Source: https://divicake.com/blog/selling-divi-websites-and-child-themes/ [Blog](https://divicake.com/blog/)/[Blogging](https://divicake.com/category/blogging/) # How to Make Money Selling Divi Websites and Child Themes By Divi Cake·29 September 2026·Updated 5 September 2026·10 min read Selling Divi websites and child themes We may earn a commission from affiliate links in this post. [Disclosure policy](https://divicake.com/affiliate-disclosure-policy/) On this page - [Building Divi Websites for Clients](https://divicake.com#building-divi-websites-for-clients) - [Skills you’ll need](https://divicake.com#skills-youll-need) - [What you need to get started](https://divicake.com#what-you-need-to-get-started) - [Finding clients](https://divicake.com#finding-clients) - [Growing the business](https://divicake.com#growing-the-business) - [Selling Websites You Own](https://divicake.com#selling-websites-you-own) - [Build them or buy them](https://divicake.com#build-them-or-buy-them) - [What a website is worth](https://divicake.com#what-a-website-is-worth) - [Finding buyers](https://divicake.com#finding-buyers) - [Transferring ownership](https://divicake.com#transferring-ownership) - [Selling Divi Child Themes](https://divicake.com#selling-divi-child-themes) - [Design for a niche](https://divicake.com#design-for-a-niche) - [Where to get ideas](https://divicake.com#where-to-get-ideas) - [What goes in the package](https://divicake.com#what-goes-in-the-package) - [Naming and testing](https://divicake.com#naming-and-testing) - [The sales page](https://divicake.com#the-sales-page) - [Pricing](https://divicake.com#pricing) - [The demo site](https://divicake.com#the-demo-site) - [Support and updates](https://divicake.com#support-and-updates) - [Ending Thoughts](https://divicake.com#ending-thoughts) Three of the most common ways to earn a living with [Divi](https://divicake.com/go/divi/) start from the same place: you build a site. What changes is who ends up owning it. You can build for a client, build to sell the finished site to a buyer, or build once and sell the design over and over as a child theme. This article covers all three — what each one needs and the parts people usually get wrong. Six steps to sell a Divi build: client work, websites and child themes None of them are get-rich-quick, and all of them have low start-up costs and scale from a side project into a full-time business. For the wider view of what else Divi can earn you, see [How to Make Money with Divi](https://divicake.com/blog/make-money-with-divi/). ## Building Divi Websites for Clients Web development is in high demand. Plenty of people and companies need new websites or old ones rebuilt, the barrier to entry is low, and the income potential is significant. There is competition, but there are a lot of customers and every designer is different. It’s entirely possible to run a web development company on Divi alone, and many have — the builder is intuitive, most adjustments come from the built-in controls, and it’s expandable through plugins and code when they aren’t enough. ### Skills you’ll need You need access to two skill sets — not necessarily inside your own head. The build side is WordPress, Divi, layout design, color theory, HTML, CSS, copywriting, image editing, eCommerce, and SEO. The business side is planning, pricing, marketing, communication, project management, and accounting. Anything you’re weak at can be handed to a freelancer or partner. For the build side, see [7 Best Resources to Learn Divi](https://divicake.com/blog/learn-divi/). ### What you need to get started An Elegant Themes license – you can [purchase an Elegant Themes membership](https://divicake.com/go/elegant-themes-discount/) by the year or as a lifetime license. It includes Divi, Extra, Bloom, Monarch, the Divi Builder plugin for non-Divi sites, support, and updates, plus a tool to create and manage license keys for client sites. Name each key so you know whose it is; deleting it later switches off updates and layout importing for that site. A defined set of services – decide exactly what you provide and don’t try to offer everything. Start with what you’re comfortable with and add as you grow: brochure-style sites first, then eCommerce with WooCommerce or education sites with LifterLMS. A toolbox – rather than building from scratch every time, collect child themes, layouts, plugins, code snippets, graphics, and icons that give you a head start. Your own site and a portfolio – your site shows the quality of your work and holds your examples and testimonials. To fill the portfolio before you have paying clients, build a few free or cheap sites for non-profits or people you know, and make it clear you won’t keep working for free. ### Finding clients Start with people you know. Plenty of people want websites and are more comfortable working with someone they know, and if they don’t need one, one of them probably knows someone who does. Local businesses are the next step out — many would hire a designer if one came to them. Be useful in public. Contribute to groups and communities. Don’t pitch to everyone, but make it easy to find out that you build websites. Answer questions and be helpful, and people will think of you when they need a site. Tutorials on a blog or YouTube channel do the same over a longer horizon; paid ads work faster. Meetups and WordCamps get you on the radar of companies looking to hire, and other developers send referrals. Ask, the moment a project ends. Ask for a testimonial you can use on your site, in your newsletter, and in ads, plus Google and Facebook reviews. Then ask for referrals, which hands you a list of people to pitch to next. ### Growing the business Be the kind of