April marks the anniversary of my Teachers Pay Teachers store, so every April I like to write a blog post reflecting on my experience. When I think about my past year selling, what stands out to me is how selling on Teachers Pay Teachers has changed so much since I started. 

In this post, I’ll share how selling in 2024 is different than when I started in 2018. I’ll touch on how some strategies have changed and what strategies haven’t.

Want to read more about my TPT journey? This post talks about the first six months of my business.

What Hasn’t Changed About Selling on Teachers Pay Teachers?

Before I dive into the changes over the years, let me start with what hasn’t changed. 

First, success on TPT still requires one basic strategy: sell high-quality products. 

Resources need to be good. They need to be accurate. Printables need to be visually appealing. Sellers need to optimize SEO on their sales pages.

I firmly believe that quality and persistence will lead any seller to TPT success. This was my philosophy when I began my store, and it’s remained true to this day. 

Selling on Teachers Pay Teachers Change #1: Competition is Fiercer

When I started in 2018, there were already a lot of sellers. But there weren’t a ton of sellers that were treating their stores like businesses. 

There weren’t a ton of courses talking about optimizing your resources’ SEO or preview. 

For the most part, the vast majority of resources were uploaded by full-time teachers as a hobby. 

While this is still mostly true, even the hobbyists are taking things more seriously. It takes more work for your covers to stand out or for your listing to rise in the search results. 

Some might dismay and say the market is “oversaturated.” I hate this phrase and line of thinking. 

I firmly believe that it’s impossible to have “too many” great educational resources. Even if you and I taught the exact same lesson, we’d each have our own spin on it. My way would resonate with some students while your method would resonate with others. 

So please don’t mistake fierce competition for an oversaturated market. There will always be room in the market for great products.

But it’s definitely harder to stand out in the marketplace.

Selling on Teachers Pay Teachers Change #2: Pinterest is Dead

Ok, this headline is a little overdramatic. Pinterest isn’t completely dead. 

But it’s nowhere near as helpful as it used to be. 

When I started, Pinterest was an essential part of every seller’s strategy. Now, most agree that it’s not worth sinking money into. 

A few years back Pinterest went public on the stock market. Its focus changed to earning ad revenue for its stockholders. Getting your Pins to perform has been harder since. 

The big problem is that Pinterest shows Pins from “owned” websites far more frequently than other Pins. Since we don’t “own” our TPT store, we can’t share these kinds of Pins. 

However, if you have a blog or other website, you can share “owned” Pins from there. These Pins do much better than Pins to products. 

While I was pregnant with my now 9-month-old, I had to prioritize where in my business to focus my precious little energy. I stopped Pinning products but continued to Pinning blog posts, and I haven’t noticed much of a difference in sales. 

Selling on Teachers Pay Teachers Change #3: Marketing Is More Important

When I started selling on TPT, you could throw a resource onto the marketplace and it would generate money relatively easily. Plus, as it gained reviews and downloads, it would sell more and more. 

While this “snowball effect” is still in play, it’s not quite as easy to show up in search results. Outside marketing has become crucial to take your store to the next level.

Luckily, marketing strategies are as diverse as sellers. You can find one that you enjoy and works for you.

Personally, I hate social media. It just feels like a constant grind. I’m much more comfortable blogging, researching SEO, and sharing ideas here on my website. 

So far this year, a third of my sales have come from this little blog. That’s a huge difference! And since I TPT full-time, that money is crucial. It pays my bills. I can’t afford not to market. I don’t know what major seller can.

Selling on Teachers Pay Teachers Change #4: It’s Harder to Increase Your Income

If you, too, have been selling for a while, you’ll feel me on this one.

This is one of the biggest ways selling on Teachers Pay Teachers has changed.

Gone are the days when TPT seller revenue seemed to double every year. Fast growth can still happen during your early years. But established sellers will have to fight a little harder for major growth. 

Part of this is because the competition is fiercer. 

But, I theorize that a bigger issue is that we have fewer buyers. 

There is a huge teacher shortage. More and more educators are fed up and leaving the field. Fewer college graduates are filling classrooms. And, sadly, no one seems to be doing anything about it. 

In addition to this, some districts are cracking down on teachers using their own curriculum or curriculum of their choice. We’re seeing more teachers being forced to teach a textbook verbatim or follow canned curriculum. 

The result is fewer buyers who can find a resource they love and actually use it in their classroom. 

On her podcast, Kristen Doyle used a phrase I absolutely love to describe this period of history for sellers. She called it “TPT’s first recession.”

I love this because I think it’s true. This is the first time in TPT history when pageviews for the whole site are down year-over-year. 

But, like a recession, this too shall pass. Maybe I’m overly optimistic, but I believe this rough period will end and sales will rebound in time.

Canned curriculum rarely works. As the pandemic showed up, parents need teachers in classrooms. I’m holding out hope that over time, some of these issues in education will be mitigated, and, by proxy, TPT sales will increase again. 

But for now, sellers are fighting for a slice of a shrinking pie.

Selling on Teachers Pay Teachers Change #5: There Is More Help Than Ever Before

When I started selling, there were only a few places to really get help for your store. 

Some of these, like Misty Miller’s Facebook group for sellers, are still around–and still incredibly valuable.

Others were podcasts that have since faded into the distance. 

Now, there are more courses (I even put one out myself), tips on Instagram, and YouTube channels than ever before.

There are even paid tools like Your Data Playbook and TeachersBoost to help you optimize your listings and conduct SEO research. 

Now, a lot of this help is paid. But I could have only dreamed of a tool like YDP in the early years. 

The Future of Teachers Pay Teachers

So, the eternal question still stands for many of you: is selling on TPT worth it?

For me, it’s still a resounding “Yes!”

With only partial daycare, I’m usually only able to focus on my store for about ten hours a week. But I’m bringing home 150% of what I did teaching. 

(Full transparency: I put in a ton of time for years while still teaching to build my store’s foundations. I also have a spouse who provides essential benefits like insurance, which I’m not factoring into my take-home.)

For me, the flexibility is so, so worth it especially now that I have a very young son. I have no idea what I would have done this past year with the myriad of doctor visits, illnesses, and expensive daycare. 

TPT allows us to only do partial daycare to save some money, and I can take him to the pediatrician whenever. 

I also am still very optimistic about TPT’s future. 

TPT experienced over a decade of straight growth. That’s insane for any business in any industry. This “recession” on TPT is, in my opinion, just the market rebalancing. 

The economy ebbs and flows, and, as part of that, so will TPT. Business owners need to stay flexible and know when to pivot. 

I also–maybe naively–am choosing to remain optimistic about education as a whole. The current climate sucks. 

But at some point, even if the federal government does nothing, states are going to have to reckon with the lack of teachers. Some will do this better than others. But changes will have to be made for society to continue to function. Like you, I just hope this happens sooner rather than later. 

Conclusion

In some ways, TPT hasn’t changed at all. It’s still a wonderful way for teachers to share their value with others and be rewarded for it. Good resources will thrive. SEO reigns supreme. 

In other ways, selling on Teachers Pay Teachers has changed a lot. New tools on the market are changing the game and allowing more stores to be competitive. Fewer customers and a changing economy have undoubtedly changed buyer behavior. 

However, I am still a firm believer in what TPT has to offer for both customers and sellers. And while this past year may have been tough on sellers, I am optimistic that a new wave of growth will come again.