8 Ways To Make Money With Framer
Introduction
Framer has been growing fast recently, and the trend seems only to go upwards.
If you want to capitalise on Framer’s exploding growth, you’ve come to the right place.
In this guide, I’ll lay out the eight best money-making methods related to Framer that you can implement by leveraging your Framer expertise.
I’ve done my best to include both the pros and cons of each business model because I want you to make an informative decision about your next venture.
Without further ado, let’s get started!
8 Ways To Make Money With Framer
1. Freelancing
Potential: Medium 💰💰
Difficulty: Easy 🙂🙂🙂
Most of you are probably already familiar with the concept of freelancing. The main idea is to work with different clients on a project basis to help them design and develop their Framer website.
Most people despise the idea of freelancing because they think it involves doing a lot of work for very little money. Just think about people getting paid 5$ per hour on Fiverr or Upwork.
However, that doesn’t have to be the case.
If you are good at what you do, you can make quite a lot of money freelancing. If you look at the Framer Expert’s directory on Contra, you’ll notice that prices rarely go below $50 per hour.
If that wasn’t enough, I’ve also seen people selling 5-digit Framer projects!
In addition, you can also make some recurring revenue by selling maintenance services, which usually range from 75 to 200 dollars per month for very little work.
In other words, the possibilities are almost endless if you know what you’re doing.
However, all that glitters is not gold.
Becoming a freelancer can be incredibly challenging in the beginning. You’ll have to figure out how to attract clients, manage various projects, file your own taxes, etc.
On top of that, your revenue is limited by the number of hours you can work in a day. Yes, you can increase your hourly rates, but only up to a point.
Let’s quickly wrap things up:
Pros:
Flexibility.
Independence.
Relatively easy to get started.
Cons:
No financial security.
A lot of overhead work.
Limited by your time.
Further Reading: How To Become A Framer Expert in 2024
2. Start An Agency
Potential: High 💰💰💰
Difficulty: High 🙂
If you have more freelancing work that you can fulfil, you can go down the agency route.
The main idea is to have a team of people with complementary skills who can deliver the highest-quality work to clients.
There are two main advantages to starting an agency:
Scalability
→ As a freelancer, you can only take on a few projects. However, that doesn’t apply to agencies. If you have an agency, you can either outsource some tasks or hire new team members to handle all the workload you receive (more clients = more revenue)
You can get out
→ As an agency owner, you can set up the business to run without you - which is the ultimate goal of starting a business.
However, running an agency is exponentially more complex and stressful than freelancing.
You’re no longer only responsible for yourself but for a whole team. You also need to be able to run that team, handle conflicts, find enough clients to keep the agency afloat, and so on.
On top of that, remember that more revenue doesn’t equal more profit. Your agency could be making $100.000/mo, but you could only be profiting less than 10%.
Let’s quickly wrap things up:
Pros:
Scalability.
Freedom (potentially).
Cons:
Harder to handle.
Higher risk.
More responsibility.
3. Sell Templates
Potential: High 💰💰💰
Difficulty: Medium 🙂🙂
Selling Framer templates is probably one the best business models you could ever start with Framer.
The main idea is to produce high-quality templates that can then be sold infinitely. It’s as simple as that.
If done correctly, you can make thousands of dollars from a simple template that took a couple of weeks to develop.
If you’re keen on the idea of passive income, then you’ll love this business model.
To give a personal example, I also jumped on this trend. And while I’m by no means the best at it, I manage to make some monthly passive revenue from my Framer templates.
In addition, starting to sell templates is also super easy. All you have to do is sit down at your PC, create a beautiful and functional template, and then sell it on Lemon Squeezy or Gumroad.
However, there’s something that most people never consider. The truth is that marketing is 80% of the game.
Yes, you can get it listed on the official marketplace and make some sales there. But everybody who boasts screenshots of thousands of dollars of income from templates does it by taking care of their marketing.
It’s incredibly hard to stand out in terms of design and functionality, but it’s easier to stand out in terms of marketing.
So, making the template is less than half the battle. You have to become good at marketing if you want to stand a chance of making a good income out of this business model.
Let’s quickly recap what we’ve just said:
Pros:
Easy to get started.
Completely passive.
High ROI (if done right).
Cons:
Hard to stand out.
Not reliable (at least in the beginning).
High upfront time investement.
4. Become A Framer Partner
Potential: Medium 💰💰
Difficulty: Easy 🙂
Becoming a Framer partner goes hand-in-hand with doing freelance work and selling templates.
Becoming a partner basically means that you become an affiliate and earn a 50% commission for the first 12 months for every new client you bring in.
Let’s look at an example. Say you create a website for a client and hand it over with your affiliate link attached. If that client then upgrades to an annual PRO plan, you’ll receive 50% of their yearly payment - which translates to around $90.
Earning an additional $90 for every client can add up at the end of the year. But the true magic begins when you sell templates.
Let’s say you give away a free template, and a thousand people download it. Even if you had as little as a 1% conversion rate on the template, you’d still get around 900 dollars (supposing they upgrade to a PRO plan).
Do you see the magic here? Even with a free template, you can make hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in passive revenue.
Couple that with the revenue from the actual template, and you’ll soon be making a living from it.
Similarly to selling templates, the same marketing problem applies.
There are a lot of different ways you can promote your affiliate link and all of them are outlined in this article. Here are some ideas you can steal:
Use it when handing off projects to clients.