business you’d want to hire. Meet your deadlines, deliver professional work, and never make a promise you can’t keep — over-deliver instead. Choose a niche to start with. It makes you faster at a specific kind of site, and the clients who need that kind are more likely to come to you. Expand the niche as you scale, then add services: training, SEO, maintenance, eCommerce, graphic design, video, content creation, and hosting. ## Selling Websites You Own Selling websites is harder than building them for clients. Finding the right buyer is difficult and agreeing on a value is more difficult still. Done properly, though, it can be lucrative, and there are services that handle most of the hard parts for you. ### Build them or buy them If you build the site yourself, you go through the full launch: a niche, a profitable domain name, a host, WordPress and Divi, then the design and build. How far you take it decides what it’s worth. A barebones site is ready for content but has no audience and no income — faster to build, worth much less, because the buyer still has to turn it into a business. A fully developed site with content, an audience, an email list, and authority takes far longer but can be priced against actual income. The other route is buying a site to resell: research the niche, its authority, audience, and income potential, then negotiate. You’re looking for undervalued sites you can improve with better design, new features, and a bigger audience. That takes time and money before the site is ready to sell — though redesigning is the easy part when you have Divi. ### What a website is worth A lot goes into a website’s value, and none of the online valuation tools account for all of it — they’re a starting point, not an answer. The easiest formula is to take average monthly earnings over the past 12 months and multiply by a multiplier. Knowing which multiplier is the hard part: higher traffic in a profitable niche justifies a higher one, most fall between 10 and 40, and 30 is a reasonable all-around figure. What moves it: the niche (audience size, competition, what sets the site apart), site authority (backlinks, age, consistency of income), the audience (traffic, social following, email list), income potential (a niche full of affiliate programs is worth more than one with none), and content published consistently. ### Finding buyers The more valuable the site, the longer the sale takes, because buyers do more research and there’s more to negotiate. Use a brokerage. A brokerage handles every part of the sale — finding the buyer, setting the price, and handing the site over. They charge a premium but typically bring in more than the alternatives. The Empire Flippers homepage, showing its valuation tool and marketplace for selling online businesses [Empire Flippers](https://empireflippers.com/sell-your-site/) is a popular one, with a valuation tool, a marketplace, and material to walk you through the process. Sites have to meet minimum earnings requirements to be listed, but they do most of the work for you. List on a marketplace. Marketplaces put your site in front of people already looking to buy. You set the price and handle the sale; they take a cut. The Flippa homepage, a marketplace for buying and selling websites and online businesses [Flippa](https://flippa.com/) is a popular choice, with tools to price and list your site, searchable categories, and a detailed stats page per listing so buyers can decide and send an offer. Sell it yourself. You keep more of the money and do more of the work — pricing, finding buyers, closing, and transferring ownership. Higher prices are harder to get and buyers harder to find. If you’re selling several sites, build a website for the business and promote it. ### Transferring ownership Handing a website over involves a lot of technical steps: hosting, domain, email, affiliate links, subscriptions, and assets. Spell every detail out in the sales contract — a broker will handle most of it for you. That includes licensing for the themes and plugins the site uses, Divi included. Two options work: have the buyer purchase their own Elegant Themes membership and swap your license key for theirs, or leave your key in place with the buyer clearly understanding they don’t own a membership. For third-party Divi products, read each license agreement and contact the developer if the terms aren’t clear. ## Selling Divi Child Themes Child themes are a different model again: build the design once, sell it many times. Developers buy them to save time, and site owners buy them because they want a quality starting point. ### Design for a niche A child theme can be specialized to a genre or built as a multipurpose theme for any kind of site. Pick a niche and focus on what it needs — even most multipurpose themes end up aimed at service businesses. Choose colors, fonts, and images that suit the genre, then add real value for it: a multi-purpose theme doesn’t become a dentist’s child theme because it uses photos of dentist offices. Research actual dentist sites and find the features unique to them. ### Where to get ideas Template shops and design sites are the best sources. Stores like Envato Market and Creative Market have themes with demos, the WordPress theme directory has thousands more, and even competing platforms have templates worth studying. Pinterest is good for design ideas — make a board just for inspiration. Don’t limit yourself to Divi child themes, or even to WordPress themes; the platform a design was built for doesn’t matter. And don’t copy anyone’s work — take ideas from several designs and put your own spin on the result. ### What goes in the package Design the child theme as a complete website, then