In the previous post about business models for WordPress theme designers, I mentioned a little about designing stock themes. Here’s how I think stock themes should be done.

Why create a theme for sale at $10 per download? Why not create a theme for free and let people upgrade to an advanced version for the same $10?

For now, the fact is not many people would buy stock themes or pay-per-download themes at $10 to $50. The best you can do is average ten sales for each theme. That’s a waste of time if you’re not outsourcing at a very low rate.

If you create a great theme and release it for public use, you’ll get the traffic needed to generate sales. Once you’ve got the traffic, allow users to download your theme to upgrade to an advance or premium version of that theme for $5 to $10. The upgraded version would include color scheme variations, more integrated plugins, and other custom features that are not available to the free version

You’re not tricking or egging anyone into buying the advanced version as long as the advance version has custom features or extra details that themes don’t normally provide.

One drawback to this business model is the pricing. Charging for a non-exclusive theme at $50 per download is possible, but not likely for upgrades only. However, the traffic generated from releasing a free version will balance out that drawback. Along with selling upgrades, you can leverage the remaining traffic to sell advertisements on your blog.