Thanks for this. I really love "revenue report" type posts, especially when they're so open about where the money comes from and what the actual numbers are.

Pretty impressive sales, especially considering the product page's buy button is below the fold! Seems like a very questionable design from a conversion standpoint.

I like how the prices are all in the $80-$200 range, it shows that there's value in a good design.

Sometimes I wonder how the world would be different if iPhone app developers had originally priced their apps at $10-$50 instead of $1-$5.

This was a conscious decision at Shopify. The prices can only be either free or $80+ . It works great.

If I recall, on launch day of the iPhone App Store, many of the "Premium" versions of apps were in the $4.99 to $9.99 range, but prices quickly bottomed out.

How much did you pay the friend to design the theme?

It was was a couple thousand dollars up front (billed hourly, because we didn't know how long it would take), and he also gets a % revenue split. I assume the risk, he still makes out well in the end. :)

I wonder if the Demand Media algorithm could predict which themes people are searching for but not finding?

It seems that the fees have changed. In the article she says shopify keeps 20%. On their site it says:

"You will receive 50% of the profits. You will receive 70% (an additional 20%) of each sale if you agree to provide full support for your theme."

Pre-expense "profit" is called revenue.

Thanks. Just wanted to make it clear. Because technically revenue in this instance could have referred to total before Shopify takes their cut...which was not my intention. In addition, most developers that release a theme are not actually paying someone else to built it, thus they are not in my position of paying expenses and therefore it would be profit (and Shopify refers to it as such in the partner account).