Top 20 Earning Web Design Websites
Posted on 13. Jul, 2009 by Web Design in Roundups
Hello Everyone,
I think the best inspiration to do better in anything, weather it’s your own business or life is seeing someone who has already done what you want to achieve. Today we decided to research and give a educated guess on how much our favorite web design websites earn every month. I first did a post like this back in March on another website of mine called IncomeDiary. I researched the top earning 30 blogs I read and listed them with how they made there money.
How Much Do Top Web Design Sites Make?
Below is our list of the top 20 earning web design sites. Please note that all of the earnings we have put down are an educated guess based on advertising rates, affiliate sales, members, traffic etc, and not fully confirmed by the sites themselves.
Smashing Magazine
URL: http://www.smashingmagazine.com | Monthly Earnings: $58,500
* * * * *
TutsPlus Network
URL: http://tutsplus.com | Monthly Earnings: $54,000 ($24,650 Just From BuySellAds)
* * * * *
37Signals
URL: http://37signals.com/svn/ | Monthly Earnings: $34,300
* * * * *
Freelance Switch
URL: http://freelanceswitch.com | Monthly Earnings: $13,000
* * * * *
WebDesignerWall
URL: http://www.webdesignerwall.com | Monthly Income: $12,000
* * * * *
Authentic Jobs
URL: http://authenticjobs.com | Monthly Earnings: $9,500
* * * * *
Noupe
URL: http://www.noupe.com | Monthly Earnings: $7,000
* * * * *
Abduzeedo
URL: http://abduzeedo.com | Monthly Earnings: $6,000
* * * * *
SixRevisions
URL: http://sixrevisions.com | Monthly Earnings: $6,000
* * * * *
Tutorial9
URL: http://www.tutorial9.net | Monthly Earnings: $5,000
* * * * *
Vecteezy
URL: http://www.vecteezy.com | Monthly Earnings: $4,500
* * * * *
WebDesignerDepot
URL: http://www.webdesignerdepot.com | Monthly Earnings: $4,400
* * * * *
BittBox
URL: http://www.bittbox.com | Monthly Income: $3,500
* * * * *
Smashing Apps
URL: http://www.smashingapps.com | Monthly Earnings: $3,100
* * * * *
Just Creative Design
URL: http://justcreativedesign.com | Monthly Earnings: $3,000
* * * * *
WebDesignLedger
URL: http://webdesignledger.com | Monthly Earnings: $3,000
* * * * *
CSS Remix
URL: http://cssremix.com | Monthly Earnings: $2,780
* * * * *
HongKiat
URL: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog | Monthly Earnings: $2,500
* * * * *
Spoon Graphics
URL: http://www.blog.spoongraphics.co.uk | Monthly Income: $2,400 (Plus Web Design Inquiries)
* * * * *
Creattica
URL: http://creattica.com | Monthly Earnings: $2,300
* * * * *
How They Make Their Money
Making money online is all about testing and experimenting, no one gets it 100% right the first time they try. For example when I first started my main website, I thought the only way to monetize it was with banner advertising. What’s great about some of these websites is that they have taken the typically monetization technique which is adding advertising banners to their website and then they realized there was other ways to add value which in return they could make money. For example FreelanceSwitch has a job board with a designer director and TutsPlus offers a premium membership offer more tutorials and resources.
It is very noticeable that nearly all of the above websites use the BuySellAds service to sell their advertising spaces. BuySellAds basically make it hassle free for website owners to sell advertising, they handle everything including finding the advertise, payments and customer service.
How You Can Do This Yourself?
I have been making money online for a few years now and have made a few big mistakes, my main one was thinking I should hire a programmer and create my owner software to run my website. Nearly all of the websites listed above run FREE software called WordPress which allows them to easily and quickly update their website with new content and advertising. Over at IncomeDiary I have created a FREE 7 day eCourse teaching how you can create your own blog just like PSDTUTS and make money from it.
To check out this eCourse, please click here!
