As WordPress is the most popular CMS in the market, there are lots of opportunities to make money with it.
Obviously, you can make money by offering WordPress development services to the needy but they are not the only ways to make money.
In fact, you don’t necessarily need to be a WordPress developer in order to make a living with it.
In this post, I’ll share 17 different ways to make money with WordPress both as a developer and non-developer. Along with the tips, I’ll also include some real examples of making money with WordPress, so you can learn from them and get inspired from them.
So if you’re eager to make money with WordPress, let’s get started without any delay.
#1. Become an affiliate marketer
Selling WordPress products as an affiliate can be a great strategy to make money online if you’ve got a blog or an email list with a massive audience. The main benefit is that unlike creating products you don’t actually need to put a lot of efforts in it in order to start making affiliate sales.
For example, Abhay writes reviews of WordPress products in this blog. It is one of the best examples of making money through affiliate marketing.
#2. Sell plugins
If you’re a WordPress plugin developer, you can start making money by selling your plugins on marketplaces such as CodeCanyon.net. You can try to solve your own WordPress issues by creating a plugin. Chances are there will be lots of others facing the same problem as of yours. You can start selling it to them, so the whole WordPress community can also make use of your plugin.
Pippinsplugin is a great example of self hosted selling of plugins if you’re looking for inspiration. In fact, he is also one amongst the official WordPress plugin review themes and the author of well-known plugins like Easy Digital Downloads and Restrict Content Pro.
#3. Sell themes
If you’re a WordPress theme developer, one of the best ways to make money online is by selling premium WordPress themes. Unlike offering a service, selling themes help you make a steady passive online income. You can either sell it on marketplaces such as Themeforest.net or on your own website.
If you’re looking for inspiration, here is an example of self hosted selling of WordPress themes.
#4. Accept donation
You don’t necessarily need to produce a premium product in order to make money. If you’re giving away free WordPress theme or plugin from your website, you can start making money by accepting donations from the free users.
If you’re on WordPress, you can find lots of WordPress plugins that accept donations. All you need to do is to install one of them on your blog and start accepting donations.
#5. Write a sponsored review for WordPress products
If you have got a WordPress blog with a significantly good amount of audience, you can start accepting sponsored review on your blog. You can invite WordPress theme or plugin developers, which can be a win-win situation for both you and the developers. You are making money by writing a review and the developers gain exposure and increase brand awareness for their products from your review.
#6. Review a WordPress product honestly
WP Mayor’s product analysis is one of the best examples of earning money by reviewing a product. As they’re WordPress experts, they give an honest opinion about a product by reviewing it. If you’re a WordPress developer, offering an honest review can help you to make you some extra bucks.
#7. WordPress website Migration services
Offering WordPress migration service to your clients is another great strategy to make money online. Best of all, you don’t need to become a developer to start migrating a website. You can help your clients to move their site from free WordPress.com site to self hosted WordPress or from Blogger to WordPress, etc.
#8. Become a WordPress intern
Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com occasionally accepts internship applications. If you would like to become an intern on Automattic, make sure to check their internship page.
#9. WordPress coaching
Offering WordPress coaching is another way to make a decent income with WordPress. For example, Kathy Drewien makes a full-time income by offering WordPress coaching to her students.
#10. Seed funding
Do you have an idea for ‘the next big thing’ in the WordPress industry? Then, why not to accept seed funding for developing your groundbreaking product?
If you’re new to the term seed fund, it is the earliest round of capital for a startup company. A few months ago VersionPress, a premium plugin company has raised $400k in seed funding.
#11. Offer free WordPress service for an affiliate sale
Many websites are offering free WordPress service to their visitors if they make an affiliate sale on their website. For instance, at TrixHub, Abhay offers free WordPress blog setup if users purchase a WordPress hosting using his affiliate link.
#12. Offer your service on OptimizePress.com
OptimizePress is one of the best landing page plugins out there. Although it helps you to easily build a landing page without having any designing skills, many bloggers and businesses are still seeking experts’ assistance to create a landing page using the plugin. If you’re good at using OptimizePress, you can become an official vendor on OptimizePress.com and start offering your services.
#13. Sell OptimizePress templates
OptimizePress.com also encourages you to create a premium landing page template and sell it on their marketplace. You can sell templates, icon sets, photography& images, and plugins& add-ons on OptimizePress marketplace.
#14. Become a WordPress based freelancer
If you’re a developer or a designer, you can start offering your services on various freelancing sites such as Upwork.com or Freelancer.com. Alternatively, you can list your WordPress services on service marketplaces like Fiverr.com or Enavto Studio
#15. Write premium WordPress tutorials on Tuts+
If you’re a WordPress expert, you can share your expertise with the world and make money from it. If you can write some valuable WordPress tutorials you would like to share, you can become a premium author on Tuts+ website. You can apply to create a premium WordPress tutorial here.
#16. Make money using WordAds
If you’re a blogger on the free WordPress.com platform, you can monetize your site by selling ads. WordAds is a program for WordPress.com based blogs. A few months ago, they start accepting self-hosted WordPress websites as well to their network. If you’ve never heard of monetizing WordAds, it’s worth a look.
#17. Upsell your WordPress services or add-ons
Upselling is one of my favorite tactics to earn extra money. If you’re hired to create a WordPress theme for a client, you can encourage them to buy a WordPress hosting using your affiliate link, which will bring in some extra money to your table. Aside from making affiliate sales, you can even sell your own services through upselling. For example, if you design logos as well, you can convince your client to hire you for designing it as well.
Over to you
Do you make money with WordPress? Did you know any other ways to make extra income with WordPress? Which one is your favorite money making tactic from the list?
Share your thoughts and experiences with us in the comments section below.
About the author: Shahzad Saeed is a freelance blogger for hire. He writes on WordPress and marketing topics. Follow him on Twitter @shahzadsaeed
Dear,
Thanks you very much for give information best way to make money with only online to how to make so minimum time in money to promote business.
Thank You.
Thank you for sharing this great information. In this post give information for making money with use of word press and for that in this post give some ideas in detail that helpful and useful for people.
I’m using the options: WordPress freelancer (I design WordPress websites) and affiliate marketing. These 2 options are the easiest for me.
Yes affiliate marketing is the best way these days to make money online.
The two options I’m using WordPress for are coaching and affiliate sales. Do you think it is cheesy to have a donations button on the site when you are attempting to build a clientele? I’m mixed and would like your input. On one had I do but then on the other, I’m providing a ton of awesome content and why not ask for donations to supplement all the details that I am giving away free of any charge?