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Can you make money selling WordPress themes?
Yes, you can! You definitely can make money selling WordPress themes. In fact, you can sell a whole list of WordPress related products and services. Themes are just one of them. How can you make money selling WordPress themes?
Well, through affiliate commissions and programs. Not only do many developers offer their themes for sale, but they encourage other WordPress enthusiasts to help sell them. They do this by offering very generous affiliate commissions.
In addition to developers selling their own themes through affiliate programs, you also have big WordPress theme and plugin marketplaces like Envato and Themeforest that also offer affiliate commissions as well.
But wait, there’s more!
You can even hire a WordPress developer to create a custom theme for you, with you holding the copyright for that theme.
Then in turn, you can offer to sell that very same custom WordPress theme and create an affiliate program and encourage others to sell it for you as well.
Let’s explore the world of making money selling WordPress themes as well as other ancillary products and services that you can add along with selling WordPress themes.
Are paid WordPress themes worth it?
This all depends on the theme of course. Many WordPress themes come with both free versions as well as paid or pro versions, similar to plugins. Other WordPress themes allow you to try them out for 30 or even 60 days first.
My advice would be to always go with the free version first, of course. Test it out for yourself.
You may find that even the free version or especially the free trial version, may not be what you are looking for.
Perhaps the theme itself is a little too wonky and performing simple things like changing a header or organizing your categories can turn into multi-day tasks. It’s happened to me.
So always take out a WordPress theme for a spin before you commit to buying.
However, if you find that the free version of the theme is just what you’re looking for you’d be surprised with how many extra features that same theme’s paid version will give you.
Personally, I tried out one theme with a 30-day money back guarantee and was not satisfied.
For me it was not worth the hundred or so dollars to buy the theme. So I asked for my money back and got it.
On other hand, I tried out a free version of a theme that I liked. I was able to keep that free version for as long as I wanted without having to upgrade to a paid version of that same theme.
However, I thought, “I wonder how much more I can get out of this theme if I went to the paid version?”
I checked around the internet for reviews and they were all positive, glowing in fact.
Therefore, I decided to give it a whirl. At the time the theme was about $50 and the amount of features that $50 provided was more than worth it.
Not only did I have a selection of various child themes I could use, but I could use them on multiple websites. In fact, I believe the theme allows me to use it on up to 100 websites.
In addition, I now have free updates whenever they come out automatically. I have access to their support form in which the developer himself is quite active in as well as being quite active in the discussions.
Not only that, but their support staff is very knowledgeable and provides very timely solutions. I do have to pay a yearly renewal, but the yearly renewal is about a third of what I paid for the theme. And that yearly renewal is definitely worth the price. So yes, pay themes can be well worth it.
Can you resell WordPress themes other developers make?
Absolutely! In fact, many developers offer commissions and set up affiliate programs for you to do just that. You can also pay a developer to create a unique theme for yourself.
You can of course, get them to sign away all the rights to that theme so that you own that theme free and clear and then you can do what you want with it.
They create the theme, you buy it from them, secure the rights, and then you, yourself can offer it on your website or through a theme marketplace like the Themeforest store, Envato as well as a few others.
You should know, however, that developing a theme from scratch from a WordPress developer can run you quite a bit of money.
Especially when you want them to sign over the rights for that theme.
Many developers have a few themes that they’ve built from scratch, then they customize these themes for their clients based on their clients needs.
Getting a developer to create and code a WordPress theme totally from scratch will be more time intensive and therefore more expensive.
So you should be prepared for that. But either way, you can of course sell WordPress themes that other people make. You just have to do it the right way.
Can I earn money from WordPress besides selling themes?
Not only can you make money selling WordPress themes, but if you truly want to be a well-rounded WordPress professional and offer your services to the wider world, you can also become a WordPress hosting reseller.
As a WordPress Hosting Reseller you buy blocks of server space from various hosting providers and sell them through your own hosting company.
You can also offer to manage your clients WordPress websites.
Not only can you sell them a theme where you receive a commission you can also sell them the hosting plan for that website as well as managing it ensuring that it runs properly, is secured eccentra.
You can offer your consulting services on how they can improve their presence on the web etc.
In addition, you can also offer your SEO services If you know anything about search engine optimization.
But wait, there’s more! If your clients want to promote their business, their products etc., but want the results to come much faster than natural organic SEO growth.
Offer to handle their online marketing campaigns, design their Facebook ads. You can create Google ad campaigns as well as set up their Facebook and Instagram ad accounts.
You could also help them with setting up and managing their social media presence as well.
As you can see, none of these require you to know coding, although it would help.
Many of these services you can actually subcontract. You’d be surprised to know that many WordPress professionals have many parts of their services actually subcontracted out.
You, as a WordPress professional, can simply be liaison between your clients and the technical aspects of their WordPress site and online presence.
Why pay for a theme when there are free themes on WordPress?
Well, I’ve discussed many of the reasons above why paid themes can be well worth the cost.
But the bottom line is, you can only do so much with a free theme.
Free themes are great, if you’re interested in just blogging and you want to test out a website concept or just want to get content out there on the web etc. Then go with a free theme, especially if you’re new to WordPress.
