Changes To How Authors Receive Earnings Payouts From Envato

That’s technically true… kind of, but Envato also have the right to kick somebody out for any reason. And for no reason.

So always best to err on the side of caution! Especially if everyone starts doing it, thus undoing the benefit of implementing the change in the first place… at which point they might crack down on the practice. Then you’ll be to blame!

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Hey. I have two accounts for SWIFT. On the main account, $ 500 is not difficult to earn, and the second account 500 dollars are earned several months. Can I leave the main account for SWIFT, and the second Payoneer?

@jamesgiroux Hey James, we need a clarification as various terminology is used and may cause a confusion.

Payout destination -> means “the details which we enter into the withdrawal form (company name, bank account number etc)”

Envato account owner -> means “an individual or a company details entered in the billing/tax details in our account settings”

Is that correct? Also, these two above must match, right?

So, one more important question. Currently, our account owner details are aligned with one of multiple payouts destinations we use, however, the single payout that we will have to choose won’t match the current account owner details, so I assume we can just submit account owner and tax details again to align with this new one payout destination that we will choose, is that correct?

Tnx

How in hell are you improving the situation, by multiplying authors’ fees??
This makes no sense, it is a forced change with only NEGATIVE IMPACT on authors, and yet you’re arguing it’s for the best. Who’s best?
so far the only changes have been:

  • introducing new fees.
  • blocking skrill.
  • killing partnerships, and vaguely pretending it’s for the greater good.
  • mandatory monthly payments disregarding any losses that might occur if the author’s account isn’t ready.

Is this your new business model?

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Please mind your language.

If you look at things from a different perspective, you’ll realize, it’s for our best.

  1. Envato doesn’t abide to international rules for money payment = Envato get’s closed = we’re all out!
  2. Envato abides to international rules for money payment = we get an extra fee IF AND ONLY IF WE HAVE PARTNERS = most of us are okay, some of us have extra taxes.

This rule was announced almost 2 years ago, and now it’s being enforced. Welcome to international money laws, where the company gets blamed for something governments set in place…

  1. Introducing new fees - Absolutely no new fee was implemented. An international rule that was announced well over a year ago is now being enforced. Where do you see anything here about new taxes? Please show me.

  2. Blocking Skrill - Envato didn’t block Skrill. Skrill changed their TOS. Fact Check - Skrill has been reinstated. - and as for what I see and read, Skrill wanted to move their business out of Australia, so Envato MUST have withdrawn Skrill as a Payment option, otherwise, that would have been INCREDIBLY illegal. More on the forums

  3. killing partnerships, and vaguely pretending it’s for the greater good - Read my initial quote. Partnerships are not dead. You have to find a way to send money to your partner from now on.There are plenty of options discussed in this post.

  4. mandatory monthly payments disregarding any losses that might occur if the author’s account isn’t ready - I’m really struggling here. So, let me get this right. You’re selling stuff, but you can’t get paid? I really don’t see how that is Envato’s issue… that sounds to me the absolute worst business model in the world. “I’m selling this product, but you can’t send me money”

Now, after your list, everything you’ve written, has nothing to do with Envato simply adding automatic withdrawals as a default ( you’d be amazed how many people forget to withdraw their cash monthly ) and by enforcing a rule that has everything to do with international laws and nothing to do with Envato’s business model.

Please check your facts, just throwing out wild accusations with no foundation or basis to their existence will only start useless conversations that can be terminated by a few simple, logical, and checked facts. I’m not saying not to have an opinion, but in this case, all the elements you’ve posted, have been covered, recovered, posted about, talked and re-talked, and the conclusions I’ve just stated.

I guess everything is fine, there’s really nothing to protest after all! this petition is unnecessary now

1- International laws that weren’t there when Envato was operating from Australia?
2- This “extra fee” is not exactly bearable by everybody. Maybe for an elite author it’s OK, but this doesn’t make it so for everyone.
3- There has been no direct indication that this is to abide by international laws, and zero explanation to the mechanism that enforces this change. (only: this is for the best. trust us. move on).
4- Fees were introduced 2 years ago, and even back then the author outcry was also ignored. (same approach).
5- You do understand that the issue with skrill regards withdrawals not payments, it may have been reinstated as a payment method for the buyer but not as a withdrawal method for the author :slight_smile: And regarding Skrill alleged moving out of Australia, I’ve demanded a comment on any change of policy for Australian based companies and was given none. This is skrill’s response about the matter:

What we can advise you at this moment is that there is official communication with Envato in regards to the situation. Please note that you have received this email from the merchant most probably due to request coming from the Australian bank authorities.