Attach it to remix links on templates.
Attach it to remix links on free resources.
Promote Framer through a blog, YouTube videos, a newsletter, and so on.
Etc.
As you can see, the possibilities are endless!
So, let’s quickly recap the pros and cons.
Pros:
Completely passive.
Easier to get sales.
Can easily be integrated with other items on this list.
Cons:
You must be good at marketing.
Limited in terms of revenue per customer.
5. Offer Mentoring Calls
Potential: Medium 💰💰
Difficulty: Medium 🙂🙂
If you’ve done something unique that other people want to learn, you can offer mentoring calls.
The amount of money you can charge from mentoring calls directly correlates with your experience.
Let’s say you want to learn how to sell Framer templates from a mentor. Who would you pay more:
Somebody who makes 10K per month with templates alone.
Somebody who has just launched its first template and has only made a couple of sales.
Obviously, you’d pay the first guy much more than the second. Why? Because what he’s doing is obviously working wonders and you want to learn his entire process.
Based on that, don’t expect to be able to charge a hundred dollars an hour for teaching Framer if you’ve never worked on some complex project.
Another important consideration is that people need to know you and your work before they decide to buy mentoring calls.
If nobody knows you, nobody will want to buy from you. So you’ll need to find a way to get your message out there. (hint: build an audience)
This is more of an intermediate to advanced business model because it requires previous experience and social proof.
Let’s quickly wrap things up:
Pros:
Flexibility.
Independence.
No upfront time investment.
Cons:
Requires experience & expertise.
Limited by your time.
You need to find a way to get clients.
6. Sell Courses
Potential: High 💰💰💰
Difficulty: High 🙂
If you’re really good at what you do and have a lot of people who want to learn from you, then creating and selling a course is the best move.
Mentoring calls can only take you so far.
If you want to have a bigger impact and make a ton of money in the process, you’ll have to branch out and sell a course.
Another cool perk of selling a course is that it’s mostly passive. You set it up once, and most of the job is done.
If done correctly, selling a course can make you a ton of money.
Before we move on let’s quickly address a misconception: selling a course does not mean scamming people.
Yes, 90% of online courses are trash, but some are more than worth the investment.
If you’re a credible authority in your field and people listen to what you say, then there’s nothing wrong with selling a course.
But if you want to sell a course just to make a quick buck, you’ll fail miserably, and your reputation will be destroyed forever.
So it’s kind of the same as with mentoring calls. You need to have proof that what you’re teaching will benefit other people.
If you are not sure it will, don’t sell a course.
Quick recap:
Pros:
High earning potential.
Passive.
High impact.
Cons:
Requires you to have extensive knowledge and experience.
Requires good marketing to sell it.
High upfront time investment.
7. Create Educational Content
Potential: High 💰💰💰
Difficulty: High 🙂
Another interesting business model you can start with virtually nothing is producing educational content about Framer.
This can take the form of a blog, a YouTube channel, a newsletter, a social media platform, or whatever distribution channel you prefer.
While not a business model in and of itself, it can open up a lot of possible monetisation avenues like affiliate programs, sponsored content, ads, promoting your own products/services, and so on.
If done correctly, you should be able to make good money with this business model.
However, it can be harder than it sound. Yes, creating educational content might sound fun, but there’s a lot of overhead work that goes into it.
For example, to run a successful blog you also have to think about:
SEO.
Copywriting.
Visual assets creation.
Cross-platform promotion.
Etc.
The same applies for a YouTube channel as well:
Video scripting.
Video editing.
Thumbnails design.
Etc.
That said, I do believe this to be one of the best on the list. Not because it has the potential to make the most money in the least amount of time but because I think it will open up the most opportunities.
Here’s a quick recap of what we’ve just said:
Pros:
It’s a compounding asset.
It requires minimal upfront investment.
Everybody can do it.
Cons:
It will take long to yield results.
Requires expertise in various skills.
Ongoing time investment.
P.S. If you like the idea of launching a blog, I’ve created a fairly big and complex (11 static pages and 3 interlinked CMS collections) Framer blog template that can save you hours of development.
8. Framer Digital Products
Potential: High 💰💰💰
Difficulty: High 🙂
Framer is by no means a perfect tool. You can capitalise on its shortcomings by building a product to enhance its capabilities.
For example, Framer currently doesn’t support membership sites (and likely never will).
Based on that, there are a couple of third-party integrations that allow you to do just that. These are Outseta and FramerAuth.
Another example is FramerFuel, a collection of custom components and code overrides my friend Kye Bedford created to push Framer’s boundaries.
Also, Framer plugins will be available before the end of the year so you can be one of the first few creators if you take action now. If you like the idea, consider signing up for the official plugins waitlist.
You don’t even need to know how to code. You can do something as simple as creating a UI kit but make it so comprehensive and complete that it surpasses everything currently available.
Let’s quickly recap this last business model:
Pros:
High-income potential.
Scalability.
Cons:
Can require an initial investment.
Can require technical knowledge.
High upfront time investment.
Conclusion
As you can see, Framer offers many possibilities in terms of income stream. None of them is perfect, but they all can still be very lucrative.
My best advice is to pick out and go all in. Don’t think about building multiple income streams until you have a solid foundation in at least one of them.
Hope this helps!
- Luca
