I sell on Teachers Pay Teachers.

  • My store is called Educircles.org
  • I started my Teachers Pay Teachers store in Feb 2018
  • My first sale was in May 2018. I made $2.44
  • I’ve made $36,384.76 so far (from Feb 1, 2018 to Jan 9, 2022)

Teacherpreneur Becca Davis just published her Income Report for 2021.

She makes a lot more money than me. (Congrats, Becca!)

From her youtube video, it looks like she’s making around $5,000 to $7,000 a month from her TpT Sales.

Which got me thinking. How am I doing compared to her?

First I felt bad that she’s making so much more than me! Then, I felt bad for feeling bad.

Then, I wondered, maybe she’s been doing this for a long time longer than me. Maybe, maybe not. I’m going to go research the internet.

But then I started thinking, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. I do me. You do you. Becca does Becca. I gotta be the best me I can be and put in the work!

Up to now, I haven’t really looked up to see what other people are doing, but I’ve been listening to a few business podcasts and it looks like it’s time for me to get a better sense of who is selling on TpT and what I can learn from them.

So, let’s see what we can learn about benchmarks from people selling on TpT and reporting their income online.

Mike Fuchigami (me) – Educircles

I feel like if you’re going to spend time analyzing what other people are doing, you gotta spend time doing it to yourself first.

My store is called Educircles-org 21st Century Skills

As of January 9, 2022

I started my Teachers Pay Teachers store in Feb 2018. My first sale was in May 2018. (I made $2.44!)

I’ve made $36,384.76 so far (from Feb 1, 2018 to Jan 9, 2022)

Becca Davis: Becca’s Music Room

Here’s her TpT store: Becca’s Music Room

As of January 9, 2022

She has a youtube channel playlist documenting her TpT income reports.

I love how she talks about how her income videos are for information and inspiration, and if that’s not your thing to make sure to click out. That’s an awesome disclaimer!

She started in 2017 with a blog talking about teaching Elementary Music. Then in 2018, she started her TpT shop. During her third full year in 2022, she made $58,322.49 for the year!

  • January 2021: $3,575.53 (that was her personal best at that point!!!)
  • February 2021: $7,008.95 (her first time hitting $7K!!! Woo hoo! Congrats – some products did really well.)
  • March 2021: $6,155.50
  • April 2021: $5,203.49
  • May 2021: $4,683.97
  • June 2021: $965.94
  • July 2021: $840.41
  • August 2021: $5,525.16 (She doesn’t have a lot of back-to-school stuff. So she’ll be creating more for this space.)
  • September 2021: $7,780.96 (New personal best! Beginning of school, people buying a lot of stuff, Hispanic Heritage Month, and she has a lot of Hispanic Heritage resources in her store.)
  • October 2021: $6,403.60
  • November 2021: $6,179.08
  • December 2021: $3,999.90

Why did she do so well selling on TpT in 2021?

Here’s her thinking from her 2021 TpT Income Report video:

  • She experimented with different products. (She tinkered.) She made a lot of products bigger, more inclusive, tried a bunch of different things. If she found one that did really well, she focused on it.
  • She optimized and followed what was working. In February, a Jazz song went crazy, so she made more Jazz resources, bundled it, and then they all did very well.
  • She tried a new strategy: When she made videos and blog posts, she made sure to mention a product. Yes, she’s still helping people, but now she’s explicitly cross-promoting her stuff.
  • The usual strategies: Doing previews to all of her resources. Paying attention to the product descriptions so they can sell themselves.
  • She put in the effort: She put her head down and got to work! (Right now, she has over 500 resources!) One of my favourite lines from her video was about how the things she’s been doing for years and years and years have started to pay off!

During her 2021 income report video, she talked about how much money she made in 2020. (It was her goal and she hit it!)

Becca sells a book about how to sell on TpT, so I’ll have to watch her YouTube channel and then maybe check out her book.