Where to Sell Squarespace Templates to Reach More Customers and Make More Sales
Selling Squarespace templates, or website templates for any platform, is such a great way to increase your income as a website designer.
Templates are not only the perfect addition if you're already working with one-on-one clients to build websites, they are also fun to create, allow you to serve a ton more clients, all whilst getting more free time and best of all, some passive income to your web design business!
We’re huge fans of Squarespace here at Big Cat Creative and we have tons of experience selling Squarespace Templates (we've sold over 7000!) so if you’re interested and wanting to learn about how to start your own Squarespace Template shop, you’re in the right place!
To help web designers invest in their growth, we’ve created two FREE trainings. The first is web design expert, Paige Brunton’s free Profitable + Productive Web Designer Bootcamp happening October 21st-23rd. It’s going to be a three-day intensive filled with web design tips, advice on how to create a web design biz that is successful (but doesn’t run your life) + so much more!
The second is our Big Cat Creative free training on how to sell Squarespace templates, packed with invaluable web design insights we’ve gathered over the years, including the key steps to set up your shop, create template live demos, and actually send the templates to your customers. Both are perfect opportunities to invest in yourself and elevate your business!
Now let’s get back to this week’s post, where we're diving into exactly where you should be selling your website templates to reach more potential customers and make more sales. Therefore, no matter if you're already a template shop seasoned pro or just thinking about giving it a go, we’ll share all of our best tips and ways to sell more templates!
Getting started with selling Squarespace Templates
Selling website templates might sound simple enough, but there's actually quite a few important decisions you need to make before you can set up shop and most importantly, succeed! These decisions will also guide where you might decide to sell your templates and how you'll market them.
Define your audience
First things first, you'll want to decide who you'll be selling your templates to, aka who is your ideal customer?
Are they male or female? Are they really into yoga, girly things, or the latest trends? Are they younger or older? What is their job and why do they need a website?
This will not only help you define the direction and structure of your template and what to include in it, but by evaluating where this ideal customer hangs out online, you'll be able to strategically market your templates directly to them and that means way more sales! 💸
For example, if you've designed a template specifically for authors, posting about your template in a writers support Facebook group would be the perfect way to reach your ideal customer! If on the other hand, you created a portfolio template for designers, a platform like Creative Market where designers love to browse for assets like fonts might be a great place to start!
Template resources
It's not all about the template, the resources that come along with it are pretty much just as important to help your customers edit it exactly the way they like, as easily as possible!
This typically includes tutorials showing them how to use the website building platform, tips on how to nail their branding, including images, copy, colors, and fonts, and how to actually set their website live.
Depending on who your audience of choice is though, you might need to provide extra resources for certain areas. While authors might be expected to not need quite as many copywriting tips, they likely might not know how to actually use Squarespace. Designers customizing a portfolio template might meanwhile be quite set on branding and imagery but might need more copy and launch tips for example.
Nailing down what resources will be most helpful to your audience and advertising these as part of your template package could be a deciding factor in making you more sales!
You'll also want to decide where to actually host these resources, whether that be on your own website or on a different platform entirely like Podia, Kartra, Teachable, or Kajabi. The right choice for you and your template shop will depend on your budget (some of these platforms cost more than others), which platforms you're most comfortable using and how much time you're willing to spend to learn a new one, as well as where your website is hosted and whether you can host your resources directly on there (Squarespace offers Courses, password protected pages, or Member Sites as options for example ).
So do your research as this will subsequently influence where you will actually host your template shop too! We usually recommend trying to keep everything in the same place for the smoothest checkout process possible.
Pricing your templates
Depending on who your ideal customer is and how many resources you decide to provide along with your template, your template price might vary quite significantly!
Certain audiences might be willing (and able) to afford more expensive templates, while others, like small business owners that are just starting out might be on a much stricter budget and not willing to spend as much on a business that is not yet established.
Similarly, your ideal customers might be willing to pay more for in-depth resources and bonuses that they believe will be really helpful to them.
In terms of considering where to sell your templates, it is also important to consider how much hosting your resources and template shop will actually cost you. If you choose a platform that is particularly expensive, you might need to offset this by upping your template prices. Similarly, listing on third-party platforms which take a certain commission for every sale might mean you need to increase your prices, which may deter your ideal clients.
