Flaticon is a popular online platform that offers a wide selection of beautiful and useful icons that can be downloaded and used freely. However, beyond just being a resource for finding icons, Flaticon also presents an excellent opportunity to earn money online for creators through its contributor program. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore how exactly you can earn at home by becoming a Flaticon contributor and outline key steps to maximize contributor earnings.
Article Highlights
Overview of Flaticon and its Contributor Program
Flaticon is the largest database of free customizable icons, featuring over 3.5 million icons created by designers from around the world. Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Valencia, Spain, the platform allows unlimited downloads of icons for both personal and commercial projects without attribution. This makes Flaticon an extremely valuable resource for all kinds of freelancers, entrepreneurs, agencies, and businesses looking to quickly find icons to elevate their websites, apps, presentations, and more.
Beyond being a rich icon search engine, Flaticon also has a contributor program that allows designers to upload their original icons and earn money from the downloads and purchases of those icons. As of 2023, Flaticon has over 6,000 approved contributors from 147 countries, earning income through their icons getting exposure to Flaticon’s 25 million+ monthly users globally.
Some key benefits of becoming a Flaticon contributor include:
- Generating revenue from every download your icons receive from Flaticon’s big user base
- Increased brand visibility and exposure by having your profile featured on the platform
- Maximum ownership of your creations – you choose the license type and set your own pricing
- Tapping into market demand as Flaticon reaches millions searching for quality icons every month
In this article, we’ll break down exactly how Flaticon contriburors get paid and key strategies creators use to maximize their income potential by contributing icons that perform.
How Flaticon Contributors Earn Money from Icon Downloads
The core way freelance designers earn money on Flaticon as approved contributors is when registered users download their icons.
Flaticon User Licenses
Icons on Flaticon are available under different license types that determine their pricing/download conditions:
Free Public License: Icons with this license can be downloaded completely free, even for commercial use, with no attribution required.
No Attribution Required License: Icons are offered with this license for flat rate prices set by the contributors (typically $1-$10 per icon download). Users have the option to pay for such premium downloads which give them commercial rights without attribution.
Attribution Required License: Icons offered with attribution required prices by the contributor (generally $1-$10 as well). Users downloading under this license must give attribution to the creator.
Custom Licenses: Some larger brands, companies, etc. may also negotiate special licenses allowing for extended use of icons across whole organizations.
Pricing and Downloads
As a contributor, you set your own prices for icons you offer under the premium No Attribution Required and Attribution Required licenses. The more in-demand your icons are, the more you can charge per download accordingly. Most contributors earns $0.50 to $5 for most icon downloads.
The key to maximizing earnings on Flaticon then is having icons that are frequently downloaded by users, especially under the paid licenses. Popular contributors can easily amass thousands of premium downloads every month.
For example:
- You create 100 new icons this month as a contributor
- On average, you price your icons at $2 each for paid downloads
- Over the month, your icons collectively receive 4,000 downloads, with 3,000 (75%) under paid licenses
- That’s 3,000 paid downloads at an average $2 per icon, totalling $6,000 in earnings for the month!
And that example only covers direct download revenue. Top contributors can also generate 5-figure income through other means like custom licenses for brands and having icons sponsored to gain additional exposure across Flaticon.
Next let’s review key strategies to help maximize paid downloads as a contributor.
How to Maximize Income as a Flaticon Contributor
Becoming an approved Flaticon contributor is highly competitive, with each submission carefully evaluated to meet quality guidelines. But simply getting approved isn’t enough – you need icons that will actively be downloaded by users on the platform to generate an income stream.
Here are crucial tips contributors leverage to create the kinds of icons – and brands – that consistently see strong demand:
Design In-Demand Icon Styles and Categories
Flaticon sees millions of searches across thousands of icons categories and related keywords every month. As a contributor, you‘ll want to use Flaticon’s keyword and search tools to identify popular icon styles, themes, and topics that are frequently downloaded by users to inform your own icons. Some generally popular categories include:
- Web and Mobile Design Icons: app icons, website icons, UI icons etc.