To your success online,
Michael Dunlop
PS. Please remember that SOME of these numbers are just educated guesses and make not be 100% accurate.
PPS. If you have any websites to add to the list, or have a more accurate number then please comment below.
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Wallace
13. Jul, 2009
Smashing Magazine is the top one, no doubt.
It would be stunning if you can make $60K monthly from a blog only.
JohnONolan
13. Jul, 2009
Not convinced on the accuracy of all of those, but still an impressive list!
Keith
13. Jul, 2009
It’s amazing how some people, like Vitaly Friedman, can earn more in a month off a blog than some people make in a year.
Teacher earns: Avg. %53,000 / year
Smashing Magazine earns: Avg. $58,500 / month
Yikes! Nice list
Michael
13. Jul, 2009
Hey Keith…
That is exactly why I tell teachers they should teach online. So easy to take a skill and offer it online like SmashingMagazine has done with web design.
Thanks,
Michael
Keith
13. Jul, 2009
I’m just not sure how technical-savvy any of my teachers are
Henry
13. Jul, 2009
I would love to see an interview on the process of how Vitaly made Smashingmagazine, what it has become today.
Michael
13. Jul, 2009
Hello Henry,
So would I, Vitaly did confirm over a year ago to do a interview and after waiting for a year he emailed me saying he could do it.
Michael
Paul
13. Jul, 2009
Interesting, though I believe some of the figures are on the low side. Really should make more effort myself on my own websites. I did see you flitting about Twitter for info. Another decent little article by you all the same.
Matt Mickiewicz
13. Jul, 2009
Tutorial9 is for sale on Flippa and lists its revenue as $5000/month, so great job on the estimate:
http://flippa.com/auctions/70473/Tutorial9-net—Top-Site-in-Niche-Looking-for-Suitable-New-Owner
Bidding is currently at $46,000 !
Andy
13. Jul, 2009
Matt, You should buy it!
Michael
13. Jul, 2009
Hey Matt…
I know of Davids website, may put in a bid in the closing hours.
Michael
PS. Just sent ya a email.
James Paden
13. Jul, 2009
I don’t want to disclose exact figures, but my web design firm directory makes quite a bit more than some of these sites. I started Xemion back in 2005 and it’s been steadily growing sense. Just throwing my hat in the ring
Absolutely great list and post, thanks!
Michael Garmahis
13. Jul, 2009
My guess is that SmashingMag became popular by outsourcing their posts (or most of them). Just try to write some kind of “top 50″ post and you’ll see how much time does it take. SM publish such posts very often.
Second, some of these top web design sites are part of the same network so there’s no problem with promotion. They just promote each other content on social networks and their own sites.
Third, most of the posts are not original. I’ve seen a lot of complaints from small blogs about stealing their ideas. That means that yesterday small blog published original post which remained unnoticed and day later it goes viral from ‘Top Blog’ just without any link to original.
Sean Hodge
13. Jul, 2009
Hey,
Even though these are educated guesses, and don’t discuss the costs involved with running these sites, I still like this post a lot as it inspires people to blog more about design, which is great. Thx.
John
13. Jul, 2009
Great post. I really like where you have been going recently. Covering the business side of the web design niche is very interesting to me. Keep up the good work.
Best,
John
mersi
13. Jul, 2009
Nice post and thanks for the free article on how to become rich..always a pleasure
I am surprised that the Vandelay Design Blog is not on this list, because it is pretty popular and good..although maybe I missed it…I haven’t had my shot of coffffeeeee yet.
Will read the 7-day course and damn it (can I say this…) I will be on this list next year
Clemente aka kreativeKING
14. Jul, 2009
Outstanding the amount of revenue great blogs make. I hope to make my blog that popular soon. $500/ month from just blogging would be great in my opinion for myself lol.
Good Article
Karthikkumar
14. Jul, 2009
you have a nice site and it looks like you have the potential to do it. go for it bro !!
favSHARE
14. Jul, 2009
This article has been shared on favSHARE.net.
