How Much Should A Website Template Cost?
2009 June 15
Pricing a product has always been a tough one for me or at least for almost anyone. Whenever I finish a website template, I always spend a lot of time thinking how much should it cost. I would then start to look around and see how much is the going price for a website template. After minutes of stalking, I would start to ask these questions:
- How come templates over at TemplateMonster regularly costs $40-70? And up to $2000 for a unique template.
- How come templates over at ThemeForest costs from $10-$15?
- What are the factors involved when pricing a website template?
- Which is better? Selling unique templates or reselling regular ones?
- What are the different business models that we can apply for distributing our templates?
- Does anyone know of any site that has a good business model?
The reason that I’m asking is that I have plans of selling website templates in the near future and I want to give myself and potential buyers a fair and reasonable price. Hoping that this will be a good discussion and maybe an expert would write a more comprehensive post than this one.
So, how much should a website template really costs and why?
6 Responses
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Good questions and ones I’m asking myself as well, since I have similar plans selling templates or rather WordPress themes. I’m not sure there is a single answer to what price to set. The best thing to do if possible is to test various price points and see which leads to the most revenue. You’ll likely sell less at a higher price, but you may still make more money, because of the increased price.
As far as it being fair to buyers your market will tell you by how much they do buy. Some people will never pay anything and for them $1 would seem unfair. On the other hand if you consider what a custime theme or template would cost then someone getting one for $100 or even $200 is a pretty good value.
The more you want to charge the more you need to put into the template. Most people would expect a $100 template to offer more than a $10 template. The more you put into it the more you’ll be able to charge while still delivering a good value.
How long it takes you to develop a template, how much you’d like to earn from it, and how many you discover at different price points will lead to ideas on how much to charge.
Some of pricing just comes down to convincing people what you’re selling is worth the price. There are expensive templates out there that are poorly coded and designed, but they still sell.
When it comes to selling a template many times over or offering the unique price, I think it’s better not to deal with the unique price. If someone wants a unique template they should just contact you for a custom one. How unique is a unique template if 25 people bought the theme before you were willing to pay the unique price. Better I think to offer the template to as many who want it and then offer customization services for those who are looking for something more uniqe.
I think there are a variety of business models that can work. You mention two sites and you can add all the premium theme designers/developers to the mix. You might also go after a business model based more on support and customization.
Like I said there’s no one answer here. What I would suggest and what I’ll likely do myself is see what the market is currently paying and then price similarly. Then test some different price points and compare which seems to be working best for you. If you’re selling a lot at a given price trying raising it. If you’re not selling any lower your price.
Hi Steven,
Thank you so much for taking the time to provide your in-depth thoughts and answers to my questions.
If I’m building a template, I’m either going to auction it as a unique template or resell it. But I would always go auction it as a unique template and never sell it again. It’s really either of the two. I do love your suggestion on offering customization services for a template.
Checking out what the market is currently paying is really the fastest and best way to come up with a pricing decision.
I’m finishing up a new template and after reading your comment I’m thinking twice whether to sell it as a unique or try reselling it again over here. hahaha.
Thank you for the ideas you’ve shared Steven
Glad to share some thoughts.
The auction idea is interesting, though I would think most people would then ask for customization. If the price is going to be similar for an existing template or having someone custom design a site to their specifications, I think people would sooner choose to have something customized for them.
I’ve always thought of templates as something to sell for less, but sell them many times. If only one or two people buy it you make less than you might have selling it unique, but once you get past 20-25 sales you can make more. The business model scales better selling the templates over and over.
I’ll be interested to see what you end up doing and how it works.
One time a buyer asked me to customize a template that I just sold because someone already bought the template. I made him a customized template for the same price as the winning bid.
You’re right Steven. You can sell a template for less and resell it over and over. I just got started with auctioning the template.
For now I’m going to auction my latest template because I have to pay out some stuff. hehehe. But my goal is to keep in improving my skills and hopefully before the end of this year set up a template shop where I can resell templates.
I’ve had some free time so I decided to design a few templates and have been pondering about the pricing.!
Steven has given some good points which will help me decide but wondered how the auctioning option has been working for you Raymond.
Thanks!
Hi Avril,
I auctioned my template but it only collected dust! hahaha. I managed to sell pretty well when I first started out but somehow it’s not clicking over at SitePoint.
Usually it’s a lot of trial and error when setting a price for your template. A more common approach is to research what the market is already paying and set a low price to be more competitive, or go the other way. But I bet you won’t have any long issues when setting your prices. You can also try selling your templates over at WooThemes or some other similar market.