Custom designed WordPress themes can make you a pretty penny – if you can find the right place to sell them. Competition is fierce, but that doesn’t mean lovely, useful themes can’t make their mark. Locating the right venue to sell your themes isn’t hard either. Just consider where your target audience is likely to go when they’re ready to buy one.

Marketplaces

There are a number of marketplaces to consider when you’re ready to start selling themes. Compare the split of the money they’re offering you, what they require for non-exclusivity, and how many customers they have. Since most sites let you sell without granting them exclusive rights, consider posting on a few sites to get a wider audience.

No matter which site or sites you choose, make sure to read the contributor terms before submitting your themes for review.

ThemeForest

themeforest

ThemeForest has more than 35,000 WordPress themes for sale and prices start as low as $2. The site takes 50 percent of the sale price, which you can reduce later when you’ve sold more. Since the owners of the site review all submissions, you can rest assured that your themes will measure up to the ones already being sold. You still own your themes – the site isn’t buying them and reselling them. The site isn’t exclusive, so you can sell your themes on other marketplaces even after they’re approved for ThemeForest – assuming you don’t choose to enter an exclusive contract with Envato, which powers ThemeForest.

Mojo Themes

Mojo Themes has less items for sale, but they also offer support and help setting up a site for certain themes, which can be attractive to buyers. You split the profit with the site 50/50 at first, but later you can keep 70 percent of your sales – once you’ve hit a certain threshold. There are more than 2000 items already being sold on the site.

ThemeSnap

ThemeSnap, unlike other platforms, starts you at 55 percent of your earnings. You can later keep 75 percent of your sales. They’re also non-exclusive, which means there’s no penalty for selling your work through ThemeSnap and also at other vendors. There’s a lot of wiggle room if you want to run promotions, because you can create subscriptions to your themes, name your own price, and offer discounts as desired. They boast having more than 10,000 customers.

Creative Market

creativemarket

Creative Market offers a high initial commission, letting you keep 70 percent of your earnings from the beginning. They don’t require you wait for approval – designs will be listed for sale right away. In addition, you set your down prices, don’t have to promise exclusivity, and promise to instantly deliver your product to its purchaser. Creative Market says they have more than 2 million members.

Selling Your Work

Getting the attention of the right people may help you sell your themes more widely. According to Invoice Home, “How you introduce yourself to customers is critical.” This is never truer than when you’re selling themes. After all, if you can’t get someone’s attention, how can they trust that your WordPress theme will captivate their audience?

Choose your best screenshots for introducing your themes to customers. For inspiration, check out the top selling WordPress themes on ThemeForest. You can see what they’re advertising and how they’re doing it, then start figuring out how to adapt that to your own work. It’s important to include the selling points of your work, like whether it’s widget-ready and high resolution.

You may also notice that some themes with high sales use moving advertisements that show off their own sites. Letting a customer see what they can do with your theme is good business. It may get them to start getting ideas for their own site and encourage them to start the process by purchasing the theme.

Pricing Your Themes

Once you’ve selected a marketplace, you need to decide how to price your work. Many sites let you set the price, which leaves you with a question – will you go low or high? A low price might drive reluctant customers to make a purchase, but it could also devalue your work. The average price for a WordPress theme is almost $60. This also happens to be a popular price for themes.

If you’re worried about getting attention with a price that seems too high, consider running discounts or offering a variety of themes at different price points. You can track your sales and determine whether the higher-priced themes are financially viable. After all, you only have to sell one theme at $60 to get the same amount of money as selling 30 themes at $2. That’s needing one customer’s attention and admiration versus the same from 30 people.

The first step to selling your WordPress themes online is to find a good marketplace. Many marketplaces that sell WordPress themes have thousands – or millions – of customers and can help you start to gain visibility. Start listing your themes today to watch the money roll in.