Alberto Villalobos
14. Jul, 2009
For me 700 USD would be good haha
warzazi
14. Jul, 2009
Great article !
ps: the new design is awesome !
Uday
14. Jul, 2009
Great info on blogging and design.
Alex
14. Jul, 2009
Very interesting article!
Charlotte
14. Jul, 2009
Great article and, of course, nice to know there’s hope for us all to make some money!
Oliver
14. Jul, 2009
Definitely an impressive article and interesting to see how much these websites manage to make. Great article as always and keep up the good work.
Brian
14. Jul, 2009
Stunning how much you actually can earn on a blog.
But smashingmagazine is so good, no wonder why.
Carson Shold
14. Jul, 2009
This is awesome! My friend and I just started a blog called The Happiness Machine, and are making it a long-term goal to get up on this list!
We are trying to make a niche of our own, too. Instead of just focusing on web design, “Our goal is to educate people as to how media functions as a marketing device, how people receive it, and how and why it is made. Essentially, we’re here to teach people media theory and production.”
I hope you guys can stop by and check it out (just click on my name) – we have a new post coming up a little bit later today!
Cheers
Michael Lynch
14. Jul, 2009
You’ll see The Happiness Machine (www.thehappinessmachine.com) on this list in the next few years.
Keith
14. Jul, 2009
How about a ‘Top 20 web design sites with the most expenses’
Gopal Raju
14. Jul, 2009
Really interesting!
Gopal Raju
productivedreams,
twitter.com/gopalraju
roc21
14. Jul, 2009
Very good article, we have to learn from them
Derrick
20. Jul, 2009
Great List. I am inspired. I am about to start a new blog here in Africa. I hope to be profitable.
Good luck to all website owners….We need money
Cheers!
Me
21. Jul, 2009
Typo in first sentence: think the best inspiration to do better in anything, weather it’s your own business or life is seeing someone who has already done what you want to achieve.
Should say whether. Unless you’re talking about snow.
I also disagree with this sentence. True inspiration is figuring out how to do something that hasn’t been done yet. Looking at other work may get creative juices flowing but there are many other ways to do that.
sunil
22. Jul, 2009
when i will come into this list ?
http://www.myhtmlworld.com
Bjorgvin
22. Jul, 2009
Interesting article indeed.
You might also want to take into account affiliate programs that some of these sites promote. I can say for myself that I earn more through affiliate promotions than BuySellAds. So in a nutshell, these site’s earnings can be much higher in reality.
sidd
23. Jul, 2009
Excellent. I think u r the best
webinky
23. Jul, 2009
Personnally I found the numbers very disappointing
even for big names such as SmashinApps or WebDesignerDepot the numbers are under 4K
Alex Vorn
26. Jul, 2009
Hi! Great article, I see that you just calculated the money the make on banners but what about site that don’t use banners such as woothemes.com or themeforest.net ???
Andy
26. Jul, 2009
We took an educated guess
Alex Vorn
26. Jul, 2009
I don’t understand what you mean…
çileklisüt
04. Aug, 2009
Waaauuuwww!!!
)
Patricio
16. Aug, 2009
How much webdesigndev.com? xD
Sara
20. Aug, 2009
Very interesting and informative article, thanks for sharing and best of luck
clickforwebdesign
28. Aug, 2009
would like to suggest http://www.clickforwebdesign.com/ for this category
kawasaki service manuals
09. Sep, 2009
What an interesting place, i have bookmarked your site for future referrence
Sadie
16. Dec, 2009
This is a good article, I always use blogs as more of a value ad than an actual way of making money, we often outsource content which I imagine a lot of these sites do, would be really interested to see the profit margins of these sites minus, development, advertising, content writing etc but good article non the less
Tangy Media
11. Jan, 2010
Very inspiring list – the common knowledge that ‘Content is King’ is alive and kicking as we move into 2010. Nice article