I am not getting half of selling price. What I supposed to do?

[Techohit]

Hello There,
I am new on codecanyon and I am really confused about my Income. I have a plugin here and it cost $39.

Now, my sale got divided into 4 parts which I dont know why?
`

US Royalty Withholding Tax - What does it mean? I have already submitted my Tax related Id to codecanyon.

On selling my plugin at $39, I got only $16.63. I even dont get half of my price. What I supposed to do??? I am really not expecting such a low income after working months on my plugin.

Should I look for other platforms as well to sell my plugin because if i increase price rate people may not buy it.
Please Reply!!

Regards

[PurpleFog]

Unfortunately the India-US Tax Treaty does not entirely exempt from US withholding. It’s merely reduced to 15% (down from 30%). There’s no getting out of it unfortunately. However it only affects US sales. No US tax on non-US sales.

Hope it clears things out!

[YDirectionThemes]

Hi,

I know how it feels. For a $16 template I get $7.50 without US withholding tax. If the same template is bought by some US customer I get $6.37.

Far away from the 50%, right? When I first submitted my template I thought I could earn half the listing price, but was a bit worried like you because I didn’t see “Author Fee”, “Buyer Fee” and “Tax” till then.

We can’t do anything about this and all marketplaces are just the same way. Though some give you 55+ revenue share, they aren’t as popular as Envato’s. So, don’t worry, you’ll get used to this in a couple of weeks.

Brace yourself for the sales impact.

Good Luck.

[ThemeSLR]

Agree with @YDirectionThemes

[Bedros]

1 - http://inside.envato.com/usa-tax-withdrawal-changes/

2 - Important Changes for Non-US Authors/Affiliates/Service Providers

^ You should have a look at those threads
to completely understand what’s going on.

[Techohit]

So I have to pay Envato, US government and Indian government. WT…

[Techohit]

So what should i do to maximize my income?. I cant force people to buy my product and the money i am getting per sale is not acceptable.

[Techohit]

Thanks. the first link was really helpful…

[YDirectionThemes]

Maximize your income?

Well there are 3 ways to do it. First, make some really great stuff, two - promote them and three - make more and more.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s no way you can escape taxes. The only problem for you is - extra 15% deduction on US sales. When you begin making a good amount every month, it won’t be a problem anymore. Even I lose 15% of every US sale.

[Techohit]

thanks for your response. I want to ask 2 more questions…

1. WHERE to PROMOTE? I plugin is related to SEO. All the top sites and bloggers asking for 1000s of dollars for promotion. I also offered them free subscription of my plugin but get no reply.
   After sending so many emails I got only 1 positive reply. WPexplorer finally ready to post about my plugin but its more than 15 days and they didnt.

2. They cut 8 dollar for support sale. There is no option to minimize it. My plugin needs no support from any expert since its very easy to install. When i switch off my support system evanto does not allow to ask buyer pre buying questions.
   I really have no idea why I am paying for 6 months. Why I just cant go for 3 months or less?

3. When i was putting price then there was only 1 box -
   “Item Price” + “Buyeer Fee” = Purchase Price. (Buyer price war $4 only)
   But here either i loss more than 4 or less than for but exact $4. And other s*** deduction starting showing on purchase.

I really dont understand like i need to pay Envato for my product then for my support help, then US gov and Indian government

[YDirectionThemes]

But you asked 3 questions.

. Promotion - It is a nightmare.

Last month I made a really good template (I think so) and I planned to promote it in a couple of websites paying $100 when the sales reached 20-30. Guess what, that template didn’t even make 10 sales. One of my best templates failed to reach my expectations.

$100 loss if I promoted it. May be I would have got a couple of extra sales but it is loss at the end of the day. So, it is always good to have an opinion or feedback from others before we conclude our product is the best.

For example, I like your SEO tool and I think the demo page could be more elegant, with better design like a real website.

. Support

People don’t want to buy and leave, they need support no matter how easy it is to use a product. There’s no way one can deny it. It is a fixed price and you can’t change it. Read on you might understand about the fees.

