Envato Author Fee Needs to be reduced same for all level of Author.

Exactly… and how will we buyers be able to make you authors take down DMCA if envato leaves Everything DMCA onto the author? Because if you order DMCA to take away only your item as an author, other authors items will still be there on [link removed]

Only envato can take down the whole [link removed] sites…
And for a share of 50% on sales, I would have expected them to have done something about that site in particular by now… it has even gotten to a point where that nulled site is more popular than envato…

THERE are peopy who know [link removed] but do not know codecanyon.net and think codecanyon.net is a site rather taking advantage to sell what [link removed] sells for free…

That’s how bad it has gotten…
I saw this in the comments on one of my favorite author’s items

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Good… let’s say good things about Envato or else your comments will be banned like mine was :+1:

I think if you wanna have a more factual, unbiased and candid conversation to improve the envato store, you will find these hard truths about the problems on Glassdoor and various blogs of people on medium and on social media :+1:

Not on “Envato forums”

Firstly - yes I am a moderator but I am not an employee of envato and nor do I sell items here.

The reason we offer an alternative view of some of this is because often comments can be inaccurate which does nothing but fuel further mis-conceptions.

Not true. Buyers using guest accounts cannot access items until they verify at least their email address. So often ‘sales reversal files’, are not even downloaded by the fake buyer.

They do but it is not that simple as it relates to disputes which is fine if you are selling a few hundred files but very different if it is tens of thousands. Bigger picture, the requirement .v. potential % of disputes upheld has to make sense.

Also, we (myself included) do not know what other steps envato take to protect things, so can’t really comment on it, but I know they do have a dedicated team.

again, a handful of files .v. thousands - it’s not a realistic comparison.

  • As with the disputes, common sense has to prevail about investment .v. return. Get one taken down and it will just appear somewhere else the next day.

  • Fundamental copyright law prevents envato from issuing the DCMA.

We don’t block threads because we don’t agree with them - I am just adding clarity to a certain points.

This is just basic business sense. It’s the same with anything - It’s about ROI.

As discussed these are not the same thing and do not offer the same economies of scale. There are other digital marketplaces like envato (not as big but still very established).

Why do I support Envato’s fees?
Several reasons:

  1. they are not that different from other sites despite the exceptionally greater expectation and demand on envato
  2. I have a realistic impression of what is needed to maintain a marketplace like this and the limitations that are faced
  3. I appreciate what, regardless of authors’ grievances, envato offer

Again I am not suggesting that everything is ideal - I just think it is important to ensure accuracy to prevent greater frustration

I hope this clarifies some of the comments above. If you have viable recommendations then you should reach out to support who would be closer to those who can do something about it. Envato Authors Help and Support

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You are helping the community, spending your valuable time here without getting anything in return. that’s very generous of you. at least Envato should be paying you something.
but in my case, I don’t think there is any inaccurate in this topic. it’s my point of view that Envato is charging more and also not much clear about charges or there are unnecessary charges. foe ex. Envato offers 2 types of the package (license) Regular and Extended but tell me that is there any way to track that the user is not using the regular license for charging his own client or user is not using the regular license item for multiple projects without purchasing a new license. what I am saying is there is no practical benefits for paying 5 times more author fee for an extended license when all the other things such as support period no of files and other items related stuff is remaining same as a regular license. whereas on fiver, it is very clear by providing the different features in item base on package user choose. and the fiver platform is very similar to Envato base on working.

If I am using someone’s thing then it’s my duty to keep it safe. - do you agree with this?
I think that its Envato’s responsibility to track and block the users who leak the item to the null site. I understand that it is not possible to track each and every site but a major one can be handled. like including some tracking code base on the invoice and then Envato can keep watch on some major null site and find out who purchases that script and block that user from the platform. and now don’t tell me that for this task Envato needs to increase staff and that leads to a tax increase if that’s the case then what they are doing with this current about 40%.? for what reason it’s taking 40% when it cant provide simple security. I hope the Envato server is secured and script not getting pirated from there they are purchased by the null site and then hosted there.

You don’t need to be Apple to do business you can also be Mi and run business. (Just use as ex. to demonstrate profit margin.). In the end Envato works because of the authors willing to sell their content on this platform.

I am comparing Envato with this platform because of the business scale, user base, and working fields ie. IT industry. so this platforms are a perfect match for comparison.

