There's so much money to be made on themeforest

Just looking over the themeforest site, there are people making pretty good money by just creating templates.
I see the most popular is the wordpress category. Many are selling hundreds of their own custom templates for about $35 but it ads up.

200x$35= $7,000 (you get half of it unless you make over $75k I think).

Either way, putting a couple templates up could make quite a bit of money. One really popular one has sold over 700 (~25k) in like 2 or 3 weeks.

And to be honest, many of them aren’t even that great (visually).I just need to learn how to convert html/css/jquery in wordpress. I’ve bought a bunch of videos/books so I can get on it. Personally, I like my designs and I think I can do well within a year or so and so that’s what I spend most of my time on now.

Any of you guys make templates (wordpress or any other)?
Our in-house designer has a few up on there.. IIRC, they’re just some average ones he threw together real quick.

But they pay his car payment each month, so that’s pretty bauce.
Haha, nice!

It’s nice because you just put it up and let the money roll in slowly. I understand not all of them can make hundreds of sales but putting a few up (about 5-7) can bring in decent cash.
Looking at some of the profiles, people are ranging from 10,000 - 50,000$ in sales and some even 250k to a million. I get these probably take a lot of time to run and have to deal with problems/edits/questions etc. but still awesome.
Sounds interesting, does anyone else have any experience in this?
Envato Notes will feature artists and whatnot when they do well. There’s one guy that made a few thousand in his first month with just a single design. I don’t remember the name, but it was a very impressive design, particularly because of the customization features it offered in wp-admin.
Never knew of this site, it does look a good opportunity.
excuse me for a possibly stupid question… never used themeforest before

what is the point of buying themes for 30 to 40 bucks each when you could get a subscription to a site like templatesold and have access to hundreds of themes for the same price?

granted on templatesold you will run into some themes with a broken backend or incomplete files here and there, but with so many to choose from (and since we’ve been customizing them beyond recognition) it isn’t too bad
glad this was posted. might look into designing at least some .psd templates and posting for sale.

Not sure but it’s working .

I looked into the .psd one. You won’t make too much of just a single .psd file.

The most one has sold was 264 @ $10 = $2640… but this was posted in 2008.

The best theme one there right now is "Classica" and it’s been on for about a month and has insane sales… so yeah, he made like about $27,000 (13k is his share) from that one template in one month. It’s actually a really nice and super clean theme. Then again, this guy is known and has his own blog/website so he generates a lot of sales from that.
For those that do WordPress customization/coding, how long do you think it would take to convert a website template into WordPress?

I’m currently working on 4 templates which I’m currently coding (html/css and a bit of jquery).

an hour i think. all you need to do is drop functions in the the theme, and you’re done.
damn you puppetmaster! Although I have no skills to design any themes I am really tempted to get in on this…even hiring a designer to make me some that I can then sell lol.

But worse, after only checking the site out for a few minutes I already see a few themes I want to buy! I came in this thread to make money not spend it…lol

edit: this guy is banking…many themse with 400+ sales. Some badass stuff though:
edit2: ok, buying at least one theme for a side project. Puppetmaster, post/pm me your affiliate referral link and I’ll signup/buy through it to get you a few bucks lol.

Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard.

For me, I’m still trying to learn how you have to convert a regular html/css to php and to make the wordpress panels custom etc.
Bought a few books/dvds so I should get it down within a few weeks

LOTS of users are banking.
You still have to (well… should) support your themes if people have questions/problems but it’s sweet that you post and let the money just roll in slowly over time.

I’ll send you a pm once I make a new account (I have an old one on graphicriver but I never used it).
I’ve been working on a Magento theme for a long time now. I think I might put it on Theme Forest when I’m done with it. It’s gonna be so fucking bauce, easily one of the best designs on the Internet if I do say so myself.

Nice.

I have an idea for a modern furniture store theme for magento but I know nothing about it.
Another idea for those designers of you (or anyone else with a great idea)…

make 200 or so decent icons. Make stupid money from people who could have gotten the same type of thing for free online:

Lots of potential for other ideas on kickstarter.

rofl that asshole (good icons i use) has done that finding like twice for those icons

no gym from home?

40k profit for something you can find free online. Pay a designer $500 to come up with an awesome set…buy a couple cars with the profit.
I think the tough part is supporting the themes. it could turn into a lot of work answering questions for people. If you don’t help them, people will notice and will be less inclined to purchase the template.

If you’re making 20k/mo off of it while also giving support for the themes… I wouldn’t bitch.

Or I’d hire someone for $2k/mo just to offer basic support, while you design more and increase your revenue.
shit

i’d hire a bunch of indians at $2/hr to crank out themes

Thanks for the link, bro.

