What the best selling Notion templates have in common
There’s no official best-seller list for Notion templates. Here’s what the signals say sells, how to price it, and what each platform’s fees really cost.
No one publishes a real best-seller list for Notion templates. The signals that do exist all point the same way, though. Those signals are Etsy review counts and bestseller badges, Gumroad’s Discover marketplace, and a few creators who share their own numbers. The templates that sell handle one recurring, slightly tedious job for a clearly defined person. Life systems, money trackers, content planners and small client databases come up again and again.
Upfront work: a rough estimate is 15 to 40 hours for a first polished template. That covers building and testing it, writing setup notes and making preview images. If you apply to Notion’s own Marketplace, add a wait that can stretch to months.
Ongoing work: a few hours a week on promotion and buyer questions, plus the occasional rebuild when Notion adds or changes features.
Where the rankings come from
Notion has a collection called “Top 10 Paid Sales Templates.” It sounds like a best-seller chart, but it’s actually a set of templates for sales teams (CRMs and pipelines), and it doesn’t say how they’re ordered.
Etsy’s bestseller badges and review counts tell you a listing is moving. They don’t tell you what it earns. Gumroad’s Discover marketplace puts popular products in front of shoppers, but you pay a much bigger cut on sales that come through it.
Most articles ranking for this topic come from selling platforms. SendOwl names productivity, personal finance, content calendars and simple CRMs as the leading categories. Kupkaike looked at the reviews and badges on more than 400 Etsy and Gumroad listings. It put life-admin, job-specific and ADHD-friendly templates on top, and found that the strongest listings were mostly priced between $9 and $29 and had clear visual previews. Neither shares actual sales data, so treat both as informed hunches.
The firmest number comes from Thomas Frank, who reported about $1 million in Notion template sales in 2022. His Ultimate Brain system launched that April and made $760,000. A bundle pairing it with his Creator’s Companion made $298,000. These are one creator’s own figures and far from typical. They still show the shape of demand: a complete, opinionated system, plus a bundle that gives buyers a reason to spend a little more.
Product ideas that sell
- A calm home base for new parents. Feeding log, pediatrician appointments and a shared household task list, for sleep-short people who want everything in one place.
- A debt payoff tracker for couples. Two incomes, shared bills and a snowball or avalanche view, for partners who have outgrown a messy spreadsheet.
- A content calendar for one kind of creator. Podcasters need guest booking and episode stages. Newsletter writers need an idea bank and a send schedule. The narrower version is easier to describe and easier to find.
- A client tracker for one trade. Wedding photographers, dog groomers, freelance bookkeepers. A simple CRM shaped around their real steps, from first inquiry to final invoice.
- A home admin binder. Appliance warranties, maintenance dates, insurance details and a moving checklist, for first-time homeowners and renters who’ve just signed a lease.
- A low-friction planner for scattered days. Fewer databases, large buttons and a “today only” view, for people who found other planners overwhelming. Describe plainly what it does and don’t make health claims.
It’s worth asking yourself which of these you already live. A template built from your own routine usually has the small, specific details that generic ones miss.
What the steady sellers share
Listings with a long trail of reviews tend to name the person in the title, not just the tool. Their preview images show the template in use with realistic sample data. They include a short setup guide or video, because many buyers are newer to Notion than the seller. And the template does a few things well.
Pricing tiers
Three steps give buyers a choice without a maze. These prices are examples only:
- Good: one focused template, around $9 to $12.
- Better: the full system with extra views and a setup video, around $24 to $29.
- Bundle: the full system plus a companion template, around $39 to $49.
Thomas Frank’s figures show why the bundle earns its place: nearly a third of his 2022 template revenue came from a single pairing.
