I was not in the mood to do actual work today so instead I let my curiosity get the better of me and I decided to calculate how much Zeroqode has earned/is earning from all their templates and plugins.
One of the measures of success of a company is whether or not it can create a successful ecosystem around it. Zeroqode, which has been around since mid 2016 is one of the most recognized names within the Bubble ecosystem, which is why I decided to calculate their data instead of that of other Bubble related businesses.
I am not affiliated to Zeroqode and also, because this information is publicly available on the Bubble marketplace, I assume I am not stepping on any toes by publishing it here.
Templates:
Zeroqode has 130 templates on the Bubble marketplace. Assuming that everyone is buying the standard license as opposed to the developer license, Zeroqode has sold $1,090,160 worth of templates. But because Bubble takes 25% of all sales, Zeroqode has earned $817,620 in revenue and Bubble has earned $272,540 from Zeroqodeās template sales. These however are one time sales spanning 5 and a half years. The real money is in the plugin market.
Plugins:
Zeroqode has 293 plugins in the Bubble market. They have been generous enough in making many of them free. Unlike templates, plugins can also be rented on a monthly basis. Assuming all users rented these plugins and did not make full purchases, Zeroqode is earning an impressive $334,658 a month while Bubble is earning $111,553 a month. That means Zeroqode is making approximately $4 million in revenue annually from plugins while they are also allowing Bubble to earn approximately $1.3 million annually from plugins. These numbers of course assume that all users are continuing to use the plugins. There is no way for us to know what the percentage of plugin users are who discontinue use. But even if half of them have stopped, it still leaves Zeroqode with an impressive $2 million in revenue annually.
I would say the biggest takeaway from this from a business point of view is that it emphasizes, no matter which niche you are building your app for, how important it is to attach yourself to that community and ecosystem. A lot of your initial marketing investments need to be dedicated to branding and achieving name recognition within your industry.
This is fun to speculate on, however it has come up before and there are some other realities that inflate the marketplace numbers.
Zeroqode and others have also bought many templates and plugins from other builders, and the prices of many plugins have changed since they were first created. So exact numbers and who earned them are impossible to know.
Another thing I have found since starting in the Plugin marketplace this year is that the Install numbers are wildly off, especially if the Plugin in included in a Template. My TopCal plugin page shows 762 installs, and I can assure you it is not even anywhere close to that for actual monthly paying users
Ah I hadnāt seen that post. I understand the discounts and prior cheaper prices part, but how do you explain the part I quoted above. Is it a bug on Bubbleās side?
One way is that a lot of people subscribe to a plugin for a short period of time and then unsubscribe from it. No matter how long they had the plugin it counts as an install.
And another way I havenāt fully tested but I think it is the case with my plugin:
My Top Shelf Elements has the Plugin in it, but it is a free template anyone can use.
So a lot of people have created their own apps with this template and every app made with it starts with the TopCal plugin already in the plugins tab, but it needs to be paid for to work. So I think this counts as an install even if itās not paid for and being used.
Yes, numbers from bubble marketplace do not give accurate picture of earnings. Templates for example, once purchased can be reused multiple times by the purchaser. Each use is counted in the public figures. So if it says 300 it could theoretically have been a single sale with the purchaser creating 300 apps from the template.
Also Bubble doesnāt adjust those figures to account for customer requested refunds or situations in which bubble charged twice because of system error and needed to refund for that.
It is fun sometimes to try and analyze what has been earned, but public figure do not come anywhere close to giving an accurate depiction.
Taking into account the inflation caused by numerous variables that a few of you have mentioned, it is still safe to say that Zeroqode is a six figure business probably verging on seven figures.
Iād agree itās safe to say that Zeroqodeās template/plugin revenue is a six and possibly seven-figure annual business.
However, their core business is their agency business (they make the claim they are the largest no-code agency in the world with a team of >50).
They also have monthly subscription plans for their online course offering - many of which are directly related to their templates/plugins.
They are using templates/plugins for lead gen for these businesses (engineering as marketing), which are both likely much bigger, although Iām sure the additional revenue from templates/plugins is a nice margin bump.
