I’ve built some really solid automation workflows over the past couple of years, and I’ve been thinking about whether there’s any real revenue opportunity in selling them. I know some platforms have marketplaces for templates and reusable components, but I’m skeptical about the actual demand.
Like, who’s actually buying these templates? Are they hobbyists experimenting? Are enterprises willing to pay for pre-built workflows? And more importantly from a business perspective: if I’m going to package something for sale, I need to support it, document it, maintain it as underlying APIs change. That’s not free work.
I’m wondering if anyone’s actually made meaningful money from selling templates on a marketplace. Not ‘I made $50 last month’ but actual revenue that makes it worth the effort. And what’s the audience like? Is it niche automation enthusiasts or is there broader commercial demand?
I’m thinking about this as a potential offset for my platform costs, but I want to be realistic about what that actually means.
I’ve sold a few templates over the past year. The realistic answer is that it’s not a consistent revenue stream, but the economics can work out.
I built a template for a specific HR automation task—employee onboarding with email sequences, system access provisioning, that kind of thing. It took me about a week to build properly and document. I priced it at $99.
In the first three months, I made decent money. Not life-changing, but maybe $1,500-2,000 in revenue. But here’s what happened: after a platform update, my template broke in a way that needed a fix. That was my time to fix and update it. After that, sales went flat. People weren’t buying something that might break on them.
I’ve talked to other developers and the pattern seems consistent. You get initial interest, then things taper off. The templates that do well long-term are ones that solve a really common problem in a way that’s genuinely better than rolling your own.
My suggestion: don’t plan on this offsetting your platform costs unless you’re willing to maintain stuff long-term. But if you’ve built something genuinely useful, the initial revenue can help justify the time you spent building it.
The marketplace dynamics favor really specific, highly polished templates that solve a clear business problem. Generic templates don’t stand out. The sellers making real money have typically built templates for industries or use cases where there’s genuine demand and high friction in building it yourself.
Enterprise buyers will pay for quality templates because they’re getting time savings. But you need to treat this like a product business, not just documentation. That means testing, support, documentation. It’s real work.
Focus on specific verticals. Generic templates flounder. Industry-specific workflows sell better.