Free themes are a great way to learn WordPress, the platform, the functionalities and everything else that you need to do in order to run a WordPress website.
What better way to do that than with a free theme? But eventually you’ll want to take the training wheels off.
You’ll want to customize the theme even more and make those tasks, as well as the expanded features, a lot easier to do.
You’ll also want access to regular updates of the theme by the developer and especially access to their support forms. Because eventually, issues will come up.
Most of them are not major, but you will need a little help every now and then. Besides participating in a theme’s support form is a great way to improve your overall WordPress skills level.
I personally have learned so much from just reading through the forum and all the topics about the theme as well as what developers and WordPress webmasters are doing with the same theme I bought.
Buying a paid theme is well worth the price of admission and something that a free WordPress theme will never give you.
What are the most popular WordPress themes?
Here are the most popular WordPress themes on the market today.
Of course there are many more WordPress themes available that you can sell and make money from. But these are the most popular ones.
If you would like more, you can simply Google “WordPress theme affiliate program” in the search bar.
However, the best place to start would be with the theme you’re currently using. Are you happy with it?
If so, inquire to the themes developer if they have an affiliate program you can join.
- Themeforest themes/Envato Marketplace
- StudioPress Themes
- Elegant Themes
- Themeisle
- SuperbThemes
- GeneratePress
- Astra
- OceanWP
What are the commissions for selling WordPress themes?
Below are the most popular WordPress themes around today that offer affiliate programs for their themes.
I will go over what kind of commissions they offer and any other pertinent information.
However, you’re better off just checking them out for yourselves and reading over their terms, then applying.
Themeforest Themes/Envato Marketplace:
Themeforest themes are part of the Envato Marketplace.
For each new customer you refer to Envato Studio, you will earn 30% commission on their first purchase.
StudioPress Themes:
StudioPress is now part of WPEngine. Their affiliate commissions are $200 or 100% of first month payment for WP Engine & Genesis Pro sales and 35% of StudioPress Theme sales.
Elegant Themes:
All affiliates receive 50% of each sale. They also pay out commissions on yearly renewals. This means that you will continue making money each year as customers pay their yearly renewal fees to continue using their themes.
Themeisle:
Affiliates receive a 55% commission rate. 365 day wide return cookie. All standard creatives available (banners, email templates, text links) – optimized to convert. Affiliate management team available. Get paid each month when you reach $100 + performance incentives.
SuperbThemes:
Earn up to 60% commission for every referral, and get yearly recurring commissions.
GeneratePress:
Earn up to 30% commission on every sale you refer.
Astra:
Enjoy 30% commission on all sales.
OceanWP:
Receive 30% per sale.
As you can see the commission rates for these affiliate programs are bad at all. In fact, they’re pretty darn good!
In fact, they’re pretty good for affiliate program commissions overall. Especially when you compare them to more consumer related products and affiliate programs like Amazon, which offers very low single digit commission rates.
So if you’re going to go into affiliate marketing, WordPress themes isn’t a bad way to go.
Can I make money making WordPress websites?
Yes, you can make money making WordPress websites.
But first, you need to decide which approach you want to take if you’re going to go into the WordPress website making business.
If you’re a developer and you know PHP along with JavaScript and of course HTML and CSS, then you could probably create your own WordPress theme from scratch.
You can then sell it either through various marketplaces or on your own. You can even offer an affiliate program to WordPress enthusiasts and bloggers to help promote your theme.
You can also create variations of the theme and come out with child themes or new themes themselves.
However, if you are not a WordPress developer and you do not know PHP, JavaScript, but maybe you know a little HTML and CSS, this may be enough for you to get into the WordPress website making business yourself. How?
Well, you don’t have to write and create the WordPress theme from scratch, writing all the code etcetera yourself.
You can simply hire that out. You can hire a developer to develop a custom theme just for you.
This might not be cheap and you will need to get them to sign the rights of that theme over to you so that you own it free and clear and everything’s legal and above board.
But once you do, you can basically sell the theme as if you coded it yourself. In addition, if anything goes wrong with the theme, you can also work out an agreement with the developer as well.
If you do not want to go through the hassle and expense of hiring a developer to create a unique WordPress theme from scratch, then you could simply become an affiliate for your favorite WordPress theme or for multiple themes in fact.
As you can see from above, theme affiliate commissions can be excellent.
Make money selling WordPress themes, summary.
As you can see there’s a lot of opportunity for you to make money selling WordPress themes.
You can simply become an affiliate for the many theme affiliate programs that theme developers and the marketplaces offer.
You can hire a developer to actually create a WordPress theme from scratch and then have them sign over the rights to that theme to you so you can sell it as your own.
You can also team up with independent WordPress developers and try to create your own affiliate deal with them to sell their themes yourself for an agreed upon commission rate.
In addition, not only can you make money selling WordPress themes, but you can become a WordPress professional yourself and add more revenue streams to your business like offering WordPress hosting as a reseller.
Offer to set up WordPress websites for various local businesses in your area. Where you can not only sell them a theme, but you can set up their WordPress website, host it, manage it as well as promote it through SEO, ad campaigns or even social media.
You see, there are many ways that you can not only make money selling WordPress themes, but offering other WordPress related products and services as well.
