Partner Ecosystems: How Partnerships Can Help You Expand Your Offerings And Retain Business

When I think of ecosystems, I picture the rainforest, and I’m not too far off. Sure, in the business world, there are fewer plants and animals. However, there are still interconnected entities that coexist, compete for resources, and work symbiotically.

Some members of your ecosystem are your competitors. Others are partners who can work with you to enhance your offering. In the B2B space, partner organizations may offer additional software solutions that extend your platform. They may also provide services that help customers get the most out of your product.

These companion offerings are a win for you — allowing your team to expand your reach without investing R&D dollars and people power. Product extensions also allow customers to customize the platform beyond what's available in the core product itself.

So, how can you leverage partners in your strategy and create business wins? Below, I’ll explore how partnerships can unlock the power of your ecosystem and share wisdom from HubSpot’s partner program.

What is an ecosystem?

A business ecosystem is a network of connected organizations that collaborate, compete, and coexist in the same market. Your company, competitors, customers, and partners all work in the same ecosystem. Savvy businesses know which organizations pose a threat, present healthy competition to monitor, and may prove a close ally.

In my experience covering businesses and writing case studies, I’ve noticed that most organizations keep a close eye on competitors. These teams run analyses to see their business’ strengths, weaknesses, and differentiating factors, so they know how their offerings measure up.

However, I’ve noticed that top-performing companies also identify which organizations align with their goals. These businesses can then partner with outside organizations to improve their outcomes.

What is a partner?

A partner organization forms a strategic relationship with a business to create mutual benefits. Ecosystem partners offer complementary products, services, or both to improve the experience for shared customers, creating more value for everyone involved.

The Benefits of Partnerships

The most important benefit of a partnership is mutual growth. Additional partner services and integrations allow B2B companies to expand their offerings. Meanwhile, partners can tap into an existing market for their services or products. All the while, customers have access to a wider array of options meeting their unique needs.

But, let’s get granular. Here are some of the benefits of partnerships.

B2B SaaS companies can extend offerings without massive investments.

Ecosystem partners provide complementary offerings that enhance a customer’s user experience. That offers a huge cost-saving opportunity for your business. You can increase the types of services you offer and the power of your platform without massive R&D investment. Instead, you can benefit from innovations created by partner organizations.

B2B companies see improved customer retention.

When a partner organization delivers exceptional implementation services, customer outcomes improve significantly. Users are more likely to adopt new tools on the platform and see value in the tools they're using to drive outcomes.

App partners providing integrations take those improved outcomes even further. The data is clear, customers with integrations have significantly higher retention rates. Even in challenging economic environments, software implemented with even one integration have over 10% higher retention rates than those with none.

Partners grow their businesses, too.

By tapping into your customer base, your partners have the ability to grow their revenue. To demonstrate, we’ll dive into HubSpot’s partner program.

According to a 2025 IDC analyst brief on the HubSpot ecosystem, nearly one-third of solutions-partner revenue now comes from more technical services like integrations or data migrations. The analyst brief also highlights that for every dollar a customer invests in HubSpot software, partners generate multiples of that in services revenue.

For partners looking to scale, this means a huge opportunity to specialize in areas like AI model training, data optimization, and cross-platform automation, offering deeper value to clients while increasing profitability.

You’ll build a sustainable growth cycle that benefits everyone.

Remember, effective ecosystems facilitate mutual growth. When partners deliver exceptional implementation and service, customer outcomes improve significantly.

When our partners expand their businesses, HubSpot grows as well. This creates a sustainable growth cycle that continuously reinforces value across the ecosystem. The goal here is to build a comprehensive customer experience that generates value for all.

Partnerships In Action: How HubSpot’s Partner Program Drives Value

Before we move on to advice, I want to dive deeper into how HubSpot approaches ecosystem partnerships. Our team has two primary types of partners:

• Solutions Partners provide services that complement HubSpot’s platform offerings. That includes onboarding,implementations, migrations, SEO, advertising, AI-driven analytics, advanced custom integrations, and far more.
• Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Partners build and sell apps that enhance our software’s capabilities.

Offerings from both of these partner types allow HubSpot to enhance our product suite with built-in AI features, advanced integration capabilities, and expanded global support. That comes with a dollar value.

Looking ahead, an analyst brief from IDC projects our partner ecosystem is on pace to surpass $30 billion in potential partner revenue globally by 2028. That’s huge. It means we’re well beyond a marketing automation tool or a standard channel program. HubSpot is a customer platform of solutions, spanning technical services, creative services, custom AI solutions, and more.

To help make that value tangible, let‘s dive into how a few partners operate within HubSpot’s ecosystem.

Consider Huble Digital, our Global Partner of the Year. Huble Digital helped the British Council modernize its fragmented marketing processes by implementing HubSpot. By leveraging Marketing Hub, the organization unified operations across 100+ countries through a phased, strategic approach.