export everything that will ship with it. Every theme is different, but most need: - Pages and menus – a design for every page the site could need, from the landing page through to account and login pages, plus the navigation. - Theme Builder templates – headers, footers, and body templates for posts, category and archive pages, product and course pages, and the 404. - A sample post – one example of each custom post type so users can see how it’s meant to work. - Customizer settings and Divi theme options – export both if you changed them. - Widgets – include them, and link to any plugin that creates them. - Icons and Bloom and Monarch styling – add new icons to the zip, and style both plugins if they fit the theme. - Images – only ones licensed for redistribution. Otherwise use placeholders that show the ideal image size for each spot. - Plugins – tell the user which are required, and don’t bundle premium versions unless you have an agreement with the publisher. - Documentation – a detailed PDF covering installation and any unique features, pointing at the docs for included plugins. All of it gets zipped into a single file. For the mechanics of that, see [How To Package a Divi Child Theme for Sale](https://divicake.com/blog/how-to-package-a-divi-child-theme-for-sale/). ### Naming and testing Pick a name that’s catchy and makes sense for the genre — then check that no other WordPress theme already uses it. If one does, WordPress will tell your users that “their” theme has an update available, and running it will overwrite your child theme’s files on their site. Then test. Upload the theme to a demo site and follow your own instructions step by step, both to confirm everything works and to catch anything you forgot to document. Check the result on as many devices, screen sizes, and browsers as you can. ### The sales page Write a product description that covers the genre and the features that matter most. Look at the descriptions of your favorite child themes as models, and focus on the theme’s real value rather than things that come standard with Divi. You’ll also need screenshots. A mockup of the theme shown across several devices does the job. [Am I Responsive](https://ui.dev/amiresponsive) is a good online option — enter your demo site’s URL and capture the screenshot. ### Pricing There’s no perfect answer, because every child theme is different. Price too cheap and it reads as low quality; price too high and it gets ignored, while the people who do buy arrive with high expectations. The easiest method is to find child themes with similar quality and features that sell well, use them as a model, then ask what you’d be comfortable paying for yours. ### The demo site Buyers need to see the theme working, so build a demo — a multi-site install or a stand-alone site. It should look like a finished website with high-quality images, and it helps to use several images from the same set. Free libraries have fewer sets and get used on a lot of websites. [Shutterstock](https://www.shutterstock.com/) is a popular premium option; [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/) has thousands of royalty-free images that need no attribution, and [Pixabay](https://pixabay.com/) has a large free library too. One rule: if your child theme is sold through shops as well as your own site, don’t put purchase buttons in the demo. That routes buyers through your call to action and costs the sale to shops that spent time and money promoting your theme. ### Support and updates Decide what support you’re offering and make it easy to find on your sales page and in your documentation. Put the support email in the docs and on a support page on your site. You can outsource support, but stay on top of it either way. Don’t make updates automatic — users can lose customizations they’ve added. Ship a changelog that says what each update includes, and change the version number so it’s clear the theme has been updated. To go deeper than an article can, [Site School](https://thedesignspace.co/courses/) covers building a website from start to finish and applies the same concepts to creating and selling child themes. ## Ending Thoughts Building sites for clients is the easiest of the three to start: demand is high, costs are low, no degree or certification is required, and it can grow into a six-figure income run alone or with a team. Selling websites carries the most risk. Spotting a site that will sell and then raising its value takes real skill, it needs a meaningful investment up front, and the site might not sell at all. Research the niche before you commit. Child themes sit in between: they take practice to produce well, but the design is built once and sold many times. We want to hear from you. Do you build, sell, or package Divi websites and child themes? Let us know what tips you’d add in the comments. ## Written by Divi Cake Divi 5 tutorials, layouts and fixes from the team that builds Divi sites every week. - [About Divi Cake](https://divicake.com/about/) ## Get the Divi Cake newsletter New Divi tutorials and Divi Cake product news, by email. First name (optional)Email Company website SubscribeSubscribeSubscribe Unsubscribe any time. [Privacy policy](https://divicake.com/privacy/) The sign-up form needs JavaScript for its spam check. Almost done. Click the link in the email we just sent to confirm your subscription. If you are already subscribed, there is nothing more to do. ## Submit a comment Comments are read before they appear. Your email is not published. Comment NameEmail Company website Submit commentSubmit commentSubmit comment The comment form needs JavaScript for its spam check. Thanks. 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