You are a WordPress developer. You came up with a great plugin idea, invested time and money in the idea, created the plugin, and installed and tested the plugin on the WordPress website. Probably you are now considering the next step: “how to sell a WordPress plugin?”
The challenging phase now starts. The WordPress repository currently has more than 55000 free plugins. Getting your plugin discovered by individuals in your niche is supposed to be difficult.
Well, there are numerous ways to sell WordPress plugins for a fair price. With this developer’s guide, we will provide you with the best strategies to market your WordPress plugins for sale with this developer’s guide.
Freemium VS Premium Plugins
Guess you are already aware WordPress.org is an open-source CMS that enables building websites for free. Every single theme and plugin that we may find in the WordPress plugin repository is also free!
One of the main reasons WordPress dominates the CMS platform with more than 60% market share is the enormous amount of free resources available. According to 2022’s statistics, overall, about 43% of all websites on the internet are built with WordPress
Alongside the free version which is presented in the WordPress plugin directory, you can also offer the premium version of the plugin with more advanced functionalities. These plugins are known as “freemium”.
However, it’s also possible to sell exclusively premium plugins using different platforms, without uploading them to the WordPress repository.
One of the most popular business models to sell a WordPress plugin is the freemium model since it provides you more opportunities to be seen by customers and make money at the same time.
How to Market WordPress Plugin?
There is a variety of ways to market and sell a WordPress plugin. Each and every strategy has its advantages as well as disadvantages.
When starting to sell WordPress plugins, first you need to think of “where to sell plugins”?
There are two main methods for selling plugins. You can either earn money selling plugins on a third-party marketplace or selling plugins on your website.
Sell Plugins on the Marketplace
Turning for help to a dedicated WordPress plugin marketplace makes a lot of sense for plugin developers and sellers. Why? It is a low-risk strategy that requires relatively little time and effort. Using a third-party marketplace is a total success if you have a marketable plugin.
In order to start selling plugins on the marketplace all you need to do is to create an account and upload the plugin on their website.
The most prominent and well-known WordPress plugin marketplace so far is CodeCanyon. However, there are numerous other popular marketplaces, such as Mojo, Codester, and Creative Market.
Ensure the below-mentioned aspects in order to boost plugin sales on the marketplace.
- Product Description: Attach your plugin’s attractive and catchy product description, Some up, on what your product basically does, and don’t forget to also mention the assets of your product.
- Demo: It’s crucial to show customers your plugin in action. Users want to see how well your plugin works, and a demo site allows you to do that.
- Product Images: Product images and screenshots have a significant impact on plugin sales.
Your plugin will have a greater chance of being recognized due to the enormous volume of visitors to the markets. All of this, however, has a cost. You must give a sizable portion of your earnings away for each sale you make on marketplaces.
The costs will go even further if you want to sell your plugins on your website or somewhere else besides the marketplace.
Sell Plugins on Your Website
It’s a good idea to have your own personal website just for selling your products. For simplicity, I suggest WordPress. A really effective way to go about this is to use the WordPress platform on your website and a WordPress e-commerce plugin to handle the purchasing aspect of things.
In their early stages, the majority of plugin developers sell their products on marketplaces. But as time goes on, the majority of them start their own websites to host their plugins instead of relying on the markets.
You should start selling WordPress plugins on your website for a few different reasons.
- Marketplace commission strategies are rather aggressive. Simply selling your plugin on their website requires you to give a significant portion of your profits. Additionally, in the majority of well-known marketplaces like CodeCanyon, you are not able to specify the pricing for your products. The marketplace’s editorial staff will choose the pricing for your product.
- Selling via your website you7 can receive the entire revenue, without taking a percentage. If you decide to sell a plugin on your own website, you may also decide on the pricing on your own. These are great advantages compared to selling on a marketplace.
- Lastly, selling WordPress plugins on your website gives you brand identity and raises your product authority. While in the case of selling plugins on the marketplace, you are just another vendor trying to sell and earn money.
Despite that, there are some issues to think about while selling plugins on your website. You’ll need a proper and decent marketing strategy if you want to get visitors to visit your website and purchase your product. For people to locate and select you, you’ll need to be incredibly helpful and catchy.
Use WordPress Plugin Directory to Your Advantage
Before I finish, it’s important to note that you may combine some of the above-mentioned strategies and make use of the WordPress Plugin Directory as well.
The WordPress Plugin Directory is a useful channel for customers if you’ve chosen a freemium business plan. You can upsell to a captive audience while utilizing third-party solutions to assist generate traffic.
So the solution we recommend is to have a free version of the plugin presented in the WordPress plugin directory with all the necessary and crucial information we mentioned, including description, screenshots, images, and demo. Alongside the free version, sell the plugin on the marketplace, or better on your own website paying special attention to website marketing.
Bonus Tip: Marketing Approach to Sell Your Plugin
Let’s see, you’ve made your plugin publicly available on the market. People can get access to it from wordpress.org, your plugin product page, or a third-party marketplace. What should be your next step? No one will learn the news of your plugin release until you share it.
Marketing is, therefore, necessary in order to sell plugins. It’s a never-ending process just like the creation of your products. Let’s look at some effective marketing strategies to market plugins and establish a solid brand.
Content Marketing
Though this phrase gets cliché and overused, content marketing’s effectiveness is increasing steadily.
According to 67% of marketers, content marketing creates demand and leads. Additionally, according to 72% of marketers, content marketing helps educate the audience, and 63% feel it promotes consumer loyalty among current clients and customers.
Blog Post
The blog posts on generate around 90% of the website’s organic traffic. There are mainly two categories of blog posts: informative and product-promoting blogs.
You must take the following actions for every blog post:
- Carry out a keyword search.
- Discover the finest options for your niche.
- Examine the blogs of your competitors.
Create a blog topic that will help your target audience comprehend both the trends in your industry and your product.
Video Marketing
Establish a YouTube channel. Create instructional videos that will both help users learn and advertise your product. You should post the videos to your social media accounts, and add them to the blog posts you write. You have a better chance of selling plugins if you give more information.
You can also create multilingual videos using ai dubbing to reach a broader audience.
Guest Posting
It’s time to investigate your product page and specialty blogs. Find out which other experts are using their WordPress plugin to earn. Request a guest post from them, publish their content on your blog as well and share backlinks if they want to collaborate.
Use the Power of Social Media
The most effective tools in the modern world are social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Only Facebook, for instance, has more than 1.66 billion daily average logins.
Social media may help you promote the value of your brand by regularly providing blog posts and product updates.
Final Thoughts on How to Sell WordPress Plugin
WordPress is a platform with endless opportunities. WordPress is a CMS that was used to create more than 43% of all websites worldwide. This indicates that you already have a considerable number of potential clients.
Choosing your plugin’s sales strategy plays a significant role in the development stage. One of the first things you should consider when starting a project is having a clear understanding of where your plugin goes and where you see it at the end
Before coming to end, let’s wrap up the tips and main takeaways of this guide on successfully selling WordPress plugins.
- Create a marketable product that is dedicated to solving some problems.
- Introduce a free version of your plugin in the WordPress plugin directory.
- Build a website or product page that converts well.
- Write extensive documentation of your plugin that describes all its aspects.
- Demonstrate how your product performs in reality with the help of a demo.
- Share video tutorials and how-tos.
- Undertake powerful content marketing.
- Take advantage of the enormous power of social media platforms.
We believe that after reading this developer’s guide you have found for yourself the answer to the question “ how to sell a WordPress plugin?”
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