Creating & Selling Glide Templates
The template store helps people find pre-built apps that they can copy and customize in a matter of minutes. Here you can find many different types of templates built by members of the Glide community, but you can also submit and sell your own templates in the store.
A well-built template can provide a huge amount of value to businesses that buy them and can have a big reach. But to be successful, your app needs to be carefully thought out.
We’re going to walk you through a number of topics that relate to producing well-built templates. We’ll go through:
Coming up with your app idea
Setting your app apart
Template guidelines
App info and support
Coming up with a template idea
A well-built template can help a business get inspired, focus their content into a clearly defined format, and get up & running quickly.
You may already have an idea for a template that you want to make. If you don’t though – the easiest way to start is to visit the template store and get a sense of what’s already there. This might spark some ideas right away, but it will also give you a good idea of what already exists and where there might be some gaps.
Alternatively, you can speak with businesses. Nearly all businesses face challenges every day that could be helped by well-organized apps, so building apps for businesses, and professionals is also a great strategy.
Talk to businesses about the way they work and how they use spreadsheets to help you develop new template ideas.
If you’re actually speaking with business owners, bear in mind that they might not know how an app could help them. If this is the case, asking them how their company currently uses spreadsheets is a great start. From this, you can get a lot of information about how they work and how you could build apps to replace or enhance their workflow.
Setting Your App Apart
If you’ve found a template idea that serves a really unique need that doesn’t exist in the store yet - then that’s great. But if there are similar apps already in the template store, you need to think about how to distinguish your app from the others.
This could be through:
Beautiful design
Advanced data editor logic
Super specific target users
Great onboarding
Beautiful Design
👆🏼 COACH by Martyn Bromley makes great use of images, components, and layouts. Check it out here.
Creating a charismatic and recognizable design and layout can help distinguish your template from ones that already exist. This can be achieved with Glide’s layout tools, themes, custom design elements, or great images.
The more design work you can do upfront, the more attractive and useful your template is going to be for customers. Even if the images and designs aren’t used by them in the end, you want to inspire them with how beautiful an app can look.
Images
A good template should tell a good story. In other words, it should be filled with good dummy data & images that help the user understand how it works. Glide gives you easy access to royalty-free Unsplash images from right within the data editor. This makes it straightforward for you to fill your app with high-quality images – for free.
Good use of layouts
The tiles & cards layouts offer a huge range of design options that allow you to make thousands of different layout combinations (over 20,000). Both of these layouts also let you use overlays – a beautiful way of showing extra information in list layouts.
Good use of components
There are over 35 different components you can use in your template. Whilst you definitely won’t need to use all of them, there are some that often get overlooked.
The basic table component neatly presents information in a compact table. This is usually preferable to lots of separate text components that take up a lot more room. In the image below the Length, Level & Rating are all neatly grouped together by the basic table component.
The text component gives you many more formatting options for text style and alignment. Using this component in different ways can suddenly make text appear more interesting – especially if you choose the right font for your app!
Charts! Everyone likes a good graph… and whilst you might not think your app needs it, it can be worth considering. Each chart has a number of carefully thought out color themes that can bring a lot of life to a screen.
App Icon
When your app is submitted, the app icon will appear in the template store. Instead of using a simple emoji, you might consider designing your own custom app logo for the template. This is another thing that can really set your app apart from others when customers are browsing.
Design Elements
With a bit of work, you can also learn tools like Figma or Canva to develop simple design elements that enhance your app. For example, in this app, we have an image that blends seamlessly into the header of the app – creating an interesting shape.
Lower down in the screen we can see an abstract shape that acts as a separator between the content. Simple elements like this can set your app apart and give it a professional edge.
Advanced Data Editor Logic
Making templates that utilize the power of Glide’s Data editor is another way to make your apps unique and desirable. For example – you could create custom calculators, inventory management or location and tracking apps - all of which would use features of the Data Editor that new users may not easily build themselves.
Specific Target User
Rather than designing a huge template that does everything, templates that are designed for a specific target user or use case are often very successful. For example, you could do this by making a conference app specifically for doctors, a production diary that’s tailored for filmmakers or a project planner that’s particularly useful for event organizers.
Each of these app ideas is specifically tailored to one target customer. By doing this, your app’s design & functionality will be more cohesive and your template will have a clearer value over other templates that the customer is looking at.
Demo Video
When you submit your template, you need to provide a video demo. The clearer you explain your app here, the better your customer will understand your app and know if it’s right for them.
If a customer watches this video and still can’t work out what your app does or how they could use it – they probably won’t buy it. But if you really explain your app well and show off its main features, customers are more likely to buy it if it’s right for them.
A good demo video is well structured, so it probably makes sense to write something down first before recording it. This could be a full script - or just an outline.
You can use screencast software like Loom, Screenflow, or Camtasia – but there are many others. If possible. If you're doing a voiceover, make sure to use a good microphone. Bad microphone quality impacts on your description.
Martyn Bromley and Jaime Berrill both have some great examples of demo videos.
Template Guidelines
There are a number of things that will prevent your app from being accepted to the store. To avoid this, make sure your app meets the following guidelines.
Standalone
Templates should be self-sufficient, stand-alone apps. This means that the app works on its own, without the need for any other apps or services. For example, an app that is designed to be used in conjunction with a second Glide app (such as a companion admin app) or a service like Zapier won’t be accepted.
In other words, your app should work immediately after someone copies it, with no additional setup outside of Glide.
Google Sheets
Whilst Glide Apps can utilize the power of Google Sheets functions, all computation needs to be done in Glide’s data editor. That means no formulas or scripts in the sheet. This helps with performance and understanding for new users.
The Google Sheet should also have clear formatting and, if appropriate - instructions.
Dummy Data
Make sure your template uses fake or ‘dummy’ data. For example, if you’ve based the template off of one of your own or a client’s app – strip the data of any private or personally identifiable information.
Make sure the images you use in your app are royalty-free. Apps that use copyrighted images will be refused.
Non-copyrighted Elements
Templates can’t have any copyright-protected elements in them. This means no images, video/audio, or other material that another person or company has copyrighted. The best way to avoid this type of material is to use digital assets that you create, or use services with "creative commons" copyright licensing. Be sure to understand if profiting off of use is allowed and that you follow those rules.
App Info & Support
When you submit a template you’ll be asked to provide the app Name, Description, Category, and Video.
The description should be a one-sentence description of what your template does. For example,
Use this template to build a list of small businesses in your city offering delivery and/or curbside pickup of groceries.
Users of your template will be able to contact you to ask questions. The better you make your video, the less likely you’ll have support questions.
If you need to update your template, just re-submit the same template to the store. We’ll recognize it’s a duplicate and approve the latest version of the template.
For each Paid Template that is purchased by a customer, Glide will take a 30% commission. Learn more in our Terms of Service.
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