Author Driven Pricing: ThemeForest, CodeCanyon and 3DOcean

Hi everyone,

As many of you know, over the past 12 months we have been rolling out Author Driven Pricing (ADP) across a range of different categories, so far this has included GraphicRiver and a handful of categories within ThemeForest.

Naturally, these changes are significant, and our team has been closely monitoring the impact on the market for any signs of destabilization.

At this stage, I can announce that following the implementation of ADP on our early categories, the marketplace remains healthy. To share with you some very general insights:

  • Pricing across the ADP categories have remained very stable (with a small number of… let’s call them “optimistic exceptions”)
  • Across popular items, prices have been far more likely to increase rather than decrease. Largely, more authors have chosen to experiment with increasing their prices rather than decreasing them.
  • In the instances where prices have dropped, it’s been on dated items that haven’t been selling as strongly for some time.
  • Customer behaviour has not changed as a result of the shift, again proving the point that customers have a lot more on their minds than just “price” when it comes to choosing an item for their project.

We’re now looking to move on to the next stage of our Author Driven Pricing project and introduce the feature to three new areas of Envato Market. These three areas are:

  1. All remaining ThemeForest categories (including WordPress).
  2. All categories on CodeCanyon.
  3. All categories on 3DOcean

How will that work?

In mid-to-late September, our engineers will flip the switch to enable Author Driven Pricing functionality on the marketplaces above. We’ll alert you via email once the change is officially made live and all authors will be free to determine whether they wish to change their prices, in accordance with the rules of ADP.

What about items in the review queue?

Unlike our last ADP rollout, all items in the review queue at the time ADP is applied will remain in the review queue.

The reviewers will be setting default pricing on the items as they are approved. Once approved, the author will receive an email informing them of the price, and prompting them to review it.

Information for Authors on How to Price Items

When the changes go live, authors will be able to enter item prices for all available license types for their item into the price text box on the upload page, or on the edit item page.

Price recommendations will be shown alongside the item price field as a guide only. When setting your item price, you should also should consider that author driven pricing categories feature a fixed buyer fee. You can find a list of the fixed buyer fees on our Help Center.

Once you’ve submitted your edits, the price change will take effect immediately. Item price changes will also immediately and automatically update item support prices based on current rates.

Read more about how to price your items in our help center.

For this release, we’ll be leaving all list prices as they are. Although we won’t change the list price during the release, in some cases the new structure may cause a decrease or increase in the item price. If your item price changes and you wish to return it to what it was pre-launch, you will be able to do so on the edit item page.

IMPORTANT Information About Pricing Discussions

There are strict laws governing pricing conduct. In particular, it’s strictly prohibited to have an agreement, arrangement or understanding between competing businesses (such as two authors) about what price point to sell at. How to price your work is a commercial decision you will need to make for yourself. Read more about this in our help center.

Why are we doing this?

At the heart of this change is our vision for an Envato Market that empowers authors to make their own decisions about their businesses. By allowing scope for authors to determine their own prices, we give more control to authors and allow for new types of products and business models.

Over the coming week, the community team will be around to answer any general questions you might have (using the daily batch reply approach we’ve taken in the past). Please help them out by keeping the discussion on track, checking first to see if your question has already been answered and avoiding any discussion on the specifics of how you’re pricing your item or what you think item prices should be.

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Thanks for keeping us up to date coxy! (I love that name :sweat_smile:)

Any infos about ADP on Audiojungle?

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I’m super excited about ADP in WordPress category. I really hope owners of monstrously huge themes that bundle hundreds of themes will increase price, so that we, small niche theme providers can compete better…

fingers crossed.

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You really believe that? Franky, I think it will be the other way around! I think there should be a minimal price you cannot go bellow. Can I change the price as many times as I want? Can we make special offer $10 for theme XYX only today?

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real excited about this . wanted this from along time :wink:

Wow so cool. it is a new battle

This is a very good decision :+1: :slight_smile:good opportunity to change the price of the items.

i think you need to reduce review time along, add new feature any way wait for this really exciting feature :wink:

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Woohoo, ADP on CodeCanyon finally… Very very happy reading this guys, awesome!

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This is a cool feature - I guess a lot of authors want to raise their prices. On the other hand will we be able to set a discounted sale price for a period of time? Is there a limit on how often we change the price?

I believe supporting those huge themes at 60$ piece puts companies under strain. I believe companies behind these would benefit from increased price, reduced support tickets, while maintaining the same revenue.

Awesome stuff guys!

One thing I don’t understand yet:

I have an item at price XX$, but that price is fine by me. However with the fixed buyers fee I would get more money as with the current 20% buyers fee. If I would like to keep my item price but use the fixed buyers fee, then can I have it?
Maybe by changing the item price to XX+1$ and then changing it back to XX$? :smiley:

Anyways, awesome changes :slight_smile:

I am sorry if I missed anything (reading this post from my hospital bed) but ADP is applicable to existing items too right? Will i be able to change the price of my current items??

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@[quote=“wpdreams, post:14, topic:62756”]
I have an item at price XX$, but that price is fine by me. However with the fixed buyers fee I would get more money as with the current 20% buyers fee. If I would like to keep my item price but use the fixed buyers fee, then can I have it?
[/quote]

You sure can!

Hope you’re ok!

The change is applicable to all items in the category. Both those that are in the category now and those that will be uploaded in the future.

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Hi, why the buyers fee for themes is a fixed $12? This means that any Theme priced lower then $60 will earn us less money then before…

Right now for a theme priced at $59:
Buyers Fee: $11.8
Authors Free: $5.9
Income: $59 - Buyers Fee - Authors Fee = $41.3

After the changes:
Buyers Fee: $12
Authors Free: $5.875
Income: $59 - Buyers Fee - Authors Fee = $41.125

Right now for a theme priced at $49:
Buyers Fee: $9.8
Authors Free: $4.9
Income: $49 - Buyers Fee - Authors Fee = $34.3

After the changes:
Buyers Fee: $12
Authors Free: $4.625
Income: $49 - Buyers Fee - Authors Fee = $32.375

This is $2 on each sale!

Can we make marketing actions like for example 24h sale with lower price? Or start with the lower price at the beginning as a promotion?

P.S I like the change to author driven prices, but the numbers do not add up. Yet again this is another way to earn more money for Envato…

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We recently adjusted our Item Promotion Guidelines to be able accommodate discounting and the promotion of discounting. If this is something you’re keen to do, then you are welcome to do so.

That’s exactly what i wanted to say, but you were faster.
Envato earns more, but the authors earns less. AGAIN :))

This means that any Theme priced lower then $60 will earn us less money then before…

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What is the current permitted price-changing frequency? (or is there such a policy?)