. Fees

I think the pricing goes like this - (Item Price + Author Fee) + Buyer Fee = List Price

When I first heard Author Fee and Buyer Fee it was like WTF? But then I understood that Envato charges Authors for hosting/managing their files and money and for providing support system. (What else could be the fee for?) And the Buyer Fee is for support the buyers get (I guess). Even some Power Elite Authors are confused with the fees.

See in the above statement for a $16 item I got ($7.50 - US tax) = $6.37 and the $4.50 is the author fees which includes two other fees. And if you ask Envato what are they for?

• Hey, we’re hosting your files and helping you sell them so every time you make a sale pay us something.

• And for every buyer you are using our support system so a little more fees.

Now for a Buyer - since he’s getting support for 6 months he’ll pay $4 or more to Envato.

But isn’t that too much? May be yes. This is rough world and no one is going to give a damn about how much we earn and suffer. Every body wants more money and they’ll never spare any opportunity to make money.

Still got any doubts?

[SpaceStockFootage]

Ignore taxes for now, we’ll come back to them…

You set the item price to whatever you want, and you get 62.5% of that item price. That’s it, there’s nothing more to it.

That’s based on you selling less than $3750 though, you get more than 62.5% if you’ve sold more.

Now for taxes, the IRS feel that anybody earning money from US sources should be paying tax on that income to the US government. So any company that operates in the US needs to make sure they withhold and remit the relevant amount, which as standard is 30%.

However, the US has tax agreements with a bunch of countries, and those countries have reduced rates. India is 15% as you know. So 15% of the item price will be withheld and transferred to the IRS. But… you’ll be issued an official document at the end of each US tax year to show how much you have had withheld by the IRS, and as your country has a tax agreement with the US, then when you pay taxes in your own country, you should be able to use that document to offset whatever you owe the Indian government. EXactly how that works, I’m not sure, but watch out for a whole bunch of posts on it from January.

So yeah, hopefully that clarifies things a bit!

And last but not least, I’m pretty sure there’s not a theme author in the land who hasn;t needed to provide support at some point, no matter how simple their item. Even if it’s just ‘user error’ kind of requests. And if you did turn off support, you’d still earn exactly the same… as the fees on support isn’t an additional fee that you’re charged because you provide support… it’s just that the fee (which is the same) is split between the item and the support.

So yes, if you turned off support you’d still earn the same money, and not have to provide support, which sounds great… but a lot of buyers want peace of mind when making a purchasing decision. If they’re torn between two items at the same price, and one has support while the other doesn’t… it;s an easy choice for them.

[lepaul]

Well…for me long story short…I’ve sold a total of 180$(before taxes) and currently have 68$ out of it before all takes…so it’s like 37% of total sales?!

Also i know for a fact that more sales you do the more % you get from your sales.

[Techohit]

Thanks for such a brief and easy description. But still i got little bit idea that where is the money going. I have to say the guidelines that envato wrote is not very human friendly as you said[quote=“YDirectionThemes, post:11, topic:72166”]
Even some Power Elite Authors are confused with the fees.
[/quote]
If elite authors are not very sure what they are paying for then how a non english person can understand them?

One thing i dont understand- what is the difference between-
Advent Multipurpose landing page template( 6 months included support) - $0.68
and
Advent Multipurpose landing page template(regular license) - $1.13

[Techohit]

I got many answers and all were showing the guidelines set by envato and US government. I understand that but i want to highlight something which i got after posting this question.

1. Envato’s Guidelines page that wrote in English is not very Human Friendly. I am from India. I am not very good in English but i know how to do seo and programming. Envato - you should either make guidelines in different languages or alteast in simple language.
   I really dont understand many of your rules. And i am really not sure what i am paying for you except the commission you deserve to sell my product.

2. Envato owners should do something about that. I mean i am not even getting half of my sale. Its like I am getting 37% to 40% hardly. This is not easy to digest.

3. I researched on this on Google and I found that many people started their own online store and promoting it so that they can make more money in same time that they supposed to get here.

Please dont take it in a wrong way, I am just saying what i learned these days. Above points are honest points

Regards

[YDirectionThemes]

The first one - support sale and second is item sale.

Don’t ask me why is it separate?

Once I read, “If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.”

So, if something is too complex to understand there’s something fishy about it.