You have to find a way to send money to your partner from now on.There are plenty of options discussed in this post.

Ugh, again, this is about the author not having to walk extra 100 miles and dodging fireballs just to get his business together.

So, let me get this right. You’re selling stuff, but you can’t get paid? I really don’t see how that is Envato’s issue… that sounds to me the absolute worst business model in the world. “I’m selling this product, but you can’t send me money”

In a world where issues with banks / paypal are unavoidable, I need the option to halt getting paid until an issue is resolved. Also If we’re getting paid every month instead of a longer interval. That’s a whole lot of fees that didn’t need to be.
I’m sure to somebody, none of these changes would make any impact on their business model, or maybe they chose not to think about it :slight_smile:

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Most likely, yes. Since a petition to Envato will not change international laws.

The anti-defeat law for cars wasn’t here 5 years ago before the figured out what Volkswagen was doing? Laws change, laws appear, laws disappear. This is how the world works.

2.4% of 100 = 2.4$
2.4% of 100.000 = 2.400$

These percentages tend to hurt much more if you earn more.

That was explained 2 years ago in a post. It has everything to do with Envato’s Expansion to the US Envato Post Here. And before you ask why they had to move to the US it’s because otherwise they would have been kicked out from selling in the US.

Laws were introduced thousands of years back or maybe even more. Everyone cries about them but we have to abide by them. So do you, so do I, so does Envato.

So you asked an international company to share their secrets with you based on multi-million multi-national companies and you’re upset they didn’t give you a straight answer?

Of course you do. It’s your company. You want Envato to do your accounting and pay your taxes for you as well? Maybe open a bank account for you and bring you a pizza when you code? It’s a company! They offer tools for the INDIVIDUAL. What you decide to do after that is UP TO YOU. You have an AUTHOR account, not a TEAM account. And even if Envato would have a Team Account it would STILL require a single bank account or payment account for payment. It’s international laws 1:1.

You are aware that Envato sends money, if a system rejects it then the money comes back to you. There is also Envato Support that can be mailed “Hault the payment my account was locked!” These are all issues that are OUTSIDE the realm of Envato’s power.

What you’re basically saying is.

Envato is unfair because I have to pay taxes that everyone else in my situation has to but until now there was a small way to get away from those by doing this and that, but now, considering the laws are being applied to me as well, not just the rest of the world, I feel I’m being isolated.

Nah mate, the world doesn’t work like that. Envato has their author and buyer fee. That’s it. Everything else is the US compliance tax, VAT ( EU tax ) Transfer (Payment Gate Tax) and Gouverment ( your country tax)

Envato has 2 taxes. Everything else is completely out of their hands and unfortunately, everyone is pointing the finger at Envato for trying to keep their-selves and our livelihoods afloat.

Envato is a company. Company follow laws. Employee’s / Authors suffer. This applies to absolutely every company in the world. Apple bank transferred 250 BILLION dollars from Ireland to the US and paid 39 BILLION dollars in taxes. The saying Death and Taxes are inevitable was probably invented by folks like us…

The truth is, taxes suck, but, you don’t pay them, the government shuts you down, then everyone looses. It’s better to earn 50%, heck, than earn 0%…

Cheers mate!

This is wrong, not only partnerships have more fees. Single authors who haven’t withdrawn every month up until now have higher fees as well.

I will have higher fees. I’m not a partnership. This has all been explained before.

It really is not as easy as you might see it now. I’m not sure if it is true to say “most” are okay, and “some” have extra fees. It might actually be the other way round, “most” have extra fees and “some” don’t.
Only envato has the required info to make any statement about who is affected, so it is just wild speculation to say “most are okay” or “most are affected”.

Especially authors outside the US are affected, I guess.

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On another note, has it been confirmed by envato that the monthly withdrawal is to be in lines with international law? If I remember it correctly, this was just the guess of some authors (me included) but no envato employee did actually confirm that in this thread, or am I missing something?

They have only mentioned that this is to be in line with their terms, not with international laws. The terms are written by envato and can be adjusted as long as they don’t break any laws.

Can anyone point me either to envato confirming this is required by law or directly to the law that states withdrawals on such a marketplace have to be monthly?

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Some countries always have lesser taxes than others and lower restriction laws. But if international laws dictate Envato must payout monthly, then why are we blaming Envato for this?!

I get everything you guys say, except the part where "Envato is to blame because international laws "…

It hasn’t been confirmed, but a bit of research does lead to this. Payments must be scheduled and regular. We can’t even find out what law this is since Envato must follow special ones that apply to all the countries it “activates” in, and that is quite difficult to figure out.

