Monetization Beyond Sales: Alternative Revenue Streams for CodeCanyon Developers?

Envato Customers Web and Code
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Hi fellow authors!

We often focus heavily on direct sales when publishing on CodeCanyon (and rightly so), but I’ve been thinking a lot about alternative monetization opportunities we may be overlooking as plugin/script developers.

For example:

  • Affiliate models — embedding affiliate links inside admin panels or documentation (ethically, of course).
  • Freemium upgrades — offering free basic versions elsewhere with upsell paths to full CodeCanyon versions.
  • SaaS spin-offs — turning successful scripts into hosted SaaS tools.
  • Licensing to agencies — creating custom licensing models for design firms who want white-labeled solutions.
  • Sponsored bundles — partnering with complementary product owners for bundled sales.

Have any of you successfully built additional revenue streams around your CodeCanyon items? Are there any revenue models that worked surprisingly well (or failed)?

I think as competition grows, diversifying income might become even more important. I’d love to hear your experiences and brainstorm together

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Things like affiliates and freemium upgrades already exist but the others would be in conflict of Envato’s licenses and rules.

Potentially you could be non exclusive and try some of those options but it feels like there would end up being a lot of confusion between that and when finding/buying on codecanyon

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There are some authors are selling non-exclusive, some of them are OK, some not.
In general, the total sales are going down everyone and ever other day, another " Elite " author is coming to forum to see whats going on.

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