- Marketing and SEO Icons: social media icons, digital marketing icons
- Business, Finance and Office Icons: Startup icons, online business icons, office and HR icons
- Data, Cloud Computing and More
Designing new icons and icon packs directly in tune with current market demand gives you the best chance to immediately capture user searches and downloads once launched.
Offer Icon Styles and Themes with Commercial-Use Appeal
While Flaticon does also feature many icons for personal projects, you’ll earn far more over time catering specifically to professional creators and commercial use-cases with greater need.
Some examples of commercially-appealing icon themes include:
- Clean, modern icon packs for web designers, developers and digital agencies
- Infographics icons and data visualization icons
- High-quality emoji icons/reactions for marketing
- Detailed finance, business and office icon bundles
Having uniquely useful and relevant icons for startups, freelancers, SaaS companies and other commercial entities using Flaticon for their projects helps drive more premium downloads.
Optimize Icon Keywords, Titles and Descriptions
Flaticon features robust search engine capabilities for users to locate icons. That’s why properly titling, describing and tagging your icons with relevant keywords is vital to maximize their discoverability.
When uploading new icons, ensure you:
- Choose descriptive names covering the exact icon style and function
- Write detailed descriptions highlighting commercial use-cases
- Include commonly searched relevant keywords so icons surface in searches
Optimizing icon content and metadata for findability gives you recurring visibility and traffic as users search Flaticon for icons to license.
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Build Your Personal Brand on Flaticon
Beyond optimizing individual icons, it’s also hugely valuable to focus on branding yourself as a top designer on Flaticon over time.
Some key ways to boost brand visibility include:
- Maintaining consistent icon art styles people recognize you for
- Curating a complete, professional-looking profile showcasing your specialities
- Participating in comments to offer advice and highlight your expertise
- Publishing guest posts in the Inspiration section demonstrating thought leadership
- Promoting your Flaticon presence and best-performing icons through your own channels
Establishing personal authority and significance makes users more likely to seek you out directly by name for licensing when needing icons.
Offer Exclusive and Limited-Edition Icon Bundles
While making all icons available for free under the Free License contributes to volumes of downloads, that alone won’t generate earnings.
Creating exclusive icon packs only accessible under Premium paid licenses encourages purchases and gives commercial users more incentive to pay. Limited edition bundles also prompt swift downloads by those wanting the rare icon set.
This exclusivity factor helps compel brands, designers and other professionals seeking icons for their marketing materials, platforms, products and more to license your premium offerings rather than settling for free options.
List Select Icons for Category Sponsorships
Flaticon features sponsored icon sections across different popular categories like SEO, Crypto, Healthcare etc.
As a contributor, you can pay to sponsor certain qualifying icons to get premium visibility in related categories for 7 days. During the sponsorship period, your icons appear in the top sponsored section for that niche, massively elevating impressions and downloads specifically from high-intent users.
Though sponsoring does involve upfront costs, the resulting expose to targeted users makes it well worth testing on particularly promising, commercially-appealing icons expected to generate multiples in extra revenue from downloads during the sponsorship window.
Other Potential Earning Opportunities
So far we’ve focused on earnings mainly stemming directly from user icon downloads. However, top Flaticon contributors actually generate sizable income through additional avenues beyond direct licenses.
Custom Bundles and Licenses for Companies/Brands
Large brands, agencies and other entities often have specific icon needs across whole organizations and projects where basic platform licenses don’t suffice.
In such cases, they may directly commission contributors to create specialized, custom icon packs for extended company-wide use with negotiated pricing and distribution rights.
These type of custom icon jobs can be quite lucrative. Brands may pay thousands upfront plus ongoing royalties for large-scale icon licensing, especially if exclusivity is involved.
Special Edition Icons for Flaticon Product Lines
Flaticon occasionally releases unique product lines like icon-inspired clothing collections, digital products featuring popular icons and more.
As a top designer on the platform, you may be selected to contribute signature icons to these special lines. Having an original creation featured directly on officially licensed Flaticon products can further boost your money-making opportunities and recognition.
Offering Icon Design Services to Flaticon Users
You may also convert high-performing free icon downloads into commercial value in indirect ways.
