Holy Cow, Thesis Theme is Now a $1.95m Business

You know what, I think I’m a little bit jealous of Chris Pearson. Aside from being a damn handsome man, he’s also making money hand over fist with his Thesis Theme brainchild. $1.95m bucks a year, to be exact.

Who would have thought that a single, simple Wordpress theme could pull in such an outrageous amount of money? I certainly didn’t. In fact if you’d told me 12 months ago that creating a premium wordpress theme could pull in anything more than pocket change, I’d have laughed at you.

The wordpress community is completely saturated with free themes, so surely you’d be pissing in the wind by building a business around a premium theme, right?

Oh how wrong I was. Let’s look at the numbers.

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Thesis Theme made $1m in its first 12 months.

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How do I know? Well, being a long-term affiliate for Chris, my affiliate stats show the invoice number for the sales I refer. Since they start at 001 upwards, I know how many copies of Thesis Theme he’s sold at a particular point in time…

- Chris sold 10,008 copies of Thesis from 29th March 2008 to 29th March 2009 (i.e. 12 months to the day after Thesis Theme was launched.

- There are 2 prices - $87 for a personal license and $164 for the developer’s license. My affiliate stats show an approximate 50-50 split in sales between the two, so let’s presume this is the case across the board.

- Multiply average purchase by number of sales and BANG, Thesis Theme pulled in about $1.26m in the first 12 months.

- Since then, the number of copies sold each month has been on the rise. In April, 1287 licenses were sold, making Thesis Theme at least a $1.95m business (likely more if monthly sales continue to rise).

Of course there are affiliates and developers to pay, but let’s not beat about the bush here - this is one hell of a cash cow. God I wish I’d thought of it first.

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Why has Thesis Theme become so popular?

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It comes down to this… FEAR.

Thesis Theme has become the dominant wordpress theme because it redefined what a good theme was. That making a theme look pretty is actually not so important, and that before you even THINK about design you need a framework for delivering consistent, optimized HTML code.

Chris made this the core feature of Thesis, then on TOP of this makes it incredibly easy to customize the design yourself. So Thesis is more a framework, rather than a theme.

Wordpress bloggers are therefore flocking to Thesis out of fear.

- Fear that their current code might be holding them back.

- Fear that if they change their blog theme in the future it could change the entire HTML structure of their site (= you disappear from Google).

- And because Thesis is now the dominant wordpress theme, fear that if you don’t buy it you’re immediately going to be at a disadvantage.

And to be honest, these are good reasons to be fearful. Thesis is a damn good product. And it’s fundamentally changed the world of wordpress themes.
How big can Thesis Theme get?

Heck do I know, but it’s certainly got momentum in its favor, particularly as more and more high profile bloggers make the switch (and blog about the experience - ).

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What I’m actually more interested in is what Chris Pearson is going to do next to grow this business.

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Will he continue to only sell $87 and $164 Thesis licenses, or is there a bigger picture? He’s got a growing community of extremely happy customers (I am one of them) who would love a reason to send more money Chris’s way.

My prediction…

A natural extension of the DIYThemes business would be to start offering premium skins on top of the Thesis framework. In the next 6 months we will see premium Thesis skins offered on the diythemes site, in the $17-$27 range. It wouldn’t surprise me if he opened up an entire Thesis skins marketplace where designers can sell their own skins, with Chris naturally taking a cut).

He’ll do so only when there is sufficient traction, else he risks alienating first-time buyers (”why should I buy Thesis when I’m going to have to buy a skin on top of that?”).

Keep it up Chris, it’s a genius product and a marvellous case-study for online entrepreneurs who are doubting whether their idea is big enough. I mean come on, $1.95m a year from a Wordpress theme. Who’d have thought it.