How I’d Actually Build a Squarespace Template Business Now

I wouldn’t start by asking, “What niche should I make templates for?”

That sounds practical, but it usually leads to shallow ideas: templates for coaches, therapists, photographers, consultants, course creators, and personal brands. Those can all be real markets, but the category alone is not enough.

A template business does not work because you picked a niche.

It works because you understand a moment.

Someone is starting a private practice and needs to look credible before referrals start coming in. Someone is launching a retreat and needs a sales page that can take deposits. Someone is leaving an agency job and needs a portfolio that makes them look established before they feel established. Someone has outgrown their DIY site but cannot afford a custom build yet.

That is where the opportunity is.

The template is not the product by itself. The product is the shortcut from “I don’t know how to present this” to “I can finally put this in front of people.”

That is the first thing I’d get clear on.

The $100k math matters

A $100,000 template business sounds clean until you do the math.

At $197 per template, you need about 508 sales per year.
At $297, you need about 337 sales per year.
At $497, you need about 202 sales per year.
At $997, you need about 100 sales per year.

That means the question is not simply, “Can I make a beautiful template?”

The question is, “Can I create enough trust, traffic, proof, and repeatable demand to sell this many times without custom hand-holding eating the whole business?”

A lot of template businesses fail because they treat the template like a design product when it is really a distribution, trust, support, and positioning business.

I’d build one template around one buyer moment

I would not start with five templates.

I would start with one.

One buyer.
One transition.
One problem.
One promise.

For example, not “Squarespace template for coaches.”

That is too broad.

Something closer would be:

A Squarespace template for a consultant leaving corporate who needs to look established enough to sell a $5k advisory offer.

Or:

A Squarespace template for a therapist opening a private practice who needs a calm, trustworthy site that makes referrals easy.

Or:

A Squarespace template for a retreat host who needs to explain the experience, answer objections, and collect deposits.

The more specific the buyer moment, the easier the template is to design, name, explain, sell, and support.

I’d sell the path, not the pages

Most template shops sell pages.

Homepage. About. Services. Contact. Blog.

That is fine, but it is not enough.

The buyer is not really buying pages. They are buying relief. They want to know, “Will this help me get my thing online without making me feel lost for three more weeks?”

So I’d make the template feel like a guided path.

Here is what to put on the homepage.
Here is what your services page needs to answer.
Here is where the testimonial goes.
Here is how to explain your offer.
Here is what to remove if you are not ready yet.
Here is how to launch with the simplest version.

That guidance is part of the product.

A good template is not just designed well. It helps the buyer make better decisions.

I’d build proof before I tried to scale

Before trying to hit $100k, I’d want to know whether real people can use the template successfully.

I’d probably sell the first version manually.

Find 5–10 people in the target market. Offer it at an early price. Watch where they get stuck. See what they change. See what questions they ask. See whether the template actually gets them closer to launching, selling, booking, or presenting themselves clearly.

Those first users are not just customers. They are research.

Their questions become your documentation.
Their objections become your sales page.
Their before-and-after examples become your proof.
Their stuck points become your next product improvement.

That is how the template gets sharper.

I’d choose distribution before creating more products

The mistake is making more templates before you know how one template sells.

I would rather have one template with a clear buyer, strong proof, a good sales page, a helpful setup guide, and one dependable traffic channel than ten templates sitting in a shop with no path to discovery.

For Squarespace templates, that path might be SEO. It might be Pinterest. It might be YouTube walkthroughs. It might be partnerships. It might be an email list. It might be a marketplace.

But I would not pretend “multi-channel marketing” is a strategy.

One channel first. One clear buyer. One clear reason to care.

Then expand.

The real business is not the template

The real business is the system around the template.

The sales page.
The demo site.
The setup guide.
The launch checklist.
The support process.
The follow-up emails.
The examples.
The proof.
The upgrades.
The adjacent products.

That is where the business starts to compound.

A template can be copied. A real understanding of the buyer is much harder to copy.

So if I were building a Squarespace template business now, I would not begin with the question, “What kind of template should I design?”

I would begin with:

Who is trying to get to the other side of a specific business moment, and what would make that path easier?

That is where the product is.