---
title: ThemeSpot vs PowerPlay
description: PowerPlay is a HubSpot app built around the $997 POWER Pro theme that sells AI credits through its own dashboard. ThemeSpot gives your own agents the tools to build, edit, QA and manage HubSpot sites.
---

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# ThemeSpot vs PowerPlay

By [Reece Sim](https://themespot.app/blog/author/reece-sim)·September 28, 2026·8 min read

# ThemeSpot vs PowerPlay: an app you rent, or tools your agents own?

Both products promise AI-built HubSpot websites. They are built on opposite ideas about who does the thinking, where your code lives and what you pay for. This piece lays out the facts from PowerPlay's own documentation and marketplace listing, then explains what ThemeSpot does differently and who each one suits.

## Key takeaways

- PowerPlay is a HubSpot app from maka Agency, designed around their POWER Pro theme, which sells for $997 on the HubSpot marketplace. Its setup guide lists POWER Pro as a prerequisite.
- PowerPlay's AI runs only inside its own dashboard, on credits you buy from maka. Using your own Claude or ChatGPT plan, your own API key, or your own coding agent is "not on the roadmap yet".
- PowerPlay configures the modules a theme already has. It does not write code, create modules, edit templates or touch the global header and footer. It works on one page draft at a time.
- ThemeSpot gives you and the agents you already use the power to build, edit, QA and manage HubSpot themes and content: a local renderer, a headless UI library, lint and quality gates, Site Health scans, approvals, managed git and deploys.
- ThemeSpot charges for the portal and the outcomes, not for the tokens. Your existing AI subscription does the thinking.

## What PowerPlay is

PowerPlay is maka Agency's companion app for POWER Pro, the theme they have sold on the HubSpot marketplace since 2020. You install the app, connect a portal, open a page in the PowerPlay dashboard and describe a change in plain language. The agent sets module fields on that page's draft, you review it and publish in HubSpot.

The design choice is deliberate and maka is open about it: "the AI doesn't write new bespoke code, it configures what you already have". Output stays on brand because it cannot leave the theme. The same choice sets the ceiling. In their words: "If you need a custom module that does not exist in your theme, or a fully bespoke design that breaks from the theme, PowerPlay is not the tool."

### The theme question

PowerPlay's landing page now says it "supports any HubSpot theme". Its setup guide, written for people actually installing it, says "PowerPlay builds and edits pages using the POWER Pro theme, so POWER Pro must be installed in your HubSpot portal", and the marketplace listing describes it as "built exclusively for POWER Pro". Read that as a product designed around a $997 theme, with wider theme support arriving as a newer claim. Either way, PowerPlay only ever rearranges what a theme already ships. It cannot give you a module the theme does not have.

### What you pay, and to whom

POWER Pro is a one-off $997 per portal. PowerPlay is a separate subscription in credits: 200 free to start, then €39 a month for 500, €69 for 1,000 or €149 for 2,500, with top-up packs from €39 for 250 credits to €199 for 2,500. maka's own guidance is that 250 credits is roughly 25 sections. Every section, edit, image and check spends credits, and the only place those credits can be spent is PowerPlay's dashboard.

That is the part worth pausing on. If your team already pays for Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor, none of that intelligence can be pointed at PowerPlay. "Bring your own AI API key" and a "POWER Theme MCP" for "the AI tools you already use" both sit on a waitlist marked "not on the roadmap yet". You pay maka's margin on every token, and you work in maka's chat window.

### What it cannot reach

From the PowerPlay agent documentation: it edits only the draft of the page you have open, never makes changes across other pages, does not publish, does not write code, and cannot touch site-wide elements such as the global header and footer, templates or other pages. Blog templates, theme settings, redirects, forms and anything that lives outside one page draft are outside its reach.

## What ThemeSpot is

ThemeSpot is a system for HubSpot websites that assumes you already have an AI you trust. Instead of selling you another chat window, it gives that AI, and your team, the tools a HubSpot developer would want: a way to see what it is building, a library to build from, checks that catch mistakes before they go live, and a managed path from source to a live portal.

### Build with the agents you already use

The Theme Dev Kit for HubSpot is a free plugin for Claude Code. It runs a local renderer so your agent can see the HubSpot theme it is writing, page by page, and iterate against the design until it matches. It covers classic HubL themes and React themes, with authoring guidance for both. No account, no credits, no markup.

Connect a portal and the same tools reach ThemeSpot's hosted workspace through MCP, so Claude Code, Cursor, Codex or whichever agent you run can read and write the theme source, compile it, preview it on real portal content, run the checks and request a deploy. The thinking happens on your plan. ThemeSpot supplies the context and the outcomes.

### A headless UI library, not a theme you rent

Hosted themes are authored from ThemeSpot UI, a maintained headless React component library for HubSpot: fields, modules, sections, menus, images, forms and the editor contract behind them. Your agent composes a bespoke theme from those primitives instead of being bounded by one vendor's module list, and the lint catches the things that break the HubSpot editor before a client ever sees them. That is how you get consistency without a ceiling.

