A 2024 thank you Carrd

I did it again – 12 Carrd plugins in 12 months, in 2024.

Caveats:

• 12 plugins is total shipped this year. It wasn’t 1 plugin every month. I missed a few months in the middle of the year actually, and caught up to 12 by building a few in Dec.
• Last year it was 12 new plugins. This year, I counted different versions of a plugin as one count. Like say for custom icon plugin, I made 3 versions that does different things, so 3 plugins.

Outputs

The 12 Carrd plugins:

• A/B testing plugin
• Redirect plugin
• Translate plugin
• Pricing tables with toggle
• In-app browser redirect plugin
• Auto-update plugin
• Custom icon plugin (3 versions)
  • custom icon
  • multiple icons
  • single icon
• Audio player plugin
• Scroll to popup plugin
• Custom loader plugin

Separately for Black Friday, I also made the Blacck Friday 2024 directory. So it’s 13 Carrd-related projects altogether.

Money:

• $16k from Carrd plugins – referral, maker program (sales/donations). Compared with last year I made $11k => 45% increase.
• $13k from the social media gig I have with Carrd HQ.
• $30k total revenue from anything Carrd-related
• 16.6k template downloads
• Top-selling 3 plugins – Mega navbar (54), testimonial slider (44), mobile navbar (37)
• Top 3 downloaded plugins – animated accordion (3.3k), accordion (2.2k), pricing tables (1.3k)
• Top distribution channels - Reddit referral, direct traffic, Youtube referral, Google organic, Twitter referral

Learnings:

• Referral commission is the main growth engine. I’m not sure if this is due to a real market signal, or just due to me shipping more free plugins (therefore more results). I suspect the former though, because even though I have shipped premium plugins and had sales every month, the sales volume from the premium plugins had been relatively constant month on month, no growth. So free stuff ended up paying off! How counterintuitive is that!
   
• The referral revenue feels like recurring revenue. Carrd has an awesome referral incentive where their referral commission is lifetime. So if someone signs ups with my affiliate link and renews every year, I get a cut every year too. The downside is, because Carrd Pro plans are annual only, every % comes in only yearly. And not everyone renews. But yet, those who would sign up for Pro might be those who can afford it or need it to make money, so it’s more likely they will renew. And you need some volume to start seeing monthly returns (which it has). But so far the free strategy had 100% paid off.
   
• Surprised that Reddit was my top referral channel this year. I’ve been neglecting it, so it’s time to get back to it! Direct traffic too – either people are bookmarking my site or can remember my URL and type it in directly. Never expected it this year! Youtube referral traffic was interesting too - I run a channel but I suspect the views are mostly from the monthly sponsorships with a Carrd influencer… so it’s money well spent. Google organic traffic is something I’ve known for a while – the site had been top search result for a while now.
   
• The challenge with each plugin launch is keeping up posting in the ever-increasing number of distribution channels. Right now I’m in ~50! It’s a Herculean task to post this much everywhere each month, that’s why I’m falling behind. But it’s also a bit of a self-inflicted situation – I challenge myself to find a new channel to post in every month, so… 🫣 Automation seems hard as it’s all different platforms each needing slightly different formatting… Outsourcing feels too expensive and unsafe. Not sure how to solve this…
   
• Growth could be better this year. I didn’t triple my revenue unlike the past 2 years, but it wasn’t sustainable growth to start with in the first place. $16k at 45% increase is good. But can be way better I think, if not for the lesser marketing and launches I did this year. Got to keep it up, and also find other high leverage ways to do marketing.
   
• Unexpected fruits of authority and expertise. In April this year I started freelancing for Carrd HQ, as a social media/customer support manager for their Twitter account. Didn’t even interview for it – they saw my contribution to community on Reddit, Facebook etc and decided I can do it. Got me $13k this year. Will be $18k in 2025. In 2025, I’ll also start another side gig doing technical support. $50/h for Carrd technical support at 2h/day gets me ~$2000/month!

Final thoughts:

• My efforts for Carrd plugins had the highest ROI amongst all my current products. Slow and steadyyy wins this race.
• Consistency consistency consistency. If I didn’t make myself (try to) ship 1 plugin per month, I wouldn’t have made 12 plugins. Well, I didn’t end up doing it every month, but the trying was the important part. Shoot for the stars, land on the moon, they say.
• Success factors:
  • Free stuff (and a lot of it)
  • Being helpful
  • Being everywhere
• Even while I keep trying other products, I cannot neglect this product. This could be a beast in the long game.

Thank you Carrd. It’s been a wild year.