“A good system shortens the road to the goal.”
❓ What You’ll Learn
- How to build micro-templates?
- How to get early customers?
- How to make $100,000 in 1 month with Notion templates?
- Who made $144,000 last year selling Notion templates?
- How to find a template idea?
- How to lower customer acquisition costs?
- How to build an email list?
- How to get others to market your Notion templates?
- How to lower buyer fatigue?
- How to build custom templates?
- How to sell high-ticket, custom workspaces?
- Who builds custom Notion workspaces for $9,995?
- How to add value with micro-consulting?
- How to personalize Notion?
- What SaaS products were inspired by Notion?
- How to build all-in-one templates?
- How to differentiate?
🔍 Problem
You need to organize your life and work.
💡 Solution
Notion templates help you manage notes, tasks and projects. All in one place.
🏁 Players
Notion Templates
- Lifestyle Tracker • Focus on things that matter by Rosie Sherry
- Property Listing • Property portfolio for real estate agencies by Santosh
- Freelance OS • Track your projects and clients by Easlo
- Task Architect • Task management system by Pascio
- Notion Agency Kit • Launch and scale your agency business by Matt Bio
- Knowledge Hub Template • Collect and save important resources by Marie Poulin
- Ultimate Brain • Organize your notes, tasks and projects by Thomas Frank
- Airbnb Super Pack • Property manager for Airbnb hosts by Alejandra Cienfuegos
🛠 How to Build Notion Templates
- Offer micro-templates. These are simple templates that focus on 1 job-to-be-done.
- Psclla made Food Diary to track eating habits.
- Ithakka made Risk Register to log project risks.
- Hamza made Fiverr Quick Responses and Project Questionnaire.
- Red Gregory made a Pomodoro Planner, Podcast Calendar and more.
- Build in public to earn trust and early customers.
- Victor Bigfield is building Buildearn OS in public.
- Pascio shares how he made $144,000 with Notion templates.
- Thomas Frank shares strategies to make $100,000 in a month with Notion templates.
- Find inspiration in others’ work. Take the guesswork out of what to build.
- Smoul based Grow with Naval Ravikant on Naval’s mental models.
- Wesley Anna based Ultimate Notion Dashboard on templates by other creators.
- Fernando Cordeiro based User Research Playbook on The Mom Test and Deploy Empathy.
🌱 How to Grow Notion Templates
- Offer freemium templates to lower customer acquisition costs.
- Ismail offers free and paid versions of GTD Dashboard.
- Julian Paul offers 2 free templates as part of Bootstrap OS.
- Rosidssoy offers free and paid versions of Finance Tracker.
- Offer free templates as lead magnets to build an email list.
- Ben Issen offers his Invoice Template for free.
- Matt Bio offers Weekly Habit Tracker and Project Proposal for free.
- Sarthak Sharma offers Basic Employee Management System for free.
- Use affiliate marketing to get others to share your templates.
- Matt Bio lets you become an affiliate for his Notion templates.
- Jess Lozano offers a 20% commission for selling Ultimate Agent Hub.
- Pascio says his best affiliates made $12,000 for sharing his templates.
💰 How to Monetize Notion Templates
- Offer one-time pricing to lower buyer fatigue.
- Bootstrap OS costs $53.
- Finance Tracker costs $19.
- Obsidian Life OS costs $45.
- Build custom templates for a fixed fee.
- William Nutt builds smart workspaces.
- iNotion offers custom workspaces for up to $1,289.
- Miha makes cinematic videos for Notion templates.
- Sev Estil helps businesses build custom workspaces.
- Rames Quinerie builds custom templates for up to $9,995.
- Tem Nugmanov helps to optimize Notion workspaces with Optemization.
- Upsell a 1:1 version with personalized help. Done-with-you is more valuable than do-it-yourself.
- Davis W. Frank charges $69 for a call on using 1-1 Tracker.
- Triz charges $69 for a 45-minute call on using ProjectOS Pro.
- Ben Taylor upsells a custom Notion CRM setup with 1:1 consulting.
🔮 Predictions
- We’ll see more custom widgets for personalizing Notion templates.
- Blocs offers Pomodoro, water and habit trackers.
