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%

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech Today. Staff authors are listed here.

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.