How we decide what to price our WordPress Themes

This question has been asked a few times. How do we decide what to price a WordPress theme at. The value of a theme is in the eye of the beholder. The cost of a theme also differs between countries and personal wealth.

A WordPress Theme should be at least $60. A theme isn’t priced based on how many features it has, or how many settings or options it has. Let’s get rid of that way of thinking. Instead let’s go on a journey of a WordPress Developer, developing a WordPress Theme.

First the theme needs a concept. This needs time to have a think about exactly what the theme should offer. Does it need a million features. No I really don’t think it does. Why not?

• A Theme should be the look and feel of a website. It’s functionality. Too much going on in a theme means really the theme should be using plugins (and concentrating on the style and look of the site)
• A Theme should be priced how the theme seller wishes to price it. Whether it’s thought to be worth less, or worth more. It’s a fine balance of pricing the theme in a way that pays for the rent, but also doesn’t price you out of the market.

Stop pricing themes too low

Theme forest is partly to blame here. A look at the theme list over on Theme forest and you’ll see WordPress Themes vary in price but are generally bunched around $55. This is because of how Theme forest started. It started out as a WordPress Theme ‘stock market’ where ‘authors’ could put a theme up and they were told what it should price.

The team at Envato priced these at around $55. Instantly setting the bar for anyone else wanting to sell their creations.

How do we price WordPress Themes here

We price them based on the time commitment that is needed to develop, continue to update and support the themes. Let’s look at a typical breakdown of a theme’s development.

• Initial v1.0 Theme Development – 30 hours at $100 an hour – that’s $3,000
• Ongoing support of the theme – 10 hours a month at $25-50 an hour – that’s $250-500 per month
• Future updates and bug fixes – 10 hours a month at $100 an hour – that’s another $1,000 per month
• Marketing, Outreach and promotion – 10 hours a month – $50 an hour – yep another $500 per month

So adding all of these up, a WordPress Theme may cost $3,000 for an initial version in ‘time’. Plus ongoing costs of around $2,000 per month (variable).

For a theme which costs $59 for a license, the theme needs to sell between 30 and 40 copies a month. That’s assuming the developer takes $100 for each of the hours spent on the theme.

What really happens

What happens in reality is the themes are worked on and any license sales are re-invested back into the product. To make the maths a bit easier, here’s ‘where the money goes‘ when it comes to a theme sale (taking a $100 theme as an example)

In a nutshell it is spent on making the theme better, supporting you with any questions or queries (and paying our dues to the tax man).  5% of each theme sale is saved for a rainy day.