5 Of The Most Successful WordPress Businesses.
That's why some people have a hard time taking Word Press seriously as a line of business.
After all, how you can go to make money with something that anyone can use for free?
If that's you or your company, you'll first need to note that Word Press not only controls the websites of some of the world's most famous brands, individuals, and businesses but now powers more than 25% of the entire Internet.
Indeed, Word Press-related products and services have become a serious marketplace. How bad is that? Try to make a multi-million dollar serious. In order to dispel concerns about Word Press as a business sector and to highlight the types of opportunities out there, this article will shed light on some of the most influential and successful Word Press companies and ventures to date.
We're going to look at who they are, their business models and, if available, the revenues they're buying. The goal is to show you what the platform can do and encourage you to do the same. Get ready to blow your mind.
Successful WordPress Business Selling Products
Every single company mentioned below generates almost entirely revenue from WordPress products or services.
Some of them have other irons in the fire, but the platform still represents the core of their business. While the list is not in any particular order, some ranking is unavoidable, as you will see from the company taking first place.
Automattic :
Founded in 2005 by Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress, Automattic is one of the world's most known WordPress brands and industry leaders. Okay, for good reason.
First and foremost, Automatic is the parent company of WordPress.com. But that's not all of it. Plugins and products such as Jetpack, Akismet, Gravatar, WooCommerce and other businesses that they have acquired over time also belong to Automa.
For a better impression, just take a look at their homepage:
The company is also one of the largest contributors to WordPress.org, bbPress, and BuddyPress.
Although the exact revenue figures are not available, Automattic received $160 million in funding in 2014, putting its (provisional) valuation at $1.16 billion. Those figures are particularly impressive if you keep in mind that they run a blogging platform that sees 15.8 billion page views per month.
No organization is even similar to Automattic in terms of size, sales, experience, and power.
Envato :
Australia-based Envato runs the ThemeForest and CodeCanyon marketplaces as well as the Tuts+ tutorial and course network. Our properties are the second most popular locations for WordPress themes and plugins. In fact, ThemeForest was the 88th most trafficked website in the world in 2014 (according to Alexa.com).
Although Envato still deals with items outside of WordPress, most of them are real.
Elegant Theme :
Elegant Themes is a company with eight years of experience in the field of premium theme and plugin industry. Many of their products, such as the Divi theme, have become household names in the WordPress universe.
Exposure to more than 80 themes and plugins has a price tag of $69-$89 for an annual subscription or a one-time fee of $249 for lifetime exposure. Of over 300,000 daily clients, I'm going to let you do that.
Founded by Syed Balkhi, a well-known figure in the industry, Awesome Motive is the parent company behind WPBeginner, the largest free web site for WordPress tutorials.
In addition, their portfolio includes the ThemeLab theme segment as well as services such as Soliloquy, Envira Gallery and OptinMonster.
CopyBlogger :Â
What began as a (WordPress-powered) copywriting and blogging blog has now become a media empire.
CopyBlogger owns StudioPress, which makes the popular Genesis Framework and also offers WordPress hosting via Synthesis. In 2014, the corporation had almost $10 million in revenue. This number is likely to have increased following Rainmaker's launch of the Building Co Forum last year.
WP Engine :
Founded in Austin, Texas in 2010, WP Engine has become one of WordPress ' most popular managed hosting solutions. With more than 300 employees, their focus is on safety, state-of-the-art technology and scalability.
Big-name clients like SoundCloud, AMD, Buffer, and Foursquare trust the company that is set to become the market leader in managed WordPress hosting.
At the beginning of last year, WP Engine raised another $23 million in funding, putting its valuation at $120 million. Besides their hosting business, WP Engine is also behind Torque — a publication you are currently reading.
Yoast :
This started as the online presence of CEO Joost de Valk is now one of the most recognized names in WordPress. I'm thinking about Team Yoast, of course. Their fame is largely due to their flagship Yoast SEO plugin, which is not only one of the most popular SEO solutions for WordPress, but also one of the most popular WordPress plugins of all time.
(Read the comprehensive Yoast SEO guide here)
Yoast also offers a number of other plugins used by millions of people, as well as site reviews, ebooks, and consulting services for major clients all over the world. All that besides running one of the world's leading WordPress SEO blogs, of course.
While their finances are not exactly public, Yoast's ordering revenues are more than $2 million, with growth rates of 80 to 100 percent over the last five years.