- Notion Plus offers dozens of widgets for custom templates.
- Widgets.so helps to boost productivity with custom widgets.
- Kairo Notion Blocks offers colorful time, habit and goal tracking widgets.
- SaaS products will be inspired by Notion. They will try to be as simple and elegant.
- eFounders built folk, a CRM inspired by Notion. They officially compare the two.
- Marie Martens and Filip Minev built Tally. They wanted to build “Notion of form builders”.
- Christophe Pasquier is building Slite. He wanted to build a knowledge management tool that is easier than Notion.
- We’ll see more all-in-one templates. These are operating systems for your work, business and life.
- HiveMind is a template for early-stage startups.
- UX Chunks is a manual for designing great products.
- Student OS has everything you need for your academic career.
- Web Designer Hub helps to manage web design projects in one place.
- Small Business OS helps to build, grow and operate small businesses.
- Newsletter Operating System helps to curate, write, grow and monetize newsletters.
😠 Haters
“Templates have limitations. It’s better to find a SaaS for your needs.”
Most SaaS are closed-source businesses. They too have limitations. But you can’t tailor their interface to your needs.
“It’s hard to differentiate.”
While the core is the same. You can add a “service” to stand out. It’s harder to copy a 1:1 call, cohort-based course or community.
“These templates are easy to clone.”
Second Brain is a popular template type. Easlo sold 4,640 copies. Thomas Frank made $760,000 with Ultimate Brain. Simon sold 1,902 copies of the Life OS bundle. Do not fear the competition. Distribution is what matters.
🔗 Links
- Making $500,000 with Notion Templates • The thread behind this report.
- Building a Report on Notion Templates • The tweet behind this report.
- Selling Notion Templates • Beginner’s guide on making and marketing Notion templates.
- $100,000 MRR Selling Notion Templates • Thomas Frank talking about building and marketing Notion templates.
📁 Related Reports
- Audience-First Products • Validate products, build distribution and stay accountable.
- Micro-Education Businesses • Micro-education helps you learn new skills fast.
- Personal Brands • It is what people say about you when you are not in the room.
- Build in Public • Make a habit of sharing struggles, wins, milestones, questions and lessons.
- Digital Products • Share your knowledge in a scalable way.
🙏 Thanks
Thanks to Bernhard Friedrichs, Avy Leghziel, Thomas Demesmaeker, Santosh Kumar Srinivas, Kimon Skarlatos, Sebastian, Sagar Shah, Julien Collet and Trilok Hebbur. We had a great time jamming on this report.
✏️ Emin researched and wrote this report. Dru researched and edited this report.
📈 What else?
Trends PRO #0144 — Notion Templates has more insights.
What you’ll get:
- 24 Notion Template Examples (200% More)
- 9 Ways to Build Notion Templates (200% More)
- 9 Ways to Grow Notion Templates (200% More)
- 12 Ways to Monetize Notion Templates (300% More)
- 8 Predictions (167% More)
- 11 Links (175% More)
With Trends Pro you’ll learn:
- (📈 Pro) How to stay top of mind?
- (📈 Pro) How to serve customers with unique needs?
- (📈 Pro) How to make sales easier?
- (📈 Pro) How to help users get to value faster?
- (📈 Pro) How to turn your knowledge into a template?
- (📈 Pro) How to signal expertise?
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- (📈 Pro) Why should you host giveaways?
- (📈 Pro) How to find your ideal customers?
- (📈 Pro) How to upsell higher-end products?
- (📈 Pro) How to turn a Notion template into an online course?
- (📈 Pro) How to turn your Notion expertise into an online course?
- (📈 Pro) How to get a higher average order value?
- (📈 Pro) How to tempt prospects to buy?
- (📈 Pro) Who made $500,000 with Notion templates?
- (📈 Pro) How to create urgency?
- (📈 Pro) Who sold a Notion website builder for $300,000?
- (📈 Pro) How to build dynamic Notion templates?
- (📈 Pro) How to automate Notion with the “button” block?
- (📈 Pro) What is one of the most popular Notion template types?
- (📈 Pro) What are 110 Notion template niches?
- (📈 Pro) How an agency automated its work with Notion?
- And much more…
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