I was wondering how people go about selling access to figma library files the create? There are some design system libraries, such as Pegasus, that offer a free version with limited components and styles, but also offer paid access to a larger more complete set of components and styles. Going with the Pegasus example, I see the creator has chosen to sell through Gumroad. I’m wondering what the business process is for managing these sales, and how wide the audience can be? I imagine people on free-tier plans wouldn’t be able to use a product/file like this, so it’s limited to users with Pro or Org plans. And as far as access goes, would you invite them to a team with view-only access? Are there limits to how many users (in this case, customers) you could have on a team?
If anyone sells Figma templates or libraries I’d be interested to hear how you manage your customers.
I don’t know much so I don’t have a lot to share but I’ll address a couple of points.
How the design system can be sold:
You can save the design system as .fig file or invite someone to the file in Figma for a fixed one-time payment.
You can create a professional team and turn your product into a library. This can go in two ways:
a. Most commonly I saw people charging the subscription to keep getting library updates. They would invite you to the file/team as a viewer and you will be able to use this library in your files. This way you pay a part of sales for this Pro team to keep the library alive.
b. I can also imagine the scenario where you publish the library to the Professional team and then cancel the subscription, returning to Starter plan. This way the library will stay published but you won’t be able to update it. I don’t know if you can invite people to such team though. I haven’t seen anyone do this, just thinking it might be possible. This way you could charge a fixed amount for this library instead of a subscription.
Are there limits to how many users (in this case, customers) you could have on a team?
I don’t think there is a limit (I mean it probably exists, but it’s so big you can’t achieve it). One of my files has more than a 1000 viewers in it.
Ah, that makes sense to me, especially the model you describe in 2A! Something I’ll add to that that I’ve seen some library makers do is offer lifetime access for a one-time fee (similar to your Master plugin I think). I imagine if library makers are charging enough at a one time fixed price then they can build a fair amount of financial runway that the Pro Plan continues to pay for itself.
Something I wonder about with Figma’s file and plugin community, especially now that publishing has been opened up to everyone, is if there will eventually be a way to sell to and manage customers directly through Figma? Maybe that’s too far away from their goals/mission as a company though. They’ve really championed making their product as accessible as possible pricing wise, and it makes sense they’d do the same with their community space.
Usually I’ve seen people offer a self-publishable .fig file on such plan. Sometimes you see something like “no lifetime updates” on the cheaper plan, which probably means they are simply sending the source file. But I guess with the high enough price they could indeed pay off the professional license for the product lifetime as well.
if there will eventually be a way to sell and manage customers directly through Figma?
Oooooo okay okay!! I won’t push you to say anything more, but I’ll just say my interpretation is that not only has the idea been discussed but a decision has been made
Figma team often changes the product roadmap, so even something that has been publicly announced like the improved font picker, and had closed a beta, could be completely scraped in the next couple of months. So it’s hard to say anything specific even when you know something.
Yeah, that’s a fair point. Nothing is certain until it happens! But I do appreciate the information that selling via the plugin/file community is something that the team has been or is actively thinking about. It’s fun to dream about the future of the community.
I won’t push you to say anything more, but I’ll just say my interpretation is that not only has the idea been discussed but a decision has been made 
