I started my TPT store on March 8, 2026. I thought it would be fairly simple: I had years of Word documents, PowerPoints, activities, and other materials that worked in my classroom, so I assumed I could upload them and start earning a little money from work I had already created.
I was wrong. What I quickly learned is that having good teaching materials and creating a good TPT product are two very different things. A resource can work beautifully in your classroom and still need considerable work before it is ready to sell.
I also went looking for advice. I listened to podcasts and watched YouTube videos from successful TPT sellers talking about making their first four figures or earning hundreds of thousands of dollars. Those stories may be true, but they weren't realistic for where I was starting. I actually believed my materials were good enough that I could easily make $300 a month. That didn't happen.
As August comes to a close, I have 102 followers and 27 reviews. That's not bad, and it represents real growth from where I started. I expect to move into roughly the 90th percentile as this month closes, but I'm still very much in the learning stage. I'm sharing that because I want this blog to be the honest version of the TPT story , the version I wish I'd found when I started.
So here are the five things I wish someone had told me on March 8.
1. Choose your store name before you do anything else.
Before you create products, design graphics, or start building a brand, choose your store name. Then check it. Search TPT, search Google, and search the USPTO trademark database for the name and similar names. Search the USPTO Trademark Database ↗
I wish I had understood how important this first decision was. Have the name ready before you open the store, because changing everything later is much harder than choosing carefully at the beginning.
2. Your first TPT product must be free. Make that free product work for you.
Your first TPT product must be free, so plan it before you open your store. Make it simple enough to create without overwhelming yourself, but make sure it serves a purpose. Make it useful, make it attractive, and make it something a teacher would actually want to download. Most importantly, let it lead naturally to a larger product that someone would want to buy.
Your free resource is an introduction to your work. It should give teachers a sense of what you do and make the next step obvious: If I liked this, I might want the larger resource, too. My own first attempt went in the opposite direction. I took something that should probably have been a paid product and made it far too large instead of thinking strategically about what a free product could do.
3. Start with Canva. Seriously.
Start with Canva Free. Play around with it before you desperately need to make a cover. Learn how it works, experiment with fonts and images, and practice making clean layouts. I started my TPT store in March and am still using Canva Free five months later; there is plenty there to make professional-looking covers, thumbnails, previews, and other marketing materials.
4. Make your first paid product, and learn how to present it.
Once your free product and the larger paid resource it leads to are ready, make the paid product look ready to sell. This is where Canva becomes essential. Create a strong square cover at 1600 × 1600 pixels, three clear square thumbnails in the same format, and a useful preview. A 16:9 widescreen format is a good place to start practicing previews.
Your product matters, but so does the way a potential buyer sees it. Use every inch of marketing space TPT gives you: the cover, thumbnails, preview, title, and description all need to work together. Practice making the product look good before you're trying to sell it. SEO and search strategy matter, too, but that's a conversation for another post.
5. Bite the bullet and choose Premium.
Once you have your store name, your free product, and your first paid product ready, you're in a much better position to choose your TPT membership deliberately. See TPT's current seller fees and payout rates ↗
My advice, based on my own mistake, is to go ahead and choose Premium. Yes, it costs more up front. But if you start with the cheaper plan and later decide you want Premium, you do not simply pay the difference. You can end up paying for the first plan and then paying the full Premium price. That is exactly what I did.
If you are serious about building a store, I think Premium is the better option. You get the stronger royalty structure and, in my experience, you are better off making the bigger decision once instead of paying twice because you were trying to save money at the beginning.
What I Really Wish Someone Had Told Me
The biggest thing I wish someone had told me is that opening a TPT store is not the same thing as uploading your classroom materials to the internet. I knew how to teach. I knew my materials worked with real students. What I didn't know was how much work happens after you have the teaching idea.
You have to turn a classroom resource into a product. You have to think about the buyer, write a description, create a cover, make thumbnails, build a preview, learn the platform, and figure out how teachers will find you. That's a very different skill set from teaching English, and I'm still learning it.
That's why I created TPT, Honestly. I'm not interested in pretending I have a secret formula for making thousands of dollars on TPT, and I'm not interested in telling a new seller that success happens overnight. I want to share what I'm actually learning: the mistakes, the improvements, and the small signs of growth.
I'm not a guru. I'm figuring it out, too. And I hope what I'm learning helps you start on a stronger foot than I did.