WordPress Designer Business Models
- Filed under: WordPress
It’s a shame theme designers don’t have too many options in the WordPress world. Luckily, there is more than one business model. However, only one of them seems to be worthwhile and profitable, for now. Below are the models that I’m aware of.
Freelancing for Small Business Owners
Small business owners are trying to take their presence online and / or trying to establish a relationship with the clients. Targeting small business is the most profitable option for freelance WordPress designers. Small business owners are more willing to pay you what you deserve, usually upwards of $1,000.
If you’re not working for small business owners, you’re probably making anywhere from $200 to $800 per project. Regardless of how much clients would pay, generally, they’re annoying. (Web developers and customer service is a bad mix.) Why not get paid more for the same amount of annoyance?
Unless you’re under contract for big projects after big projects, targeting small businesses is the way to go. You can look to solostream.com for an example of a WordPress designer catering the small business niche.
Stock Theme Design / Pay Per Download
Basically, you create a theme and sell it multiple times, like $49.95 per download. This option is a bit risky because you have to sell a lot to profit and it’s kind of NOT worthwhile if you don’t get the full $49.95 back or can’t find great designers to outsource at a very low rate. Not to mention, you have to pay online transaction fees for the theme purchases and worry about restricting usage to only one theme per domain.
The good part is that once you’re done, you’re done; you can sell the same theme over and over again. On the other hand, let’s say every theme is worth a $1,000. You’d have to sell more than twenty copies per theme. Twenty seems like a low number, but not many people are willing to buy WordPress themes at $49.95 (stock themes range anywhere from $15 to $60). You’re lucky if you can sell ten copies, regardless of the quality.
Free Theme Sponsorship
You create a free WordPress theme. Look for sponsors to pay you to put text links (to the sponsors’ sites) in the footer of your theme. And then, you hope a lot of people download and use your theme.
This is the last option that I would wish any theme designer to resort to. Actually, I wouldn’t want anyone to follow this business model at all. You’re basically selling yourself short. It’s not even worthwhile as extra-income. Here’s Matt Coddington’s detailed break down of this business model.
If you’ve found another way to make money with WordPress themes or have an idea on how WordPress designers could make more money, be sure to let me know so I can add it to this list.
Do donations count? It’s not exactly guaranteed money, but neither are the above, either.
I’m much more inclined to donate money for something valuable, as long as I’m given the choice to do so (if I’m forced to pay for something, I’ll likely weigh if I really want it vs. parting with my cash).
Donations don’t count unless it’s “forced donations” ;-).
I think you have it about right SP. Small businesses pay the most, yes. Most of your individuals want something around $200 … and only very rarely are they willing to pay $800 (generally, they anticipate a boost in readership after the redesign … and more readers means more money).
I would add to this list sub-contracting. I’ve had pretty good success working for marketing companies or design companies. They sub-contract the work to me for less than they charge the client. Even at that, you can expect around $500-$1000 per job (simple jobs) which is more than enough to support a freelancer, especially since these kinds of jobs come in batches or are long term deals. Everyone wins.
I wouldn’t say that free theme sponsorship is a bad business model. Let’s say someone offers you $200 to sponsor or buy one of your free themes. If you spend 4 hours making the theme, that’s $50/hour. No, it’s not as much as I normally charge for custom themes, but if business slows down, it can be a good way to keep your head above water (assuming you freelance full time).
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that you have to have quality themes to attract a reputable sponsor (as opposed to a viagra distributer) like a web host. It may very well not be worth the time involved to build a reputation. It all depends on your skill level. Consider SP for a minute. All his themes are good quality, well designed, etc. and I would guess that he could have his choice of any number of sponsors. On the other hand, if you release crap, you may have a viagra pusher knocking on your door wanting to pay you $30 for a single link.
My point is, there is not cut and dry answer to the theme sponsorship question.
Great post. The problem is that there is a lack of quality wordpress coders and designers. Yes there are dozens of basic coders and designers.
Yet it’s really hard to find a unique design or someone who can code some complex wordpress templates.
So if you are someone who truly understands wordpress coding, understands the definition of a deadline and is used to working with a non-disclosure agreement. Then please post your link and portfolio here. I am looking for such a freelancer.
AR,
I know how you feel, and I can tell you that we are out there. I admit it’s hard to weed through the trash, but if you can do it, it will be worth it.
FYI, if you’re serious about hiring a freelancer, send me an email. I’ll get you some links to some of my work and we may be able to work something out. ncrice [at] gmail [dot] com
Nathan
PS - I’ve worked with NDAs before and I don’t have a problem with it.
Email sent Nathan
AR and Nathan - That’s great. (I wanted to integrate a job board for Wpdesigner.) Good to see you two are already taking care of it in the comments.
There are more ways to earn money with Wordpress themes. You can release themes for free without sponsors link in footer. You can place”theme name(link to theme release page) by author(main site url).
After that, when theme gets used and your pages get some traffic and pr, you can start accepting donations from people who want to support your work and link to donators who donate 50$ or more.
At the end, you will get payed minimum 250$ for each theme you released, will be making money from sold links in your blogroll(like you do on this site), maybe adsense(because of increasing traffic).
Best of all, people who like theme when they see some site using it will be only one click from downloading it and you will not force them to keep sponsors links in footer.
Also it is much more fair since your minimum donation price will depend on your theme popularity/quality.
Alternatively, you can release themes behind web directory and sell listings as an extra income.
[…] the previous post about business models for WordPress theme designers, I mentioned a little about designing stock themes. Here’s how I think stock themes should be […]
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