  1. Yes, there is huge margin in what the actual working person getting for his work. ie. author. again I am not comparing with codester or other just download platform and I am saying in terms of online service provider which is freelancing service or selling digital content. If there was a competitor for Envato which can cause risk similar to what Huawei and Samsung is to Apple. then I am sure that Envato’s behavior is not the same as it is now. Lack of competitors leads authors to the situation where they don’t have any option rather than paying huge % there work to Envato.

  2. let just take look at some statistics. -

  • suppose you’re (Envato) using AWS for storage which will cost $0.021 per GB for the usage of more than 500TB and I guess envato is big enough to have usage of more than this.

  • consider spending $10 on google ads for a single item I am sure it’s not the case. I think Envato doesn’t advertise a single item it does advertise for its platform.

  • if a sale is coming from referrals program Envato gives 30% of that first sale to referer ie. $3 for item prices like $10

  • Envato employee spends 5min on verifying and approving that item lets give him $1 for that 5 min.

  • and the item price is $10 and it takes the storage of 50 Mb where Envato is charging $6.25 on each sale. this does not make sense.

  • if I am having 100 sales of that item in a year then I am paying $6.25*100 = $625 for Investment of $3 (one time for referral) + $10 (ads) + $1 = $14.

  • and the author who made the item, providing support, maintaining updates and all stuff got paid just $375. what kind of ROI is this?

  • if you are saying they have to manage the huge amount of data that cost lots of amount for servers then there are lots of ways to reduce that one expenditure. like. there is no need to host product video on the Envato server that can be hosted on youtube, which will reduce item size significantly. also, Envato could introduce to host project with the limited size say it’s 100Mb, and more than that size user needs to host on self google drive and that’s is possible with google drive API. and this 2 services are free ones.

  1. Can you please tell me what Envato offers in terms of taking 37.5% of each sale. Yes, its the largest marketplace due to its started when no other having concepts of this kind of business so there was no competition in starting days which helps to expand at this stage. and also in starting the Envato % was low compare to what it has now. and yes along with increasing the % the user base gets increased to so you can’t say that they spend more and going in loss. just consider it like they spend $10 and got $100.

there is no point in going to support for issue of higher % as they just don’t care about what single or 100 author thinks. I have posted this topic in the community due to its effect on them directly and wanna know that is it just me who thinks this business model of Envato is not good for author or others thinks the same way.

Note - This topic is created for discussion and not for solving an issue with a particular user.
my calculation in this comment does not represent the actual values it’s just to clear my point and give an approximate sum of amounts.

With respect, there is a lot of inaccuracy again - some based on unknowns.

Rather than try to go through point by point. If it’s that bad - why are you still selling items here?

Like what? server pricing by AWS? go check AWS S3 pricing,

I answer this in that detailed comment. for short

  1. this platform/business work because of us Authors. if we don’t sell here then there will be no Envato nor this community for you to share your knowledge.
  2. Because of lack in competition Envato is at the place where the author doesn’t have any option rather than accepting their terms. I do earn my living expenditure by working on projects and selling them. and it’s not acceptable that I have to pay more than 50% just to sell my item on that platform but what other option I do have?.
  3. And this community forum is to improve the marketplace not for following blindly whats we are getting. there is always change for improvement in any kind of system even if it looks perfect.
  4. And its responsibility of community members to point out the flows in system and improve that. if pointing the flow and trying to improve the system is wrong then we should be living in stone age.

it’s not acceptable that I have to pay more than 50% just to sell my item on that platform but what other option I do have?

I guess you answered the whole thread. It may not be fair, but it is how it is, and it is very unlikely it will change anytime soon. Until there won’t be some serious competition, Envato have no reason to change it. Arguing about it is a total waste of time IMHO. Better spend time working on your items to get to Elite level ASAP.

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Yes sir you are correct completely. but i thing there are two ways to deal with this.

  1. Strong competition - which is not going to happen any time soon.
  2. Vice of community (Buyers/Sellers) - which i am trying to figure out if exists or not here.

For example:

  • tracking in invoices would breach all sorts of privacy laws

  • monitoring null sites is a complete waste of time (hence why no marketplaces do it)

  • even if envato saw items on one - legally, they have zero right to claim against it

  • “what are they spending 40% on”? How much do you think it costs to build, maintain and manage a site of this size? Others who envato dwarf still charge nearly the same%

  • they do provide more than ‘simple security’ but none of us know what exactly that is, and as far as null sites etc. go - this is an issue for everyone

  • I hate the ‘envato depends on authors’ theory. Yes, it does require authors, but at the same time authors depend on envato and their efforts to drive traffic and customer acquisition on the scale that they do (hence why authors who think it is all wrong are still selling on here). Both envato and authors depend on buyers to purchase their items. It is a mutual dependency and not uniquely on any one group.

