Templates & Presets
Reusable digital products like themes, UI kits, presets, and template libraries.
What Templates & Presets are
Templates and presets are reusable digital products that customers buy once and apply to their own projects: website themes, design UI kits, document and spreadsheet templates, photo presets, video LUTs, and more. A template business sells the same file many times, so it can generate income with very low ongoing costs.
As assets, template businesses are valued on sales volume, catalog size, the strength of the distribution channel (an audience, a store, or a marketplace presence), and how evergreen the products are. A recognized brand or a large existing customer base adds meaningful value.
Common examples
Most expensive in history
Notable, publicly reported sales that shaped this asset class. These are historical market examples, not Emark transactions.
| Asset | Price | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Envato (acquired by Shutterstock)Home of ThemeForest and large template marketplaces. | $245M | 2024 |
| Creative Market (acquired by Dribbble/Tiny)Marketplace for design assets and templates. | Undisclosed | 2020 |
| Pixelmator team (acquired by Apple)Design-tool and asset maker; shows strategic interest in the space. | Undisclosed | 2024 |
Digital template marketplaces grew rapidly in the 2010s as more people needed professional-looking design without hiring a designer. Creators built real businesses selling the same files repeatedly, and marketplaces aggregated demand at scale.
The category's scale became clear when large template and creative-asset marketplaces themselves were acquired, valuing the aggregated catalogs and creator communities in the hundreds of millions.
Average prices
Single product / small shop
$1K – $25K
A few products or a modest catalog and audience.
Established template brand
$25K – $500K
Recognized catalog with steady, evergreen sales.
Marketplace / catalog
$500K+
Large catalogs, creator networks, or marketplace scale.
Individual templates often sell for a few dollars to a few hundred dollars each, while template businesses are valued on a multiple of profit. Evergreen products, brand recognition, and an owned audience raise the price.
Frequently asked questions
Can you really build a business selling templates?
Yes. Because the same file is sold repeatedly at very low marginal cost, a popular template or catalog can produce steady, high-margin income.
What makes a template business more valuable?
Evergreen demand, a recognizable brand, an owned audience or email list, and a diversified catalog that doesn't depend on a single product or platform.
Related categories
Emark is in beta
A marketplace for templates & presets and more
Emark is building a place to discover, value, and transact digital assets like these. Explore the marketplace preview or join the early cohort.