How Thomas Frank made $1 million selling Notion templates

Thomas Frank is not a creator that hustles loud. He doesn’t overhype his launches or flash his revenue dashboards. He builds clean repeatable systems that print revenue while he films his next Youtube video.

Two years ago, he did something wild where he paused his main channel with 2M subs (now 3M) and launched a tutorials-only channel focused purely on Notion. That decision doubled his income. His second channel now has over 280K subs and 14M views just teaching one thing: Notion.

If you’re wondering how can someone turn their love for one tool into a multi-million dollar business, here’s the breakdown. It’s simpler than you think, and yes, you can copy it.

1. From free tutorials to “This should be a product”

Thomas spent nearly a decade uploading videos to Youtube before selling his first paid Notion templates. He began creating content in 2012, but his paid Notion template business started much later.

By 2018, he was using Notion to manage his own content process and two years later, he launched his second channel called “Thomas Frank Explains” dedicated entirely to Notion tutorials.

On that channel, his videos are focused around three content types:

• Build guides: long form & practical, these perform best long-term
• Beginner tutorials: foundational, steady but smaller view counts
• Feature-release videos: higher-effort, higher-reward videos timed with product updates

He wanted to create a destination where if you want to learn Notion, you land and immediately think: “this is the spot.”

“I wanted people to click over and instantly feel: I want to learn Notion and this is the place for it.” Thomas Frank, interview with Jay Clouse

After years of audience-building and refining his workflow, he finally turned that system into a product. He released Creator’s Companion (Aug 2021) and Ultimate Brain (Apr 2022). Later, he bundled the two; a move that tripled his average order value.

Within a month, he made $100,000. Within a year (Jan–Dec 2022), his Notion templates crossed $1,000,508 in revenue.

2. The funnel that doesn’t look like a funnel

When Gumroad hiked fees by 400% overnight, Thomas realized he was paying for someone else’s Porsche.

“My first thought was huh, that’s a Porsche. I’m buying them a Porsche over the next 12 months with this price increase.” (referring to Gumroad’s fee hike in this interview)

So he rebuilt his checkout, tax, and fulfillment flow from scratch and moved to Lemon Squeezy.

Depending on your stage as a creator:

• Starter: Use what gets you live fast.
• Growing: Start owning more of the stack.
• Scaling: Audit fees, taxes, and ops bloat quarterly.

What makes Thomas’s funnel brilliant is that it doesn’t feel like one.

Step 1: Awareness

Every video is the top of his funnel, genuine, useful tutorials with subtle CTAs. “The Best Way to Manage Tasks and Projects in Notion” feels more like proof that the product works than an ad to buy it.

Step 2: Conversion

That link leads to a page that mirrors the tool he’s selling with a minimalist, distraction-free, all in Notion-style typography.

Thomas said he spent “a LOT of time on the sales page” as a key factor in his launch success, choosing to build a custom, high-effort page (likely using tools like Elementor or custom code) rather than relying on a generic platform template.

If you were building this today, you could spin up the same one-page flow on Easytools in under ten minutes with a single CTA, built-in FAQ, optional variant pricing. Frank coded his from scratch. You seriously don’t have to.

Step 3: Checkout (the last 10 seconds that decide your revenue)

Thomas’s current Lemon Squeezy flow is clean and credible, exactly what you’d want at the end of a funnel especially from a top seller.

Everything the buyer needs is above the fold: a clear and concise summary, visible refund note, and trusted wallets. But it still asks buyers to slow down: re-enter details, fill out forms, confirm the purchase. Tiny moments where intent cools down.

That’s the 1% Easytools fixes.

With Easycart, checkout happens right on the page (Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, or card, all native). Returning customers buy again with one tap. Post-purchase cross-sells appear after payment, not before, so trust stays intact.

And when someone decides to grab that extra product, they can do it with one-click, without even re-entering checkout info. That’s a small UX detail but it dramatically boost AOV. Watch how it works 👇

What Lemon Squeezy can’t do here is capture that “one more thing” moment and that frictionless add-on right after purchase. Easytools turns it into a one-tap bump that feels natural.

Step 4: Delivery (+ delight)

Buyers instantly receives their Notion workspace and an onboarding email packed with bonus tips. That generosity fuels word of mouth, the strongest growth loop there is.

With Easytools, this hand-off can be completely automated: product file + gated customer portal + follow-up email (no Zapier spaghetti needed).

3. The power of one product, done well

Thomas could’ve launched ten templates, discounted them, and called it a day. Instead, he doubled down on focus.

One flagship product. Constant refinement. Clear messaging.

If you want to borrow one thing from his playbook, borrow this: less variety, more clarity.

Every extra offer splits attention. Every extra button splits conversion.

4. The quiet numbers behind the calm

Thomas Frank doesn’t shout about his sales. He lets the numbers and his customers do the talking. But public sales data and community estimates put his template sales well past $2.5–$3 million in lifetime revenue.

Scroll through his site and you’ll find a Wall of Love that reads like a masterclass in community-built marketing: creators, PhDs, founders, and Notion power users all sharing how his templates rewired their workflow.

At first, Thomas collected testimonials the hard way; by replying on forums, dropping Notion form links, manually curating screenshots. He then started using testimonial.to a solid choice for building social proof but it stops there. Reviews live on a seperate page, disconnected from the funnel that drives revenue.

With Easylove, testimonials aren’t just displayed but embedded into your growth system. Each review becomes a live conversion asset, showing up right where intent peaks: on your checkout page, inside your emails, and across your site.  Easylove lets you auto-display top reviews mid-purchase to lift conversions (avg. +7%).

For a top-seller like Thomas, testimonials are more than feel-good comments. Every screenshot, every tweet, every quote adds momentum. With Easylove, that same social proof could live inside his funnel, not just around it, creating a calm, conversion-driven experience that scales with him.

5. The Thomas Frank playbook you can copy today

Here’s Thomas Frank’s funnel in plain English:

1. Teach something useful: content that naturally pre-sells the product
2. Offer one clear solution: keep it to one page and one CTA
3. Remove checkout friction: every extra field kills conversions
4. Deliver instantly: people love immediate payoff
5. Keep helping post-purchase: support = retention = referrals.

Easytools quietly handles all of it; checkout, delivery, analytics, cross-sells in literally one place without making your workflow louder. Which feels very… Thomas Frank.

6. Why it works

Thomas sells clarity. And his funnel reflects that. It’s proof that simplicity, done intentionally, scales.

So if you’ve been sitting on that course, that template, that guide; start small with one product. And use a tool that makes it easy.

"There is no such thing as permanence. Build the library anyway then rebuild it." Thomas Frank in an interview with Jay Clouse

Last but not least, Thomas embraced that tutorials go stale and when they do, he remakes them. That mindset is why the machine keeps printing.