For example, the quality free icons you distribute can essentially function as powerful lead generation to later upsell organizations and other entities on paid custom icon design services catering to their specific needs.
So offering custom icon creation, modficiation and licensing solutions can lead to consulting and design income by leveraging your existing Flaticon audience.
As shown by the expansive options above, Flaticon contributors actually have multiple pathways to profit beyond platform downloads. Capitalizing on these diverse monetization avenues is key for earning the highest possible income.
Maximizing Long-Term Passive Earnings
A major advantage of publishing quality icons through the Flaticon marketplace model is unlocking extensive passive revenue potential, especially over time as your portfolio and name grows.
Some core strategies to maximize lifetime earnings include:
Continuously Adding New Icons and Packs
Releasing fresh icon content monthly ensures recurring visibility and downloads as users return to Flaticon for updated graphic resources. New styles, topics and commercial themes reflecting current trends keeps your earnings momentum going strong.
Offering Free and Paid Icon Variety
Balancing free icons for reach with paid offerings gives you the best of both worlds – high download volumes plus premium purchases earning real money.
Prioritizing paid licenses on specialty bundles provides particular incentive for professionals to license rather than opting for only free options.
Building an Evergreen Portfolio
Certain foundational icon styles maintain relevance across campaigns, mediums and platforms indefinitely. Continually expanding selections of “evergreen” icons ensures sustained licenses delivering income permanency.
Timeless examples include universal icons conveying concepts like teamwork, growth, connectivity, technology, success etc. This evergreen base earns long-term.
Promoting Your Profile and Best Icons
Actively showcasing your contributor profile and most popular icon offerings through your own social channels, website, email marketing and more greatly magnifies referrals and licenses.
These marketing efforts compound over time to keep your creations circulating across the creative community. New users continually discovering and downloading your portfolio through promotional visibility provides enduring income.
In summary, taking a multi-pronged approach with these passive earnings strategies makes generating a comfortable living through Flaticon contributor royalties completely feasible. By methodically uploading an array of useful, commercial icons reflecting market demand and personal branding, contributors regularly earn 5 to 6 digit incomes on autonomous pilot!
Getting Started on Flaticon as a Contributor
Now that we’ve explored major tactics successful Flaticon contributors leverage to maximize their earnings potential, let’s briefly summarize how to begin your own journey as an approved designer.
Step 1: Create Your Flaticon Account
First visit Flaticon and register for a general free member account. Explore the platform interface, search features, icon variety and licensing models. Get familiar with how everything works from the user perspective.
Step 2: Apply for Contributor Status
When ready to join the contributor program, head to your account settings and select “Apply to Become a Contributor” through the profile options.
You’ll need to submit 3 sample icons that meet Flaticon’s style guidelines and quality standards to have your application considered.
Step 3: Get Accepted, Complete Onboarding Tasks
Over the 2 weeks following application submission, the Flaticon team evaluates your samples and profile. If approved, you must finish onboarding administrative steps like entering payment details and tax information to publish icons.
Step 4: Start Adding Icons and Building Your Profile
Compile initial packs of original icons across in-demand niches so you have offerings ready right away once fully launched as a contributor. Populate and polish your profile highlighting your specialities.
Step 5: Market Your Presence and Best Creations
Begin actively driving users to your newly published portfolio via guest posts, social media and all avenues outlined earlier. Release limited editions and sponsored offerings to ignite downloads. Continue expanding your catalog with trending icon styles and niche bundles to maximize recurring licenses!
And that concludes our comprehensive guide on exactly how to leverage Flaticon to start earning sustainable income online by sharing your original icon designs with millions of enthusiastic users! We covered FAQs on contributor earnings models, actionable optimization strategies for creating lucrative icons and profile-raising tips to ultimately achieve financial freedom as a designer.
Start planning your entry to the flourishing icon marketplace now by delving into the platform from the user side. Then over time put the income-generating playbook provided above fully into practice as an approved seller – creating icons people want while living life completely on your own terms thanks to robust passive revenue. The opportunity awaits at Flaticon!