2022 Envato Annual Public Impact Statement

Envato Announcements
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Hi all!

We’ve just published our latest Public Impact Statement, covering high-level information about what Envato has been up to over the last year.

2022 was a very big year for many people in our community, particularly with so many of our authors located in Ukraine and Russia. We’ve also seen a lot of changes right across our industry, and within Envato. The economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic have dramatically affected our marketplaces during 2020 and 2021, but we saw less impact from these during 2022.

Elements has become the primary focus for Envato, with the whole company shifting in mid 2022 to orient around new growth plans for that platform. We now have over 10 million items in the Elements content library, with over 500k active subscribers. We’ll be sharing more later this year about how we’re working to attract new customers, particularly in fast-growing customer segments like Video.

Envato Market saw 25 authors join the ranks of the Power Elite community during 2022, each passing $1M in total sales. 12 authors hit even higher sales milestones, with five $2M authors, three $5M authors, and two even managing to reach $10M in lifetime sales. We also saw 136 new Elite authors achieve their first $75k in sales on Envato Market, with 418 authors celebrating various Elite milestones during the year.

You can view the 2022 Public Impact Statement on our blog here.

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Hi @BenLeong, Can you share more about the changes across our industry and within Envato? I’m trying to prepare for what’s to come. Because since the removal of the contributor bonus I see a -35% drop in earnings. I hope this is not a trend that will only get worse.

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2022

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that’s where we all got a drop in earnings.

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Oh I see. Thanks for sharing!

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The community earned much less in 2022. I wonder what’s the cause.

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Those are very impressive numbers. Honored to be here!

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Hi @Exill & @styleWish! I’m not an analyst, so I can only really talk about very high-level trends. I think the biggest factor in that change in total earnings from 2021-2022 has been the end of the Covid-19 impact though, particularly on ThemeForest and CodeCanyon. Both marketplaces saw a huge boost in traffic and sales earlier in the pandemic, when businesses around the world scrambled to either set up their first website, or to upgrade the functionality of their sites.

We’re now seeing web/code sales patterns that line up more with trends we’ve seen across the last few years, now the “bump” has ended: those small and medium businesses that set up new websites in 2021 aren’t likely to overhaul them for a few years. As those web and code sales make up such a large part of our revenue, any change affecting those marketplaces will have a large impact on total author earnings for the year.

In terms of other changes across the industry, subscription services are continuing to grow relative to per-item marketplace sales. There’s a lot of competition in that space now, and it seems like every month there’s another story about competitors testing out new subscription products, or shutting down earlier attempts at getting into that market. Elements has been able to get established early though, and has advantages (breadth and size of content library, and pricing) that the competition is finding it hard to copy.

Another shift is in the rise of DIY-style products that are aimed at customers without the tools or skills to use professional products - from presentation templates to website builders. That’s a big disruption to marketplaces (like our own) that focus on tools for professional, or at least moderately skilled users.

However, we also have a very broad footprint in terms of educational content, and that’s an important channel for getting new customers. For example, Tuts+ is on track to overtake Adobe’s own Creative Cloud YouTube channel later this year, and is already bigger than platforms like Coursera, Udemy and LinkedIn Learning. Almost every item that we sell requires some degree of skill to use it, whether that’s tool-specific (how do I install a WordPress plugin?) or design related (understanding design principles). When prospective customers come to our platforms to learn those topics, we’re in a good position to be the first place they go to purchase content.

We’ll be publishing more about trends and customer demand throughout the year, looking at each of the different content types - I’ll make sure we link to those here in the forums, as they’re generally published on the Author Hub.

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Thanks for your insights! Is Envato working on new earning opportunities for authors to tap into the rise of DIY-style products? And do you think tools for professionals are still be valid for the years to come? Seems like the AI trend is enabling people to do it themselves without the help of professionals. It should be possible for customers to open photoshop templates in a free web version of photoshop powered by Envato. So they can adjust some basic elements and have a professional design.

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$110M for 42,000 authors, that’s an average of $2,558 annually. This is ridiculous. This community sure is not doing good!

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Well, congratulations to all the successful!
But I already need to think about exiting the market: from two accounts (Ex and non-ex) an income of $300 per month is nonsense.Well, in 7 years I have not made a career, it’s time to leave.

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Excellent, speechless! :clap:t2: :envato: :blue_heart:

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How about those of us locked out of Elements? If Envato is focusing on Elements, then maybe they should be giving us AJ authors a two-week notice?? Or will they at some point open up to us too?

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Hi @EnchantedForestMusic! There are plans underway to bring more AudioJungle authors into Elements. I don’t have any more detail on those at the moment, but will share more information when I can.

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Thanks @BenLeong thats good to hear. I hope I’m on that list! Although I am relatively new. But very good :grin:

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