Are WordPress theme designers balling outta control?
- Thread starter avatar33
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The majority of the themes with that many sales have been available for 2-3 years. Then TF takes their 30-50% cut. And on top of all of that, you have to provide support to the people who buy these themes.
It's still decent money *if* your theme becomes really popular, but it's a lot more work than you'd probably like to believe.
edit: Oh, and taxes, don't forget taxes.
It's still decent money *if* your theme becomes really popular, but it's a lot more work than you'd probably like to believe.
edit: Oh, and taxes, don't forget taxes.
You guys sure have your finger on the pulse of content management, setting your sights on this up-and-coming Word Press thing. With the razor-sharp business acumen and online publishing savvy evidenced here, as well as the deep, deep, deep, deep, deep technical knowledge WF members are famed far and wide for success is assured.
Read his other posts. Sarcasm runs deep in this one. I laugh at almost every post tho...
^^
That's true. The most sold themes have been showcased for over 2 years. Of course there're exceptions.
I wanted to create a business around WordPress Themes. I can design (have decent skills in Photoshop/Fireworks), know about color theory and UI design, usability and of course, SEO. I produce my own themes and I was very excited to start a business in that niche. But after sites like NETTuts started to publish tutorials on how to create WP Themes, the competition started to become fierce. A lot of people start making their own themes: some were good, some were a POS but they were being sold anyway.
If you would like to make money in this niche, you would need themes nowhere seen before. It's tired to browse ThemeForest and find the same jQuery slider in almost all themes. They lost creativity and started copying popular themes.
I've bought 4-5 themes in ThemeForest and I wasn't satisfied with any of them. Maybe because I'm a developer and was expecting more, or maybe because their onpage SEO is awful.
It'd be interesting to see an alternate marketplace developed. I don't know anything about business, so maybe my idea is not factible. I just told you my POV from a designer/developer. Hope it helps in some way.
Kriesi hit $1,000,000 in sales over three years today...
Kriesi: The First Author to Sell $1,000,000 Worth of Items. | Envato Notes
Kriesi: The First Author to Sell $1,000,000 Worth of Items. | Envato Notes
Yes, once you hit $75k in sales they only take 30% from there on out. You could hit that goal with just 1 or 2 really successful themes. There's more and more competition on Themeforest every day though. There are a lot of people who see the opportunity to make a decent income there.
As far as these marketplaces go Envato is one of the more generous. iStock for example (Getty) starts at only 15%-25% payout and the max you can earn with them if you sell exclusively and hit approximately $1.5 mil in sales is 45%!
Actually as Tangy said, it's Kriesi who is their top earner by far. He hit $50k in sales in one month not long ago as well. He lives in Vienna.
Quite amazing really, but he has many themes and from what I can tell employs support staff to help his customers. His themes run on a framework and have a lot of customization options in the WP admin. Not a small undertaking.
It would certainly be possible to start a new Theme company or marketplace and be successful if the offerings are quality, but Envato is attractive because of it's reach and exposure and the infrastructure they've set up. You only have to worry about building quality themes and providing support for them as an author there whereas you would have to worry about 10 times as much stuff starting up your own company. As Subigo put it, it's a lot of work either way.
I've been seriously contemplating designing a theme / releasing it on themeforest the past few days.. The *only* thing holding me back is creating custom tabs for the theme so that people can easily modify certain aspects without touching the custom editor with html/css.. It seems like that's what most themes do now'adays, and I have no idea how to do that..
Any guys here have experience with the backend/coding end of custom WP themes? I'd be up for a joint venture with a single theme just as a case study.
Any guys here have experience with the backend/coding end of custom WP themes? I'd be up for a joint venture with a single theme just as a case study.
50k in one month is awesome, but still compared to affiliate's marketers nothing, and it's only a handful of people making this much money.
You're looking at this all wrong. The market for WP themes has passed the fast growth stage, where anyone jumping in can make easy money.
It's now in the maturing stage, as evidenced by the fact most of the big money makers are theme companies, or people selling frameworks like Genesis and Thesis.
The barriers to entry for the pure themes market are now very low. Anybody with some graphic design skills and a buddy who's halfway decent at PHP can build one. That can mean only one thing: commoditization is approaching.
If you want to make real money now, stop trying to leap onto a bandwagon that's already slowing down, and look at solving a specific business problem with your skills.
For example, photography. Check out:
ProPhoto Blogs - Buy $199 for a wordpress theme
and
WordPress Photography Themes by Photocrati the "cheap" version at $89
Both offer a total solution to the need photographers have for a website. Compare that to photography wordpress themes which are selling for $30 on Themeforest.
I've been looking for a few hours (building a website for my dad for Xmas), and I can't find any others that do the same thing. You think there's room for another two or three in that market? You betcha.
And once that market's full.... look at who else uses wordpress a lot. Build something that's specific to their needs. I have a few more ideas, but I'm not gonna share 'em because I'm planning to do something with them myself.
It's now in the maturing stage, as evidenced by the fact most of the big money makers are theme companies, or people selling frameworks like Genesis and Thesis.
The barriers to entry for the pure themes market are now very low. Anybody with some graphic design skills and a buddy who's halfway decent at PHP can build one. That can mean only one thing: commoditization is approaching.
If you want to make real money now, stop trying to leap onto a bandwagon that's already slowing down, and look at solving a specific business problem with your skills.
For example, photography. Check out:
ProPhoto Blogs - Buy $199 for a wordpress theme
and
WordPress Photography Themes by Photocrati the "cheap" version at $89
Both offer a total solution to the need photographers have for a website. Compare that to photography wordpress themes which are selling for $30 on Themeforest.
I've been looking for a few hours (building a website for my dad for Xmas), and I can't find any others that do the same thing. You think there's room for another two or three in that market? You betcha.
And once that market's full.... look at who else uses wordpress a lot. Build something that's specific to their needs. I have a few more ideas, but I'm not gonna share 'em because I'm planning to do something with them myself.
As with many industries you have a very small % making a fortune and the vast majority making nothing or just a small side income. The fact that maybe one guy made $50k/month is not an indication that there is easy money to be made. It always amuses me that people will see someone doing very well, and automatically assume that their business could be easily replicated.
