I started creating Notion templates as a side hustle back in April and sold them through Gumroad.
The product part was easy.
The hard part was traffic.
For the first few months, I was making around $150–$250/month, but I was spending 10+ hours every week on marketing. At that point, it completely defeated the purpose of selling digital products in the first place.
The Biggest Problem: Manual Marketing Burnout
Most of my time wasn’t spent improving the templates — it was spent:
- Posting manually
- Thinking about what to post
- Trying to stay consistent
The income was okay for a side project, but the time investment wasn’t sustainable. I wanted something that could actually run without daily effort.
Switching to Pinterest Automation
That’s when I decided to focus entirely on Pinterest instead of Instagram.
I set up a simple automation stack:
- Tailwind to schedule pins
- 12 pins per day, targeting productivity-related keywords
- SmartPin to auto-generate pin designs
- Joined relevant Pinterest communities to amplify reach
Once everything was set up, my time investment dropped dramatically.
Current Time Investment
- ~1 hour/month creating or updating templates
- ~2 hours/month batching and scheduling pins
Total: ~3 hours per month
Revenue Progression (Before vs After Automation)
Here’s how income evolved over time:
- April – June: $150–$250/month (manual posting)
- July: $480 (started using Tailwind)
- August: $840
- October: $1,420
The difference after automation was immediate and compounding.
Traffic & Conversion Numbers
Pinterest is now my main traffic source.
- 2,800+ monthly visitors from Pinterest
- ~2.3% conversion rate
- Around 65–70 sales per month
- Templates priced between $19–$24
Before automating, I was burning out trying to market constantly. Now, sales happen whether I’m working or not.
Why Pinterest Works Better Than Instagram
For selling digital products, Pinterest has one massive advantage:
Search intent.
People aren’t scrolling for entertainment — they’re actively looking for:
- Productivity tools
- Templates
- Systems and workflows
On top of that, tools like Tailwind make Pinterest actually hands-off, which is almost impossible to achieve on platforms like Instagram.
Final Thoughts
Selling Notion templates wasn’t the hard part.
Getting traffic sustainably was.
Once I shifted from manual posting to Pinterest automation, the business finally became what I wanted it to be in the first place — mostly passive.
If you’re selling digital products and feel stuck constantly promoting, I’d seriously recommend looking at Pinterest before burning out on social media.