Looks like an awesome idea since I am currently making icons .
Was going to sell em on graphicriver… but this looks better.

edit - what is the rate for this? How much % do I get?
^ shit only 5%.

Time to finish my icons.

5% fee if it gets funded and then another, up to, 5% from amazon payments fee. So factor in 10% cost when figuring out how many thousands of dollars the icons cost you to make lol.

Still not bad. I was expecting like 50% .
I love the idea… especially for product designers. Awesome way to get your product funded.

I will have my icons up there within a week
money is nice, but learn your shit before you do it, too many themes out there now, free and pay for that have shitty coding and shit broken or don’t work properly, don’t be one of those people that is more worried about money than a good product, spent too much time fixing themes I have bought in the past that were thrown together really fast to get it up for sale

Trust me… I’m not that kind of person. I’ve known about the place for months and I’m not someone who puts out shitty work (imo).
That’s why it’s taking me so damn long… I want it done right the first time and want to keep a good reputation. Personally, I want to learn how to do it anyway. It’s not like I’m expecting to make as much money as some of them.
I should learn too, would be be faster for me instead of dealing with shitty code
I can code. I know a shit-ton about web interface design in terms of techniques, different elements, patterns, color theory, etcetera. I know my way around photoshop really well. But I fucking suck at actually creating designs. I wish I was creative, but it’s just not me, and I don’t think there’s an effective way to shoehorn creativity into someone.
I look forward to downloading your themes from thevault
I always forget about that place. It’s such a terrible torrent site, but it has some good stuff.
Theme’s (or anything for that matter) always make it to warez/torrents. I personally wouldn’t care.
I need to get my icons up on kickstarter asap.

You fuckers better pledge some cash.
Someone should start a fund for a kickstarter clone on kickstarter.

… yeah so maybe OT can finally update it’s look

I’m going for about 1000 icons (that’s like 500 + rollovers).

Going to have all these in vector + photoshop "styled" + the same ones 3d rendered
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Kickstarter doesn’t allow non-US users.
Is there anyway around this?

edit -

Nope, no way around this.
If someone wants to team up, let me know. I’ll give you 5% of sales (which can be peanuts or quite a bit).

I’d want someone reputable (maybe a Mod?).
Any mods willing to do this with me?

Btw, who are the mods of this subforum? I might just see if Pepsi is up to it.

If he isn’t, anyone else up for it (5%)? Let me know. I would need this set up within a week or so.
this subforum doesn’t have a mod dedicated to it, unless things have changed. Pepsi is in here the most. Seems like a trustworthy guy.

Sent him an PM.
I will update this if Pepsi doesn’t want to do it.

can’t you just find a US proxy or not worth the risk?

good luck on your new venture

guessing he’s gonna need a US address, etc also

Thanks!
I’m just going to try this little project. Can’t hurt since I already had been making icons so I might as well just throw them on the site.

Not expecting to make as much as that but then again, my icons will be bauce

Browning, you up for it if Pepsi isn’t?
You would need to sign a contract, fyi.

Exactly. Need US Amazon payment account/address. The money goes straight into the account holders bank account.

there are people here far better for this than I.

Alright, that’s cool.

im guessing you can’t open one of those with a rented PO box huh

Most likely no.

I don’t mind paying an OTer for their help and it’s easier that way.
make some adult oriented icons man. like a penis icon, boobs icon, etc

srsly…would possibly sell for real.
Still trying to find someone (US based) to do this for me.

Pepsi said he’d get back to me in a few days. Anyone else willing to do this? Could possibly get $1,500+ (as an example of the other guys @ 5%) just for making an account and helping me out.
You’re forgetting taxes and liability and all that crap we have to deal with.

It transfers to your bank account and then you send it back to paypal and then to me. Doesn’t seem to difficult.

I, however, need to pay the taxes on my side which I’m fine with.
damn it…browsing through this themeforest site (and all the other sister sites) is giving me tons of ideas for either sites or possible clients. I don’t have the energy to follow through with any of that so it’s annoying me lol.

I can see some easy potential to do "web design" with local small businesses, charge them a couple grand and then buy a $35 theme and add the content and be done with it.

I cant even be bothered adding content to my own sites lately lol.

I get what your saying, bud.

I know a friend which does just that; he buys templates for cheap and edits them for companies and charges them a few grand.
Personally, I don’t like doing that as I actually like to design.

I just wish this kickstarter thing was in Canada already. I think I could make bank off my icons.

Someone said a while back that Envato is owned by a fellow otter.

I browse all of the Smashing Network sites. I skip the majority of it because it targets a noobie audience, but sometimes one of the big wigs will put up something insightful.