FYI: This is more of a IndieHackers type of post, asking others to share on the revenue side.
There are a lot of templates for sale. I’m wondering if the return on those investments is worthwhile.
Context: As I’m (finally) learning about responsiveness and design systems, I’m capturing all these practices into a separate app so I can use across others apps. It’s piling up to be a nice resource for myself. I’m wondering, would I have paid for this? I’m very biased, but I’m leaning towards “hell, yeah”.
Hi there, @rico.trevisan… your post reminded me of this thread, and although the thread didn’t end up going too far down the path, it’s still an interesting (and quick) read if you haven’t seen it before…
I’ve actually been doing some more work on this @mikeloc@rico.trevisan. My takeaway so far is that template revenue follows a power law distribution - a tiny % of all templates capture 90% of the revenue.
Plugins are potentially a more lucrative route; there are c.1,100 plugins on the bubble marketplace vs. c.450 templates. Also the potential for recurring revenue if you’re solving a real pain point and users are willing to pay a subscription.
I’ll write a more detailed post in a week or so once I have the January stats available
A very naive model would be to multiply installs by cost. However, as mentioned by @gf_wolfer and @levon in my original post, this overstates the actual revenue due to discounts and some templates starting off as free before turning paid.
Still it gives a very crude estimate that should be directionally correct. I’m releasing a database next week that includes all templates/plugins and their installs, price, and monthly growth along with some other metrics. People can then make their own judgement from that.
All depends how you want to frame it. If you are saying strictly based on template revenue versus the time I put into it, then I would have made A LOT more money if I would have just built MVPs, worked for AirDev, or done sales calls for my own SaaS apps - and this is even after having the templates get sales for a few years.
I wouldn’t be surprised if others say something similar, where the actual time to create and support a template is a low financial return based on sales.
I would say the biggest return on investment for making templates is the lead funnel it creates for contract work. Since I don’t really take on contract work anymore and regularly turn projects away I probably get the least benefit by being a template contributor compared to the agencies who get a steady stream of leads from templates that they can convert to paid work
I think its completely worth it for some templates but not for everything. Of course I’m biased but a lot of ‘bubble stuff’ could use a better means of distribution than through the template market. Like you said, ‘best practises’ and certain ‘widgets’ or tools you created over the years. That is the aim for openBuild.io to solve.
Revenue of a template is one thing, but then there is the Bubble cut to keep in mind, sales taxes (which can be pretty complicated), support and maintenance which all take a substantial cut depending of course on the complexity of the template.
I would say that plugins could be even less lucrative, again depending on the type of plugin as those usually seem to require a lot more maintenance and support. Plugins have the added downside of constantly needing to check with Bubble if their plugin still fits inside the latest updates.
wondering, would I have paid for this? I’m very biased, but I’m leaning towards “hell, yeah”.
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