I’m curious about this as well! :slight_smile:

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The problem here is that only some are talking about this being a strict law.

If it’s required by law that payouts have to be MONTHLY, I guess a lot of authors would find it a lot easier to accept it, but right now this has not been confirmed by anyone.

But when they have to be monthly, how can envato keep the money if it is under $500? monthly means monthly, or does this international law dictate the exact amount of $500 minimum for Swift and $50 for paypal?
I honestly doubt that.

I rather think that the law says something along the lines what you guessed as well:

They have to be regular, that I think is totally reasonable to be a law. But that means they could be every 2 months, monthly, once a quarter?

But again, we don’t even know IF THERE IS such a law.

So you have no confirmation nor a law at hand that really confirms your theories. And as long as that is the case and we have no confirmation that this is actually required by law there is absolutely no sense in spreading the word that it is a law and who is affected and how much we can do about it or not and who is to blame.

Don’t get this in the wrong way but you repeatedly posted now that this is required by law, and that envato cannot do anything, but now it turns out you actually have no confirmation about this and all of it or parts of it can be wrong. So I have to think that your recent posts are just theories without any base to it UNTIL it is confirmed IF there is a law and WHAT EXACTLY it says.

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+1. If envato could chime in for a second and simply confirm that their hands are tied because law XY requires these changes, then this will calm this thread down a lot.

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Sorry, but we have to intercede again to avoid creating any kind of confusion. As we mentioned in a previous post, the petition is NOT to change international laws or cheat taxes, but to find a way to give authors tools to help those who are in teams/partnerships, please, read carefully our previous post and the petition post, we NEVER said anything about changing international laws or make authors bypass taxes.

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Do not understand why there’s a noise here? Envato (like all employers will transfer money to the account every month in automatic mode and this is normal, as for any employer) What they said. What’s wrong with that?

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And on the second item … Each author is registered as AUTHOR (individual person), not the TEAM OF AUTHORS.If they (outsiders, foreigners, friends, etc. authors), it is necessary to separately negotiate with them about payment (because they should be behind the Envato perimeter), regardless from other persons. I do not see any problems at all!

That’s what I’ve been trying to say for the past 2 days! Thank you!!!

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I’m amazed how people here can not understand that this is a problem for small authors, and why people are asking here for more details and if there isn’t anything they can do to reduce fees.

I mean, I consider myself a pretty big and succesful author here and this change does not threaten my existence, I will lose around $360 because of this each year in bank transfer fees because of this change but I will still make enough to continue being an author here and I have no plans so far to change anything of my business because of this change.

Still, I’m able to imagine that small authors earning $500 a month here don’t want to lose 50-100 USD of that to banking fees. That is 10-20% of your earnings, doesn’t this justify some posts here of concerned people to simply ask if there might be a chance to change the intervall to 2 months, or 3 months etc?

In my opinion this is totally understandable, as losing 10% of your earnings can be the difference of being able to live off of your earnings or not.

But instead we have here authors arguing with each other if this really is a problem, and authors who aren’t affected arguing with concerned authors who are affected, and obviously not understanding what’s wrong with that.

I’m not really affected, yet I see the problem, and do really miss the old times when Collis would chime in a thread like this and explain why the payment has to be monthly now and while it still being unfortunate for affected authors, they would have an answer and they are assured that they have been heard but it simply isn’t possible.

Really, I’m happy for everyone who is fortunate enough to not be affected by this, but I think if you imagine how this can affect the earnings of small authors then you might understand the “noise”.

I wish for every author who is concerned that they get some more explanation from envato staff why things have to be worse for them, and in the meantime I am thankful that I am only slightly affected by this.

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Envato is not my employer. I create when I want, how I want, and what I want. So the same thing I want to have with my earnings. Get them when I want and how I want.
Envato is a partner. The main reason why we all stay here is a huge audience. It’s not unique service, it’s not comfortable and etc.
It’s a matter of time when authors start leaving this place. We own all items. Envato don’t pay me anything for creating mine.

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I think this is very vad news for most of the Auther.We will lose $250 per year due to bank fees.
If it possible please change these plan sir.

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Very very bad idea with the automatic payment. Why is envato doing this? is it for creating more money for paypal, Payoneer and the banks?

Now we are forced to pay a bank transaction fee every month ??? why??

Who is making all this bad decisions ??

I am absolutely against automatic withdrawal!!! why can the autorst not decided when to withdraw??

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