💡 Overview
UI kits and templates are pre-designed user interface elements, including complete landing page layouts, page sections, and UI elements like buttons and menus. They are frequently used by designers, developers, and entrepreneurs who want to create a website or app quickly and easily.
By creating and selling UI kits and templates, you can tap into a growing market of people looking for high-quality design resources that can save them time and money.
⭐️ Examples
Many people sell themes through marketplaces such as ThemeForest, UI8, or CreativeTim. However, many designers also sell their themes through their own websites or in marketplaces specific to the platform they built on, such as Shopify or Webflow.
You can check out the Shopify theme store here. There are also other themes for Shopify that include extra functionality that replaces existing apps like Debutify and Booster. With these extra functionalities, they sell via subscription which means monthly recurring revenue (MRR).
If you’ve ever used Webflow you would also know that you can get full themes, UI kits or cloneables from their website.
Flowbase is also a great example of how UI kits and UI design can be done successfully. They have a free tier that offers basic UI components for Webflow & Figma as well as a Chrome Extension. For $39/m you unlock a much larger premium components library that’s constantly added to and increased limits on component usage.
🛠 Niche Ideas
When it comes to creating UI kits and templates, there are loads of different platforms & niches you can focus on. Here are some you could target:
Platforms:
Framer.com (becoming very popular)
Shopify
Carrd.co (simple one-page sites)
Bubble
Webflow
Figma (UI designing tool)
Builder.io (up-and-comer)
Elementor
Squarespace
EditorX
Niches:
Info-products
SaaS
E-commerce / DTC
One product stores
Restaurants
Healthcare
Lawyers
Review Sites
Affiliate landing pages
Finance/Accounting
Wellness
Fitness
🚀 How to Build & Grow It
Firstly, you’ll either want to be good at UI design or be willing to learn it. If you aren’t you could always hire someone from freelance/design marketplaces to build these templates for you.
Putting your kits and templates on the relevant marketplaces for extra exposure is a good option with minimal effort..
Alternatively, you can create your own template store and run paid ads via Search & Social.
Create content for Behance, Dribbble, Pinterest and Savee.it to show off your designs and link back to your website.
You can also buy a database (from BuiltWith) of people that have sites on platforms you’ve built templates for or even old website builders.
Create Instagram & TikTok content for UI design (speed runs, concepts, tips & tricks, etc) like this page and this page. Xander Whitehurst has built a massive following on TikTok offering fast UI tips for Figma and now sells courses, bootcamps & memberships.
Create and post on Twitter. You can give away freebies to grow your Twitter. I would redesign existing landing pages from well-known companies and make them better as well as post design speed runs and your thoughts on certain UI/Design topics. Find other UI designers on Twitter (check out Oddit) and see what type of content they’re posting and use that as inspiration.
Once you’ve built a small audience/authority and have enoguh sales to validate your designs you should look at ways to build MRR (monthly recurring revenue). Can you offer something like Flowbase or Debutify but for another platform or a particular niche?
👍 Tips
Focus on one platform (like Shopify, Webflow, etc) or design tool (Figma, XD)
Offer implementation or custom design services as well to get extra revenue
Look for ways to earn recurring revenue (Paid Newsletter, Shopify Theme with Apps, UI Kit Subscription, etc)
Offer free UI kits, templates or components to build a bigger audience and more authority. Here’s a good video on why you should offer things for free.
📚 Helpful Resources
https://www.usegalileo.ai/ (AI designer)
https://uizard.io/ (turns screenshots into editable files)
Fiverr (marketplace for talent)
Figma (free and feature-packed design software)
Figma to HTML (turn any website into an editable Figma doc)
Gumroad (sell your themes, UI kits, etc for “free”)
