Selling in the WooCommerce Marketplace ($384 1st Month)

Hey all. I just launched a new plugin in the WooCommerce marketplace (https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/marketplace-overview/). It was a pretty simple idea that came out of a client project. The plugin extends WooCommerce functionality so that coupons can be restricted to new customers and/or specific locations. I had been selling it through my own site for the last year (with ~100 sales), and am really interested to see how it will do in the official marketplace.

In its first month the plugin had a total of $805 in sales with 25 active yearly subscriptions. WooCommerce pays out 60% of net sales (after discounts, affiliate fees, payment processor fees, etc.), which was $384.

The plugin took at least 200 hours to build. That might seem like a lot for a small feature, but it takes time to read through a complex codebase like WooCommerce and properly extend its features. It was also necessary to build an onboarding process (to help minimize support questions) and automated feature tests.

I have a few more WooCommerce plugin ideas, but am waiting to see how this one does first. It will need to earn at least $30,000 over its lifetime to match a freelance project of the same hours, so this is a bit of a slow start. However, licenses for WooCommerce plugins sold through their marketplace automatically renew every year (unless cancelled), so if people like the plugin and keep it active, sales could compound over time. Also, it's also more fun to work on a product side project than a client side project (imho).

If you're interested in reading more about the submission process (from a developer perspective), I wrote a post on my site: https://devpress.com/woocommerce-marketplace-extension/. Or, if you know someone with a WooCommerce shop, let them know about the plugin: https://devpress.com/woocommerce-marketplace-extension/.