WP Engine: Top WordPress plug-ins and themes generated more than a quarter of a billion dollars since 2010

The popular website content management system WordPress — which powers more than a quarter of all websites — has given birth to a thriving cottage industry of plug-ins and visual themes.

But it’s a pretty big cottage. In a report recently released by WordPress hosting service provider WP Engine, plug-ins and themes have generated more than a quarter of a billion dollars since 2010. A bit over $267 million, in fact, breaking down to about $232 million for approximately 5,500 themes and over $35 million for 3,800 plug-ins.

The Austin, Texas-based company also shared with us the top dozen WordPress plug-ins on its own platform — with the popular Yoast SEO (which we use) taking more than a third of installs.

From the WP Engine report

The report pulled its revenue data from two leading marketplaces — ThemeForest for themes and CodeCanyon for plug-ins. On average, that amounts to about $8,300 per plug-in and about $37,000 per theme.

The most popular plug-ins, unsurprisingly, are those in the Utilities category, with about $7.7 million in revenue, followed by Interface Elements ($7 million), Ecommerce ($4.5 million), and Galleries ($2.2 million).

Among themes, Corporate ones are tops at $75 million, followed by Creative ($56 million), Blog/Magazine ($28 million), and eCommerce ($18 million). The top two revenue-generating authors for plug-ins are wpbakery and themepunch in Germany, while Austria’s Kriesi and the US’s GoodLayers are top rainmakers for themes.

And here are the top dozen plug-ins for WordPress sites serviced by WP Engine, followed by their percentage of total installs:

• Yoast SEO
  35.16%
• Akismet
  24.86%
• Gravity Forms
  22.53%
• Contact Form 7
  22.18%
• WordPress Importer
  17.39%
• Revolution Slider
  10.90%
• Jetpack by WordPress.com
  10.75%
• WPBakery Visual Composer
  10.53%
• Advanced Custom Fields
  9.93%
• WooCommerce
  9.01%
• Duplicate Post
  8.30%
• Regenerate Thumbnails
  7.81%

About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.