While themes from the HubSpot Marketplace can offer a level of convenience, there are 5 circumstances where a theme might not be the best fit for your needs.

When Not To Use A Theme From The HubSpot Marketplace:

1. Your Business Has Unique Branding Needs the Theme Can't Deliver

If your brand has very specific or unique design needs, a pre-made theme may not be able to accurately or effectively represent your brand. This is especially true for brands with unique aesthetics, unconventional branding elements, or elaborate animation needs. In such cases, a custom-built theme is a much more appropriate choice.

2. You Need Advanced Functionality Not Available in the Theme

While many marketplace themes offer a range of features, they may not support certain advanced or custom functionalities that your website needs. For example, if you require dynamic content, integrations with other systems, or specific user interactions, a marketplace theme is unlikely to even get close to getting the job done. Theme developers count on this to upsell services to you once you've committed.

3. Theme Modification Can Cost a Lot Because the Developer Isn't Interested in Making Edits

While some themes are free, tweaking them can be quite expensive, especially if you need to customize them a lot. Further, editing a theme might not be permitted by the copyright holder, or it may simply be out of date or not of interest. There are many business models and countless theme developers with varying skill levels. While HubSpot enforces minimums, you're still taking a risk that they turn out to be unresponsive, causing you to start again.

4. The Theme Was Never Meant to Scale

If you foresee significant changes or growth in your website's future, a pre-made theme might not offer the flexibility and scalability needed. Changes to the structure or functionality of a theme could be time-consuming or technically challenging, making a more custom solution a better long-term solution for your business. Many free and low-cost themes are purpose-built to satisfy a single need...like a landing page or a portfolio. There's a good chance the developers didn't build other formats or is selling them separately.

5. You Bought it Based on the Visual Design

This happens ALL the time. Most theme developers pre-fill layouts with beautiful demo content that's been designed by professionals. On the surface, these themes can look pretty exciting. But, once you look under the hood, you learn that all of the fancy stuff is pretty much lipstick on a pig. You're paying good money for an otherwise simple tool because it "looked" good, not because it works. This leads to switching themes, again and again. It can be a vicious circle.

While HubSpot's Marketplace themes can provide a great starting point for tight budgets, it's critical to consider your business needs, website visitor experience, and your own team's ability to update content or adjust functionality easily.

The wrong theme can look nice but not convert. The right theme can look fantastic and help you convert.

Contrary to popular belief, when it comes to website design, there's no one-size-fits-all solution. Customization is always needed to meet the needs of your brand, your visitors' intent, and your business goals. That's why the team at Kayak developed DropZone Pro Theme for the HubSpot CMS.

Kayak's DropZone Pro Theme for the Hubspot CMS utilizes master templates to set branding, global styling, and headers/footers (website design and development); Pre-configures Advanced Content Modules to create UX-friendly page layouts; and are ready to populate with your content. Want to make a change in the layout? Simply drag and drop or add/remove modules at the page level. It's a fantastically custom website experience executed in a fraction of the time and budget of a traditional website design or redesign project. It's a business-first approach to HubSpot Themes. The way websites should be done.