👉 How to price custom website design and website templates
Setting up your template shop
There are so many different ways that you could set up your template shop, from listing directly on your website, to selling on other platforms (or a combination of both), and you can have great success with any of these provided that you can get your ideal customers' eyes on your templates (which is where effective marketing comes in!).
Selling templates directly on your own site VS other avenues
We talk a lot about the importance of creating your own shop on your own website to sell your templates because there are so many advantages that come with it, and frankly it makes a lot of sense if you already have your own website through which you are already getting website design clients!
Why you should sell templates directly on your website
Selling directly to customers from your own website means that you have complete creative control over your business, branding, and marketing. You'll appear more legit and professional, being able to link potential customers directly to your own website. You'll also be able to make all your own decisions regarding how your products appear, the look and feel of your shop, and your exact pricing - where you get to keep 100% of the profits!
It also means that you are not relying on anyone other than yourself, and while it's true that this means you need to drive your own traffic to your website to get your templates seen and sold, in the long run, selling directly from your website can significantly help build your trust and credibility in the online biz world, key attributes of a successful template shop!
👉 How to set up a shop on Squarespace
When you shouldn't sell templates directly on your own website
It is important to note that setting up your own website and your own shop can be a significant investment. Not only does it take quite a bit of time and effort to create, purchasing a subscription, a domain, and an e-commerce plan can get costly upfront!
So, if you don't have a website already and are just getting started on your template journey, remember that selling directly on your own website is not a necessity and there are other platforms that you can use to get started selling cheaply at first.
Selling templates on Design Marketplaces
Design marketplaces are major hubs for designers and artists to sell their digital products online, from prints and fonts, to social media and website templates and everything in between!
They are great because they already have huge built-in audiences (we're talking millions) browsing through and ready to purchase, meaning that you don’t necessarily have to work as hard to generate traffic because the marketplace is doing that for you! And the more you distribute your designs across different marketplaces the larger your reach, and the better your chances of getting a sale!
That said, competition on these marketplaces can be feisty given the number of listings already out there, so you'll want to make sure that your templates truly stand out and hit the mark in terms of meeting your ideal customers' needs.
Additionally, these marketplaces can get costly, with commissions reaching up to 40% of every sale + processing fees, thereby significantly cutting into your profits and limiting your returns. They also tend to be rather limited in terms of customization, which can make it both easier to create listings but also considerably less on-brand, with less opportunity to make your template shop stand out from the rest.
But because marketplaces are such a great option to expand your reach and make yourself known, marketplaces do make it worth it to list on, especially in conjunction with an existing website, to get as many eyes on your templates as you can!
Here are some of the most popular platforms to consider 👇
Creative Market
Creative Market is an online marketplace for design assets. Independent creators list their design graphics, website templates, stock photography, and other digital goods to be sold to other creatives.
One of the best things about Creative Market is that it caters to a community of like-minded individuals. With over one million users, you can truly get your templates and themes in front of the right eyes.
A drawback of Creative Market is its high fees. They’ve just upped their transaction fee to 40% per sale. But while their fees might seem kinda crazy, you are paying for free marketing and a built-in audience. You can also consider raising your prices on Creative Market to help cover some of this, (we do this!). While the fees are high, we still think it's worth it and we have made a lot of sales via Creative Market over the years.
👉 Get Started on Creative Market
Etsy
You probably know Etsy as an online marketplace for unique crafts and handmade goods, but did you know that it’s also one of the most popular platforms for digital goods? Etsy allows you to sell templates and downloadables to its over 7 million users.
Because so many people use the platform, it can be a little challenging to stand out. But if you focus on optimizing your SEO or consider running ads, it could be a great option for reaching more customers.
Etsy recently upped their fees and currently charges $0.20 for a listing fee, 6.5% for the transaction fee, and anywhere between 3%-5% for payment processing fees.
We know a lot of template creators who have had success on Etsy (but it's not one we've tried yet, so can't speak from personal experience!).
Ghost Marketplace
Ghost Marketplace is the very first Squarespace design specific marketplace - so if you sell Squarespace templates or plugins, this is for you! Easily browse plugins, templates, and courses – all in one simple place!
Anyone is welcome to submit a theme to the marketplace but there is an approval process and only the best of the best will be showcased publicly! They do also charge a 30% commission for any sales that you make on their platform.
Ghost Marketplace is a much newer platform, so there won’t be as many users yet, but it's still worth checking out, especially because it means less competition (for the moment!).