  • I still don’t see how you can compare a service industry to a download market, BUT some of those sites you mentioned are huge. So, if they are comparable, why are they not threatening envato? As per above “Because of lack in competition Envato is at the place where the author doesn’t have any option rather than accepting their terms”??

FYI I couldn’t have put it better than @LSVRthemes

Buyers couldn’t care less about how much Sellers make.

Sellers who got past Elite level are getting 70% which is pretty fair and standard rate for any other digital marketplaces. We may not be happy with everything Envato does, but the rate itself is reasonable.

There are many new items from new authors being submitted every day, so obviously many talented people are trying to make in on Envato despite unfavourable rates for no elite authors. So why would Envato change something which works for them?

Also, the marketplace is already HEAVILY oversaturated, I (and I am sure most of other veteran author) couldn’t care less about new authors. There are waaay too many authors already. So it is naive to think that anyone but new authors care about this stuff. Less new authors, less competition for rest of us.

EVERYBODY started here from the 50% rate. Anyone with the skills and dedication can make it here. It is survival of the fittest.

  1. I don’t think there is any breach of law in tracking your own item. author grants license for usage not giving the completes rights for that item.
  2. Not waste of time but could be one strong feature of the platform.
  3. Not sure about this. legal stuff.
  4. Creating site like codecanyon will not cost more than $1500 and this charge is by an expert developer the newbie could do in $300 but that is just site creation not running that. running business cost way more than I can imagine and there are lots of thing here about which we don’t even have an idea. but surely its not worth to take 40% of each sale. even Amazon does not take that much where they have to manage logistics and in Envato there nothing like that.
  5. Null site is an issue for everyone even for Envato then why not solve that in the first place.
  6. Why you hate that business model of a dependent. there is no business that does not depend on others. and there is nothing which Envato needs to do actively to drive traffic its simple SEO and the saturation of the marketplace. because of that, you don’t see other providers on the 1st page of search.
  7. Are you from the IT industry? because service (selling product base checking clients requirements) and item sell (readymade item sale where client choose what he needs) are not much of difference and the service industry is not a direct competitor because they are 2 subsets of the same industry. and is the same case like apple vs other all mobile maker that is due to the OS they provide. if you want android then you have a huge no of option but for IOS you need to pay a huge amount compared to the same HW. so envato is like IOS if i need this OS then i have no other option.

I’m an elite author, author fee is only 12.5%+buyer fee which is from 4-6$ depending on item type - it’s not that much. Before this we had system where elites were charged 30% without any additional fees. Basically, you want to change system back with a lower %. Might sound good for low price items but bad for higher prices items.

And as far as I remember this change was done due to proper tax withholding, as we have authors from all over the world so different tax amounts are charged from US sales, you should take this in consideration as well.

Hi,
Yes for an elite author it’s 12.5% but that’s my point you get that reduce % when you make 75k+ sales. but whats need of that for making it more complicated when it can as simple as charging the same for all (equal) let’s say its 20%. also even you are elite but till becoming that you also needed to pay that extra in tax on your earning till 75k.

Yes, a different country has a different tax but why does Envato need to do that tax filling for an author in case of US sale where it also takes additional tax base on US tax treaty with author country. with my experience, Envato is the only marketplace that charges this additional tax withholding (base on my experience of work on that platform I never notice this tax withholding ther). Upwork, fiver, a freelancer is also at the same scale of business but they don’t do this tax withholding thing. if I need to pay any tax then that’s my personal issue and I can handle that as all other online service/marketplace do.

I know this tax withholding is not as simple as i am saying there may many other reasons and T&C even for envato market to do business. what i said is just base on my point of view for taxation as here in my country i don’t have to pay any tax until i cross the limit for earning.

Hi. o/ I wanted to chime in with a no-nonsense, to-the-point, pro-free-market point of view. Because as someone who’s currently taking a lot of risks to start his own company, I have a lot of things I disagree with in this thread.

For complicated tax reasons. Don’t ask me to explain, I hate taxes. :rofl: The % was reduced to accommodate and support the change.

Same reason every other company on Planet Earth charges more than they really need: to make money, and to support their short/long-term goals (such as acquiring other companies, which Envato is clearly interested in doing given their recent acquisitions).