### Edit, QA and manage the whole site

- **Content at scale.** Find pages, draft edits, bulk sweeps across pages and blog posts, redirects, forms, files and structured data, with a preview of exactly what changes before anything goes live.
- **Quality gates.** Every theme deploy passes accessibility, SEO, editability and platform-safety checks. Site Health scans the live site, raises findings and fixes what it can through the normal change flow.
- **Approvals and proof.** Deploys and live changes queue for a named person. Every change is journaled with who asked, what changed and what was checked. Checkpoints roll back a workspace at any point.
- **Managed from source to live.** Hosted workspace, managed git and CI, deploys to HubSpot, content migration after a breaking deploy, and a built theme you can export and upload yourself any time.
- **Marketer mode.** Hand the site to a client with code access off, so their agent can change content but never the theme.

## Side by side

| Question | PowerPlay | ThemeSpot |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Theme it is built for | POWER Pro, $997 one-off; setup guide requires it | Any HubL or React theme; bespoke themes built from ThemeSpot UI |
| Who does the thinking | maka's AI, inside their dashboard | Your agent on your plan: Claude Code, Cursor, Codex or ThemeSpot's own chat |
| What you pay for | Credits resold by maka, from €39 a month | The portal and the outcomes; tokens are yours |
| Use your own API key or agent | "Not on the roadmap yet" | Default |
| Writes theme code | No, configures existing modules | Yes, with a local renderer and lint |
| New modules, templates, header and footer | Out of scope | In scope |
| Scope of one change | One page draft | One page, a bulk sweep or the whole theme |
| QA | Checks on the open page, spend credits | Deploy gates plus site-wide Site Health scans and fixes |
| Approvals and audit trail | Rollback within a chat | Named approvals, journal, checkpoints |
| Code ownership | No code is produced | Source in a managed workspace, built theme exportable any time |
| Free tier | 200 credits | Theme Dev Kit free with no account; hosted free tier on connect |

## Where PowerPlay is the right call

If you own POWER Pro, like it, and want a marketer to assemble landing pages from its modules faster than clicking through fields, PowerPlay does exactly that. It is low-risk by construction: drafts only, native HubSpot configuration, and nothing to migrate if you cancel. maka's support is included.

Be honest with yourself about the shape of the work, though. If the brief is "make it look like this Figma file", "fix the header on every page", "migrate 60 pages" or "find what is broken across the site", a per-page configurator on someone else's theme is not the tool, by its own admission.

## Where ThemeSpot is the right call

If you or your agency already run an AI agent for development, ThemeSpot is the HubSpot toolkit for it. You keep your model, your editor and your workflow. ThemeSpot gives them sight of the theme, a library to build from, gates that catch what the model misses, and a managed route to a live portal with a human approving each step. We manage the workspace, the build, the deploy and the content afterwards, so the handover to the client is one connected system rather than a theme licence, a chat app and a developer on retainer.

Two honest caveats. Hosted theme source lives in ThemeSpot's workspace; you can take the built theme any time, but the convenience tooling is hosted. And the React route is a developer's route; marketers get the content, QA and approvals side without ever touching code.

## FAQs

**Does PowerPlay need the POWER Pro theme?**  
Its setup guide says POWER Pro must be installed in your portal, and the marketplace listing calls it built exclusively for POWER Pro. The landing page has recently added an "any theme" claim. Check the setup guide before you buy a theme to use it.

**Can I use my own Claude or ChatGPT subscription with PowerPlay?**  
No. Credits are bought from maka and spent in the PowerPlay dashboard. Bring-your-own-key and MCP are waitlist items described as not on the roadmap yet.

**Can I use my own agent with ThemeSpot?**  
Yes. The Theme Dev Kit for HubSpot plugin runs locally in Claude Code with no account, and the hosted tools are exposed over MCP so your existing agents can build, edit, check and deploy against a connected portal.

**Does ThemeSpot work with a theme I already have?**  
Yes. Content management, Site Health and approvals work on any theme already on the portal. Theme building covers HubL and React themes.

**Do I keep my site if I stop using either tool?**  
In both cases your HubSpot portal and content stay yours. With PowerPlay there is no code to keep because none is written. With ThemeSpot you can export the built theme at any time and upload it yourself.

**Is ThemeSpot suitable for agencies managing several client portals?**  
Yes. Connect each client portal and manage them from one workspace, with per-client approvals and marketer mode for the client's own team. [Connect your portal](https://themespot.app/join-the-waitlist) to see it in action.

![](https://themespot.app/hs-fs/hubfs/fsdf%20(1).png?width=64&height=64&name=fsdf%20(1).png)

Written by

Reece Sim

[More from this author →](https://themespot.app/blog/author/reece-sim)

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