. The formula for Average C$R is,

(Add C$R for each month over the past 12 months together) / 12

If you close a deal in collaboration with a HubSpot rep, you will receive the full points value of that deal. If you close a deal in collaboration with another partner the lead agency will receive the deal points.

Here are the most important things to know:

• If your tier performance drops below your credited tier (the tier you currently have), you will have at least six months to restore it
• Tiers only decrease twice a year (see below for details)
• If your Solutions Partner Certification is expired at the time of tier recalibration (taking place on January 15 and July 15 each year), you will be down-tiered. In order to remain a tiered partner, please ensure your certification is valid in advance of the next recalibration date.

Here’s how maintaining your tier works:

When you have been credited with a tier, you keep this for at least six months. 

Your dashboard shows your “tier performance”, which is your current performance against the requirements of your current tier. If your tier performance drops temporarily below your credited tier, you can still keep your credited tier.

We review your tier performance twice a year

As long as you performed at your credited tier for at least one month in the review period, you will keep your credited tier. If you performed below your credited tier for all six months, your tier will be adjusted to your best performance during that time.

Tier adjustment example

This is an example for the July 15th tier adjustment date.

While all three are Diamond partners they are currently operating at Gold levels. However, in the six months prior to July 15 Partner A had achieved Platinum status at least once and Partner B had achieved Diamond status at least once; since these were the highest tier status that each earned these will be their new status after July 15. Partner C’s highest status was Gold during this same period, and so will be created as Gold from July 15.

Tier Recalibration for untiered partners

Starting at Partner Kickoff February 15 and 16, 2023, all new partners will have two years from the date of them joining the program to achieve gold tier status. If untiered at the 2-year mark, partners will be notified and have another six (6) post recalibration to reach the gold tier level. If not reached the partner then will have the choice to move to the provider level of the  program or leave the program altogether and/or become a customer. Partners who choose to be moved to the provider level will only receive commission for one year from the deal sold date. For deals sold beyond the trailing 12-month period (as in, the partner has already received 12 months worth of revenue share for a deal at the time they move to provider level) or if a partner chooses to move out of the program all together to become a customer, commissions will end immediately.

Starting at Partner Kickoff February 15 and 16, 2023, all partners in the partner program who have been in the program for at least two years must achieve and/or maintain gold status to remain in the program. This analysis of tier level and recalibration will continue every six months. If you ever fall at risk of being downgraded you will be notified by the program and given time (six months) to tier up before being moved to the program provider level. For more details, visit the Untiered Partner Requirements page.