Ok so I have always kinda liked the idea of selling templates through a site like themeforest (or mojo) or any number of a myriad of other companies. However, I am really struggling with it as a viable income source and would love to hear from some of you that regularly sell your products here.
To do a quick test I looked up a one of the categories and ordered it by “sales”. Then went to page 5. (which, of the 360 items in the category reflects the top 30% of products. Perhaps optimistic but still reasonable.
I then started looking at the profit the vendors might be making from each item.
Example #1:
102 Sales. Price $20:
Assuming the lowest commission rate the person who created that template has earned $1020. It was uploaded over a year ago. Assuming the highest commission (unlikely), $1428.
Example #2:
Taken from page 7. The median sales of the category:
51 Sales, Price $12:
Also uploaded a year ago. Minimum commission: $306. Maximum commission: $428.
Example #3
The top sales item of the category.
5218 sales, $35
uploaded a year ago. Max commission: $127,000
After looking at these numbers it pretty much took the wind out of my sails. How is it viable to make a living off selling themes? All of the above examples were EXTREMELY well done websites with multiple pages and in all cases, 7 or 8 different variations on the same theme. They also include dynamic elements and advanced javascript. They reflect a LOT of work from the seller.
While, it seems if you get lucky and make it to the top of the list you make a killing, otherwise, you can’t even afford to put food on the table.
If I was to create the same site, design, and functionality for one of my clients I would be charging in the range of $5000-$7000.
I can’t imagine being able to make a living off of the above media sales. I could spend upwards of a month carefully putting a site together from scratch to meet the quality requirements of theme forest and if I am lucky and reach the “average” sales my theme will make me less than $500 over the next year. Assuming 30-40 Man-hours to create the site I would be neting 12-16/hour on a delayed income, after subtracting cost of doing business (equipment, software, power, internet, etc) I wouldn’t even be earning enough to pay the rent on a bachelor apartment let alone making enough eat or do anything else. Sure I could get lucky and be one of the top 5% but that isn’t likely, especially since even the themes in the bottom 20% are of a quality that they are easily comparable to the top ones.
Thus my question is, am I missing something? How can sellers here afford to build enterprise quality sites when the odds are they will be taking home significantly less than minimum wage (in the US). I really hope I am missing something and that there is much more viability than I realize
thx!