Selling on marketplaces tips!
The thing about marketplaces that you need to keep in mind is that the fees are different for every marketplace, and they can get pretty high. For example Creative Market charges ~40% per sale.
While that may seem really high, it’s important to remember that the people that found you via Creative Market, for example, probably wouldn’t have found you otherwise. So in a way, you're paying the marketplace for referring that customer to you.
This is another reason we always say to build your own shop first and focus on that. These marketplaces are really just extras that you can add on to grow your audience without having to do too much. But we wouldn’t really recommend putting all of your eggs in one basket and only selling on Marketplaces, because you’re always going to have high fees and you’re relying on another platform for your income (and you don’t really have control of it!).
It's also important to mention that there’s a lot more than these 3 marketplaces out there. There’s so many marketplaces for designs and for website templates. So go ahead, do your research, and add your templates to any marketplaces that you think are worth it. Just remember that every marketplace is going to have different terms and conditions and you’ll just want to check that they accept Squarespace Templates before you go through the effort of signing up.
Using Social Media to Sell More Templates
We all know about Social Media, and you’ve probably noticed in the last few years that Shopping via social media has become more common. On Instagram there’s even a whole "Shop" tab!
While the majority of social media platforms still don’t have direct selling capabilities for digital products, you can still use them to drive leads to your existing website shop.
The one social platform where you can actually add a shop is Pinterest. Pinterest is a great social media platform for discoverability. Its search algorithm is unmatched and the ability to add links to pins makes it an ideal platform for small business owners.
This is a fairly new feature, but similar to how Instagram displays products, you can link a shop to your Pinterest profile. People will still checkout via your website store, so it’s not an entirely hosted shop, but you can have a separate shop tab and set up a shop front in Pinterest which is pretty cool. We highly recommend using Pinterest for your online marketing anyway, but if you are using Pinterest, definitely get your Pinterest shop set up and add your templates so people can shop your templates via Pinterest!
👉 How to use Pinterest for your business in 2022: Profile set up and optimization
👉 How to create an organic Pinterest Marketing Strategy for your biz
Instagram, Facebook and TikTok
Unfortunately, it’s still against the terms to sell digital products directly from Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok. Some sellers are able to get their products through, but if the social media platforms find out, there are negative consequences. Instead, follow their guidelines and link your shop in your bio. Your social media content will still drive profile views, website clicks, and conversions!
👉 How to grow your business and get clients with Instagram
Affiliate marketing and collaborations
Another way to sell more templates is to collaborate with other designers or reputable businesses in your online biz realm to get them to promote your templates on their own websites or to their audience directly.
This is typically done through affiliate marketing, where similarly to marketplaces, whoever you collaborate with receives a certain commission (usually ~20%) for any sales that they refer!
This is a great way to reach entirely new audiences that you may not have (as easily) reached otherwise whilst developing stronger ties to established and trusted businesses. With word of mouth still being one of the absolute best forms of marketing, your templates coming directly recommended by trusted businesses can have a strong positive impact on your sales (while making them a lil extra cash, win-win!).
While it’s clear that listing your templates on additional design marketplaces will expand your reach, the fees and competition make it challenging to turn a great profit. That’s why we definitely recommend prioritizing your own template shop and adding on these marketplace listings as extra!
For more web design biz tips, make sure you sign up for web design expert, Paige Brunton’s FREE Profitable + Productive Web Designer Bootcamp! She's going to cover everything from how to get new clients (for web design + templates), how to make wise decisions for your web design business (and how to not let it rule you), and so much more! It’s right around the corner, starting October 21 so you don’t want to miss it!
PLUS she’s doing a giveaway, which includes a 1-year subscription to the Contract Builder, the Foundry™ from Creative Law Shop (worth $997), which includes 1-year access to the Foundry™ Contract Builder, AskLex (an AI-powered legal assistant), and one attorney-drafted contract of your choice, such as the web designer agreement. You’ll also get a 1-year subscription to Honeybook or Dubsado (worth $400) and 1 year of Canva Pro (worth $120). Total value: $1,517! 👇
Want more template selling tips? Check out these posts: 👇
4 ways to make more money as a Web Designer
How to create a Live Demo Squarespace Template (and what to do when the trial expires!)
How to send Squarespace Templates to customers after they purchase
Best Chrome extensions for Squarespace website designers
How to embed course videos in Squarespace from YouTube (free!)
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