I’ve sold a couple thousand licenses between 5-6 different items and have never marketed them. But Envato isn’t using any sort of magic spells, so if your items aren’t attractive to even a small portion of their audience then of course you won’t benefit from their marketing.

I agree, 100%. We should ask them to increase their fees by an extra 5% to invest in more support staff and reviewers. I’ll gladly support this petition.

Of course. You shouldn’t be surprised that you’ll make more money by operating on your own. That’s how it should be. As you’ve also noticed, the Envato business model penalizes low prices. Thankfully, you have the freedom to choose your price now, in part due to the introduction of the Buyer Fee.

NO WAY! That’s how you kill a private company. Commerce 101. If it was a government entity, then I can agree with this logic, but not a private company. If you don’t want to help Envato turn a profit, or if you feel they don’t reinvest any of that back into you, then fortunately you live in a world where you can terminate your contract with them.

I don’t have much of an opinion on this, but Envato has the right to use whatever fee schedule or pricing model they want. Free market.

Don’t compare Envato Market to those sites. On the contrary, please feel free to compare Envato Studio (read: “Studio”, not “Market”) to Fiverr, Freelancer, and Upwork. They have similar fees to Envato Studio as well.

Even if that’s true, it doesn’t change anything. I personally see no problem with charging a 50% commission even if it actually only costs them 2%. They worked hard to build such a great profit margin. They deserve it.

If a company must always lower their profit margins once they become successful, then there would be far fewer people taking huge risks to start companies like Envato.

Yup, that’s the contract you willingly engaged in. You have the right to change it or terminate it if you’d like.

This is exactly how a free market works. If you don’t feel like you’re getting what you’re paying for, then you should stop engaging in business with Envato. If you don’t do that, then it seems you may in fact feel like you’re getting something worth the cost after all. :wink:

For complicated tax reasons. In short, it helps authors in the United States (and probably several other countries) when it comes to taxes. It also helps Envato account for their revenue in said countries. Blame the IRS.

Yes, that’s exactly the reason. And the fact that there is no serious competition suggests that the % isn’t all that bad. I could make a competitor to Envato Market in less than a week from scratch. I know plenty of other authors who could too. Yet none of us have done it. :thinking:

If that’s true, then you should inform Envato so they can stop offering their services in those countries.

The number of threads we get on the forums from people who get permanently banned or locked out of their accounts immediately after a purchase is astronomical. There’s clearly work being done to stop fraud. I’m also convinced that the fraud prevention is preventing some legitimate sales from getting through. Can’t please everyone.

It’s not a refund, it’s a chargeback. Fighting chargebacks is time-consuming and rarely successful. Better to work on preventing that person from ever buying here again, which they make an effort to do.

Pretty sure guest checkout was removed, probably in part for this reason.

I don’t necessarily support the fees, but I support the free market idea that Envato can choose their own fees. I would love lower fees, but I agreed to these fees when I started selling here. I won’t complain.

Such is the free market. We’ll have to see what happens. If something comparable pops up and Envato doesn’t adapt, then I’ll move over myself.

Only reason we would unlist this thread is if you guys started talking about or sharing links to nulled sites. And look, you’ve done just that! We don’t work for Envato, but most of us are authors and don’t want to advertise nulled sites, so we’ll probably unlist it soon.

I agree that this is a problem. I know that staff are aware of these sites, so I hope they’re working on taking some action behind the scenes. In the mean time, yes, authors must submit DMCA complaints for their own items, as they solely own the copyright and Envato is not an agent authorized to submit complaints on your behalf.

This isn’t a support forum. Support staff are at https://help.market.envato.com/hc/en-us and https://help.author.envato.com/hc/en-us.

Free market.

I think we’re all pretty strong advocates for free speech in the mod team. I’ve personally never seen something removed from the forums just because it says “bad things about Envato.” However, given your posts above, you don’t seem to be too aware of the forum rules (which are pretty straightforward), so I don’t hold much weight in your words here.

Because Envato is a private company, they don’t have any obligation to publicize details on their fees and expenses like a public company would do.

I disagree. It depends on the terms of the contract. If the contract says “we’ll keep it safe,” then they will keep it safe. What you’re saying would never hold up in a court of law and for good reason.

For profit.

The files are hosted and secured by Amazon, so I would hope so too, because that’d be quite the security loophole in a rather giant service.

