

Ask HN: Any one making a living selling WP themes? - ericthegoodking


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dangrossman
Yes, there are people making a living selling WP themes. I sold over $200k in
licenses to a plugin/theme combo in 18 months a few years back before selling
rights to the product on Flippa. That paid off the last of my student loans, a
new car, and was the downpayment on a house.

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EnderMB
Didn't you used to post on the SitePoint forums a few years ago? I remember
someone showing off a review plugin for WordPress on there. Was that you by
any chance?

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dangrossman
That was probably me. I haven't been around in a few years, but I'm still the
6th most prolific poster on that forum.

[http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/memberlist.php?order=desc&so...](http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/memberlist.php?order=desc&sort=posts&pp=30)

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LDN
There sure are people making enough money to live of selling themes and
templates. I myself created a couple of WP themes almost two years ago and can
still live from the revenue. I am however enrolled in university so my costs
are significantly lower than they would be as a regular freelancer. The costs
of living are always relative as to where you are in your life, your lifestyle
and of course where you live. Someone living in a country where the dollar is
much stronger than the local currency has a big advantage. What is also often
forgotten about are taxes and insurance. You always have to have a little
something saved up if a problem should arise.

If you have a solid code base, a few creative ideas and good graphic skills
you can still make quite a bit of money. Of course it is always important to
find a niche in the market that is not as over-saturated as others. But that
basically applies to any other business.

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clintonc
Do you sell your themes from your own site?

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LDN
No, I am selling through a very well known marketplace which will get a cut
for each sale. In my opinion it is much easier to start with due to the high
reach of potential customers you will get. As soon as you built a customer
base you could probably consider selling the themes on your own site.

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notastartup
what marketplace did you choose if you don't mind me asking... I tried
themeforest and had no luck. I just don't know what these cats want.

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LDN
Well, it's Themeforest. I agree that their rejection reasons often seem
generic and somewhat random but with the amount of submissions they receive it
is understandable. As I said, if the quality is right and you somehow stand
out from the crowd chances are pretty high it'll get accepted.

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thedawn
There are some people that make a nice living from selling themes, but it's
not easy money that for sure. It's a jungle out there.. I have found this
article: [http://www.premiumwp.com/the-1-million-dollar-themeforest-
pr...](http://www.premiumwp.com/the-1-million-dollar-themeforest-premium-
wordpress-theme-developer/)

