In under 2 years, this is my income on Etsy selling spreadsheet templates (Google Sheets + Excel).

And I’m not a spreadsheet expert by any means.

But I do know how to find digital products that are in demand, and will help people to save time on something that would typically take them much longer to do.

I haven’t seen a lot of people talking about this, so I thought I would share my best tips with you (assuming you’re here to start a new stream of passive income for yourself, which digital products are excellent for):

1. I use eRank to find low competition, high demand keywords on Etsy.

If you’re opening a new shop or if your shop hasn’t had many sales yet, the fastest way to gain traction is by making something a lot of people are searching for…but that not a lot of people are selling yet.

eRank is also super affordable compared to some other Etsy keyword tools, and it really gives you all that you’ll need.

2. Once I have these keywords, I make more than one listing per keyword (this is important!)

Instead of trying to sell just one “bookkeeping template”, for example- I would list a few different variations of one.

This has two purposes.

The first is to test out which one sells the best.

The second is so that when someone searches for “bookkeeping template”, they will see many of my listings, and not one of mine hidden amongst a bunch of others made by other sellers.

3. I keep each template simple and focused on saving people time.

You don’t need to make anything complicated for people to buy it, trust me!

People are searching for a done-for-them spreadsheet because they want to save time on something that would take them longer to do themselves.

People also don’t want to be intimidated by a ton of graphs and places to enter their info. They want to buy it and get something out of it in minutes!

4. I know that people want to buy a solution that they really don’t want to make themselves.

If you look on Etsy, you’ll see that spreadsheets tend to sell for a higher price ($4-$40) versus printable PDF templates that sometimes sell for just $1.

It would take them a lot more time and skill to make a spreadsheet, so they are more likely to pay a premium for it.

5. I focused on a niche and built an email list around it.

If you focus on a niche, like bookkeeping or wedding planning- you can get repeat customers back to your shop the next time they need a template!

I focused on a niche and sent everyone a link to join my email list with their order.

It took me a while to see the value in this, but a few months in I sent an email to my list and made $800 that day.

You can get Convertkit for free when you have under 1,000 people on your list, and this is what I used to get started.

Here’s some ideas of spreadsheet templates you can sell on Etsy:

  • Wedding planners
  • Bookkeeping templates
  • Habit trackers
  • Cleaning checklists
  • Personal budgeting templates
  • Debt payoff trackers
  • Life planners
  • Investment trackers
  • and pretty much anything that’s selling as a printable right now…that you think would be even faster and better in spreadsheet form 🙂

I know that making a spreadsheet might seem intimidating, but there’s a lot you can learn for free out there! I used a lot of free tutorials on making graphs, customizing templates, etc.

If I would have let my fear get in my way, I wouldn’t have earned a 6-figure income. The growth in my income really came when I went from selling $3 printables to $20 spreadsheets. And I was just selling bundles of simple templates I already created!

PS. if you’re selling printables right now or thinking about selling them…adding some spreadsheets is a fantastic way to boost your income.

Happy selling!!