The following article analyzes the ThemeForest marketplace using data from the Envato API. It’s final conclusion is that selling themes on ThemeForest produces very low profits for the majority of authors, while only a few selected themes actually manage to make a nice income. As an author, this article makes me think whether selling on ThemeForest is even worth the effort.
What do you guys think?
I guess the important points are…
A) The average theme makes $12,000 a year… don’t make an average theme.
B) Who is going to make a theme that makes $12,000 a year, give up their job, and just sit around doing nothing for the next year? Other than the support requirements that go with it, obviously. If you’re making $12,000 a year and that’s not enough for you, then you can 1) Get a job, do support in your spare time, and get an extra $12,000 a year on top of your salary, or… 2) Make another theme!
C) I hear that an average theme usually takes three months to create. I could be wrong, I’m no theme wizard. So although you may get $12,000 in a year, it could be said that you’ve also got $12,000 for three months of work… or $24,000 in the second year, $36,000 in the third. Although you might not be buying your own tropical island on that, $36,000 for three months of work isn’t too shabby.
Yes, that makes sense. Most authors have more than a single theme.
Also, I think that the calculations in the article are a bit off, since they multiply the number of sales by the price of the item, and divide that by the number of months. However, that formula doesn’t take into account the recent growth in the market. So the actual revenue is higher than the average revenue over the entire life of the theme.
Absolutely!
Awesome article!