Within months, the British Council achieved remarkable results: The organization saw a 178% reduction in email lag time and open rates of 48.9% (much higher than the 29.5% industry benchmark). Email click-through rates reached 34.2%, compared to the 12% industry average. Meanwhile, teams created campaigns 80% faster and reduced repetitive tasks by 20%.

There’s also SmartBug Media, our North America Partner of the Year. This partner evolved its service offerings from core marketing solutions to sales, RevOps, web development, and full lifecycle solutions. They also include AI and technical services. By doing so, they successfully expanded into larger, mid-market, and enterprise clients.

These examples illustrate the strategic value of well-executed partnerships. Partners develop sustainable businesses around the HubSpot platform. Customers receive specialized expertise that delivers measurable outcomes, and HubSpot benefits from increased customer success.

The best partnerships are win-win-win.

• New customers gain value from HubSpot tools quickly through an expert implementation from a solutions partner, quickly integrating HubSpot into the rest of their tech stack.
• Solutions Partners see high demand for their HubSpot services, getting referrals from HubSpot and commission for customers they bring to HubSpot.
• HubSpot sees new customers get value quicker, and customers stay with the platform longer.

Practical Tips for Building a High-Performing Partner Program

Now that I’ve covered the value partnerships provide, I wanted to share insights to help teams that are just getting started with partnerships. To do so, I spoke with Angela O’Dowd, global vice president of HubSpot’s Solutions Partner Program.

O’Dowd has been at HubSpot for over a decade, guiding our Solutions Partner Program from a startup network of inbound marketing consultants in 2010 to a global program of 7,000 partners today. Those partners provide services that span our entire customer platform.

Based on our conversation, I gathered four foundational principles to get started.

1. Define your ideal partner persona.

Similar to customer persona development, creating an Ideal Partner Persona (IPP) is essential for strategic recruitment. When you know the profile of the partner you’re trying to recruit — size, skill set, vertical expertise, geographic focus — you can ensure there’s a genuine overlap in target customers.

“At HubSpot, we implement a deliberate approach to partner identification,” says O’Dowd.

According to O’Dowd, key considerations include:

• Which partner profiles will most effectively complement our solution portfolio.
• What capabilities and expertise will be most in demand.
• Which market segments the partner currently serves.

An IPP also clarifies expectations. If you serve mostly SMBs, don’t chase giant enterprise-focused agencies. If your platform is geared toward mid-sized or larger organizations, you’ll want to find partners that can handle complex integrations.

“Clear criteria accelerate the identification of high-potential partners while reducing investment in partnerships unlikely to generate sustainable value,” says O’Dowd.

The clearer your criteria, the faster you’ll identify true fit — and avoid half-active partnerships that never gain traction.

2. Offer genuine mutual benefit.

A partnership has to be a two-way street. If you can’t create mutual benefit, your partnership program is in for a rough ride.

“The primary reason partner programs underperform is insufficient attention to balanced value creation,” says O’Dowd.

To avoid this hurdle, HubSpot maintains transparency regarding partner program benefits. That includes tools and incentives that help partners create value for customers and realize value for their own businesses.

The HubSpot team also makes sure to provide the resources partners need to succeed, says O’Dowd. That includes sharing marketing enablement resources and co-selling support. We also offer structured certification programs and dedicated partner management.

By providing both revenue opportunities and support, our partnership program can build a balanced approach that ensures sustainable value exchange, according to O’Dowd.

3. Create a path to grow.

“Partners require visibility into growth pathways within your ecosystem,” says O’Dowd. That’s why HubSpot offers a tiered structure, with partners at the Gold, Platinum, Diamond, and Elite levels. This hierarchy establishes transparent progression based on performance metrics and customer outcomes.

Each tier provides incremental benefits aligned with partner contribution levels — from enhanced commission structures to dedicated support resources to increased market visibility.

Providing a clear framework allows for continuous capability development that ultimately generates more offerings for our customers.

4. Keep partner programs open and diversified.

Diversity drives ecosystem value. In our program, we intentionally cultivate partners with different specializations — technical integrators, creative agencies, and industry specialists — because complementary capabilities serve customers better.

“At the same time, we do set standards. We expect each partner to maintain high-quality service and represent HubSpot’s offerings accurately,” says O’Dowd. “We offer curated support — like technical docs and knowledge bases — so even niche players can plug in effectively.”

Building Lasting Partnerships

A partner ecosystem is truly beneficial when everyone involved has a clear, complementary role. That’s how we drive revenue and retention for HubSpot, create thriving businesses for our partners, and deliver real results for customers.

If you’re in tech leadership, a partner, or a CEO evaluating where to place your bet, building (or joining) a strong ecosystem is worth considering. I see a future where collaboration defines success in every corner of the business world.