Speaking of Apple, where is your forum post complaining that they’re charging over $1,000 for an iPhone when their actual cost for that model of iPhone is like $500? Even with marketing and such, surely they don’t need to charge $1,000! :thinking:

I’m not sure if that’s true, but if so, then it just means they wanted or needed more. The commission when I started was a flat 50%, with no buyer fee.

Every business in the world works because of its customers. Yet every business in the world inflates their prices in order to make a sizeable profit. Apple charges $1,000 for a $500 device. Microsoft charges $15/month for a subscription that only costs them $0.50/month. And so forth.

They’re not public services that everyone has a right to for free. Clearly these customers need or want those services enough to pay such a premium for them.

You could sell and market on your own website like thousands of people have successfully done before. It’s just going to be a long, painful process and a ton of work, whereas Envato is a much easier route to take, by comparison.

:+1:

He’s correct. The DMCA (“Digital Millennium Copyright Act”) is very strict about who can submit notices. Envato would have to make some serious changes to their terms in order to be able to submit complaints on your behalf.

Amazon has competition, as well as a lot of giant companies looking to become competition. They could raise their fees, but they’re afraid to do so. Also, free market.

Envato doesn’t receive any of that money, so it’s clearly something out of their control for some reason or another. They only introduced tax withholding when they moved to the United States.

Envato doesn’t follow the tax laws of your country. It follows the tax laws of Australia and the United States, which then extends to your country through a treaty.

5 Likes

Hi,
your comment is too detail and well explained. there are some points which you misunderstand but still you have one great answer to this tread.

I think the relevant question is: Who drives the value? Who creates the money?
Is it Envato? Or is it the Author?

If you sell a small amount, say < $1000, it means the product is not that in demand on the market. It means Envato is likely the driver of this value by putting the product in front of a huge audience.

If you sell >$500,000, clearly your product is very in demand. It’s you, the Author who is driving value, and you could be selling that product on any marketplace successfully.


A simple thought experiment:

If you show a product to 1,000,000,000 people, and 2 people buy it, who should be getting paid? the guy who showed the product to a billion people, or the guy who created the product? What if 200,000,000 bought it?

With all due respect. If i was Envato i would tell you this. You come and sell your items on our portal where there is huge traffic. if you get can get more traffic anywhere else for cheaper go for it. Simple… If you think this is about handling fee’s and taxes and and then you are disillusioned about why you pay for what you get.

1 Like

Hi,

For showing to this much of audience is Envato doing active advertising for that product via mail or showing on the homepage? no the general user search on google or on Envato search and base on a keyword that person gets shown the product. so it’s clear the Envato is not driving. suppose I am a buyer and there is a product more than 500k sale which I have seen on the homepage and Envato is advertising that actively but I want don’t care about that as I am not interested in that one or I don’t need that one I need something like “XYX PRODUCT” which available by very few authors because it’s not common so does not have many sales but still buyer visit that project because that’s what he needs. product is just an example. In the end, its buyer’s requirements what he needs even if that product having no sale.

Envato is not showcasing just showing products base on its policy but the end-user is searching that.

But there is no sense in your saying as Envato is not showcasing its hosting that item with good SEO which users can search directly via google or Envato search. what Envato showcase is the trending, and a new item for 1-2 days until another item replaces it and there is nothing wrong in it.

If I want a bike and you are showing me BMW then whats point in that.
And what if the product which having 500k sale newer made by an author or not publishes here then what will the Envato make money out of it?

Well, no business ever said that if you find a better deal then go there the business always try to provide better deal then other if there is enough competition.

Yes, that’s the point there is clear reasoning behind the charges nor the charges are much understandable. they are just whatever they wanted. what I am saying they need to be simpler, not confusing, and reasonable about what you are getting. why it needs to be 37.5% + $4 (Codecanyon item) why can’t it be as simple as 37.5% or $4 whichever higher. if you want to sell a simple script which costs just $2 but because of this pricing, you need to sell that for $10 which impacts on lot of possible customers.

Just consider, you are selling property for $100 I am broker (Envato) I get you customer who paid me $110 ($10 from customer to show him property)from which I given you $100 then ask $40 as selling fees + 37.5% out of that remaining $60 as my cut for driving customer so at the end, you got $37.5 and broker got $40 + $22.5 = $62.5

Now tell me are you happy with the value you got for your property ie. $37.5 where as your properties market value is $100

Envato DOES run Google ADS, which they pay for.