Where to sell
Several older guides still quote Notion at 10%. Notion’s help page now lists 8% plus 40¢ per transaction. For most first templates, Gumroad is a simple place to start. It has no monthly fee, it acts as merchant of record, and its pricing page sets one fee for direct sales and a higher one for Discover sales. If you’re weighing other storefronts, see best digital products to sell on Amazon, and where else to go.
| Platform | Listed fee | After listed fees on a $20 sale | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notion Marketplace | 8% + $0.40 | $18.00 | Notion is merchant of record and handles sales tax |
| Gumroad, direct link | 10% + $0.50 | $17.50 | Merchant of record since January 2025 |
| Gumroad, Discover | 30% | $14.00 | Buyers find you, but the cut is much larger |
| Etsy (US) | 6.5% transaction, 3% + $0.25 processing, $0.20 listing | $17.65 | New shops may pay a one-time setup fee shown at sign-up |
| Payhip, free plan | 5%, plus PayPal or Stripe fees | under $19.00 | Handles EU VAT and UK tax by default; you set up other regions |
The Gumroad figures cover only its listed fee, so check what card processing adds at checkout.
On Notion’s Marketplace, you apply and join a waitlist, and Notion says review may take a few months. It can approve or reject you at its discretion. You need to be at least 18 to sell paid templates (16 for free ones), and everything is priced in US dollars. Payouts start every two weeks on Thursdays, with a $20 minimum and a 14-day hold on funds. Creators outside the US pay an extra 1% when payouts are converted from dollars.
Notion can also remove listings at any time without notice, and you can’t use a listing to send buyers elsewhere. Keeping a second storefront running is a sensible hedge.
Many guides still recommend Lemon Squeezy, which charges 5% plus 50¢ and acts as merchant of record. In January 2026 its CEO said support had slowed and updates were fewer while the team builds Stripe Managed Payments. He promised existing users an easy way to migrate. Managed Payments charges 3.5% on top of Stripe’s standard processing fees. Weigh that uncertainty before you build your shop there.
Rights, copies and refunds
Every font, icon, photo and illustration in your template needs a license that allows commercial use. Some free fonts are licensed for personal use only. AI image tools each set their own terms, so read them before you sell anything made with them. Can you make money with ChatGPT and Canva? looks at that side of things in more detail.
Notion’s Marketplace guidelines ban reposting work bought from other creators, in whole or in part, along with unauthorized third-party intellectual property. Etsy requires digital items to be made or designed by you. So pass on resell-rights or PLR template packs, however tempting the price.
Notion buyers can ask for a refund within 14 days, and a refund removes every copy of the template from their workspace. If you’re shopping for templates yourself, buy from creators whose work is clearly their own.
The not-so-passive part
Paid creators on Notion have to give buyers “ongoing commercially reasonable support.” In practice that means answering setup questions, fixing broken views and updating the template when Notion changes something. Notion may also charge you extra fees for refunds or chargebacks.
Marketing never quite stops either. Even good templates go quiet without fresh previews, short demos or the occasional post where your buyers spend time. For a wider view of how much tending these income streams need, see passive income streams, explained for digital makers.
Then there’s tax. Notion and Gumroad handle sales tax as merchants of record, but income tax is yours to report and pay. Platforms only have to file a Form 1099-K when payments to you top $20,000 across more than 200 transactions, a threshold the IRS confirmed in October 2025. You still have to report every sale, whether or not a form arrives. If your net self-employment earnings reach $400, you file Schedule SE and pay self-employment tax of 15.3%, half of which you can deduct. This is general information, not tax advice, so a short conversation with a tax professional is time well spent.
Ship a tiny version
Pick one person and one job they repeat every week. Build a single Notion page with one database and three views, and fill it with believable sample data.
Take three clean screenshots. Write a setup note of five steps or fewer. Check that every font and image is cleared for commercial use.
List it on Gumroad at your “good” tier price this week. If you’re 18 or older, apply to Notion’s Marketplace at the same time so the waitlist runs in the background.
Then share it with ten people who match your buyer, and pay close attention to what they ask. Their questions will shape your “better” tier, and later, your bundle.