Curious to know what the top 25 design blogs make from ad sales?

Curious to know what the top 25 design blogs make from ad sales?

Any person reading this blog right now that is in the design field has probably wondered this very exact question: What do these design blogs actually make in ad revenue and is it possible for me to make money with my own design blog? Hopefully, by the end of this article you will walk away with answers to that question.

I’ve been pushing around the idea of starting my own design blog for months now and decided to do a bit of research to see what the top design blogs actually make in revenue. Since I know that the blog will be focused on ad revenue and not just pushing my web design business, I wanted to gauge what types of money could be made with the blog and how much traffic I’d have to hit in order to get to certain cash milestones.

The trend I see in a lot of the top design blogs out there are the use of the service Buy Sell Ads – we even use it here on Guerrilla Freelancing (our listing is here). It’s a great service and it allows advertisers to find the sites they’d like to buy ads from, get approved and placed in front of millions of people.

The beauty of it for the site owners is that they don’t have to manually ad the codes in each time a new ad is purchased and remove them once the month is up. As a publisher, you earn 75% of the ad revenue, so you’re getting a great deal (in my opinion) because you no longer have to focus on selling the ads, managing them and so on.

Please bare in mind that these stats are only for the publicly sold ads on their sites and do not reflect their earnings from private advertising purchases, reviews and other forms of advertisements like feedburner links/ads, google adsense, and so on. So, lets get to it – what do these blogs actually make in revenue?

PSDTuts+

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions: 6,230,000
  • How many ad spaces?: 12
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 9
  • Revenue: $9,893.25

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

Abduzeedo

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions: 5,999,000
  • How many ad spaces?: 46
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 38
  • Revenue: $4,650

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

Hongkiat

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions: 3,395,000
  • How many ad spaces?: 12
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 12
  • Revenue: $2,475

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

Nettuts+

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions: 2,225,000
  • How many ad spaces?: 13
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 10
  • Revenue: $4,785.25

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

Creattica

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions: 2,025,000
  • How many ad spaces?: 10
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 9
  • Revenue: $1,987.50

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

Vectortuts+

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions: 1,830,000
  • How many ad spaces?: 11
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 10
  • Revenue: $3,940.50

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

Web Designer Depot

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions: 1,660,000
  • How many ad spaces?: 13
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 11
  • Revenue: $4,181.25

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

Smashing Apps

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions: 1,630,000
  • How many ad spaces?: 30
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 23
  • Revenue: $1,991.25

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

Six Revisions

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions: 1,505,000
  • How many ad spaces?: 12
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 9
  • Revenue: $4,357.50

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

Web Design Ledger

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions: 1,415,000
  • How many ad spaces?: 14
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 13
  • Revenue: $3,225

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

Instant Shift

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions: 1,305,000
  • How many ad spaces?: 11
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 10
  • Revenue: $1,275.00

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

Vandelay Website Design

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions: 1,135,000
  • How many ad spaces?: 12
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 12
  • Revenue: $2,512.50

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

CSS Tricks

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions: 1,105,000
  • How many ad spaces?: 12
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 11
  • Revenue: $2,887.50

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

1st Web Designer

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions: 1,085,000
  • How many ad spaces?: 21
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 14
  • Revenue: $2,287.50

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

Speckyboy Design Magazine

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions: 1,080,000
  • How many ad spaces?: 46
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 18
  • Revenue: $2,251.50

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

Tutorial9

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions: 1,050,000
  • How many ad spaces?: 21
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 19
  • Revenue: $2,647.50

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

Bittbox

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions: 1,025,000
  • How many ad spaces?: 6
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 6
  • Revenue: $2,193.75

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

DesignM.ag

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions: 855,000
  • How many ad spaces?: 10
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 10
  • Revenue: $1,275.00

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

Web Resources Depot

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions: 820,000
  • How many ad spaces?: 4
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 3
  • Revenue: $618.75

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

Web Designer Wall

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions: 815,000
  • How many ad spaces?: 10
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 8
  • Revenue: $2,775.00

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

Blog.SpoonGraphics

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions: 815,000
  • How many ad spaces?: 9
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 7
  • Revenue: $1,912.50

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

Naldz Graphics

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions: 520,000
  • How many ad spaces?: 13
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 8
  • Revenue: $693.75

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

Marcofolio

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions: 440,000
  • How many ad spaces?: 9
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 8
  • Revenue: $352.50

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

GoMediaZine

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions:
  • How many ad spaces?: 32
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 14
  • Revenue: $903.75

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

Spyre Studios

freelance design blogs

  • Estimated Impressions: 300,000
  • How many ad spaces?: 8
  • Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 7
  • Revenue: $480.00

Website Link | BuySellAds Listing

What are you waiting for?

There’s a world of advertisers out there who are just waiting to place their ads on your site. Build it, put all of the passion you have into it and watch it grow. Do not expect to hit these numbers overnight – but in time, you can definitely top this list.

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