Please Can You Make Available A 12 Month Licence Option On Envato/ CodeCanyon Products

Envato Authors CodeCanyon
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Hello Everybody,

My CodeCanyon product is developed on an ongoing basis with updates. However, if a customer has only made a one-off payment, continually providing them with a new version of my product (Native Email) via Envato all year, every year on a permanent basis is not workable.

Customers need to renew after 12 months otherwise we are literally workign for them for nothing from then on in.

Can Envato introduce a 12 month licence renewal option in the licencing options. It is good for authors, customers (who can support products that they want to see developed) and Envato’s profits.

Anyone have any thoughts on this as to me it is common sense and crucial?

Mike Donaghy

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Hey Mike there is already a 12 month support option.

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I’m assuming you’re referring to an annual payment over and above whether they want support or not? I.e. a renewal of the license. I can’t see it going down that well with customers. Instead of paying $50, they may then be paying $100, $150, $200, $250 etc… over the lifetime of the product they’re using. That’s quite an increase.

As for ‘working for nothing from then on in’, Like ThemeSLR says, they can renew their support payments if they need any help from you. Aside from that, don’t look at making updates as working for free for old customers. Look at it as crucial work you need to do anyway, to attract new buyers… which old customers just happen to benefit from as a reward for buying your item in the first place.

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Thanks SpaceStockFootage for the input but honestly, a 12 month optional renewal for product updates is perfectly acceptable to my customers. Paying us a one-off small fee is not what they really expect and it isn’t our model. We have customer feedback supporting my point. We also provide extensive support anyway, as part of the service
12 month licence renwal is an option that should be avaialble to authors who need it please Envato. There is no reason not to provide it as an option.
Thanks, Mike

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There is a huge reason not to allow it…

Envato don’t own the copyright to any items for sale here and therefore authors can remove their items or abandon them at their will without much that Envato can do about it other than take an item down from sale.

Envato can’t sell a license to people that is for 12 months if they are unable to guarantee or protect that.

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I wasn’t aware of this. If this is the case, thanks for the heads-up. I can partly see the logic.

But I don’t see a difference between that and the current sale of supported items? The support could be abandoned by authors too and Envato would have to remove their item. That situation would be the same under a licence agreement.

Also, a 12 month licence isn’t necessarily a guarantee of updates.

A customer would only renew their licence if they wanted the new version. If on appraisal they don’t think the new version is worth it, or haven’t recieved any updates during the first 12 month licence, they simply keep using the old one and don’t pay a penny more and nothing is lost.

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The difference is now there is no suggested lifespan of items and a clause which says that Envato cannot guarantee the availability Etc. of items so should they be removed it’s just unfortunate.

To sell it as “12 months” means it needs to be there for 12 months or else they will face a ton of refund requests.

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It can be experimental like hosting included for some wp themes. Additionally, It will be elements like solution for codecanyon.

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This clause could remain? And there could be another one stating that there is no garuntee of updates. It is about giving the product a life-span. Because the thing is, it is vendors who know they are updating their product on a long term basis or providing an ongoing service who would choose this licence option, so most would presumably still be around. Any remaining refund requests should be more than made up for by everyone elses licene renewals?

Regards, Mike

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With respect, I think you are missing the point.

  • Subscription-based shopping (without a time frame) already exists in Envato Elements

  • We must not forget to implement restricted or subscription access would mean a huge investment in rebuilding the marketplace and user profiles (hence Elements/hosted etc. are separate platforms).

@UltimateKode “it can be experimental like hosting included for some wp themes”

  • Envato own the hosting.
  • There are VERY few items because Envato staff support and update them and that could not work marketplace wide.

@UltimateKode “It will be elements like solution for codecanyon”

  • Where does it mention 12 months in Elements? That’s just a subscription-based way to pay. Not to mention it’s a limited number of items and zero support or updates

@NativePlugins “This clause could remain?”

  • Then it is just Envato Elements

@NativePlugins “And there could be another one stating that there is no guarantee of updates”

  • Still Elements, PLUS No updates is one thing. No access i.e. if an item is removed is very different.

@NativePlugins “vendors who know they are updating their product on a long-term basis or providing an ongoing service who would choose this licence option, so most would presumably still be around”

  • True but there would be zero guarantees making it a sizeable risk PLUS peoples’ circumstances could change beyond their control with each one resulting in envato having to refund

@NativePlugins “Any remaining refund requests should be more than made up for by everyone else’s licene renewals”

  • Lifetime licenses in the first instance is going to appeal more to buyers than having to renew every 12 months (esp. if there is no added benefits), and I doubt a subscription model (other than Elements) would bring about such an increase in sales to warrent the investment needed to try to implement it.
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OK Charlie, thanks for the points. :+1: I will check out Elements as I’m not too familar with it.

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For what it’s worth we’re only trying to add clarity…

If there was truly scope for subscriptions here then it would mean the marketplaces had moved away from what makes them so successful.

The current model where authors own the items allows for a vastly bigger and better choice of quality and quantity than the competition.

Those who have subscriptions to all their products do so because they only have a small number which is entirely owned and managed in-house.

It’s this difference which makes it so unlikely to happen but also justifies why.

Good luck with Elements.

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You need to find a way to make your product gullible after 12 months. Just because there is a support licensing does not guarantee that anybody will purchase one. In fact, nobody will, this is surety.

What you can do is include some incentive. For instance, stating that you will auto update the product for buying customers with a valid support license a month before a regular update schedule. OK, now that is something some customers will want.

You just need to look for similar incentives. The marketplace already provides you the means, i.e. a support contract is required, plus they give you an API to test if a support contract is valid. The rest is up to you and your creativity!

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+1 for an Annual recurring license.

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I agree with @NativePlugins, a 12 (or even 6) month ending license is what many authors need here. When these 12 months are passed, no more updates & no more support for the customer, only when he purchase a new 12 monthly license.

The way it is now, makes it unfair for developers that after making many new features, the very first customer can provide from it without paying extra.

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After 6 months then no support without renewal is exactly how it works already?!

In fact, it is even better for buyers here because they get a lifetime of updates for free.

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It may be what some authors need here… but how many buyers need it? If you feel you’re not being appropriately compensated for the amount of time and effort you’re spending on updates, then just increase the price of your item to compensate.

You get more money while still having the value-add proposition of free updates for life, Envato gets more money, and all these buyers who are apparently itching to spend more money than they are currently… they get to do so. Everyone’s a winner!

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Yearly license renewal for access to updates, new features and bug fixes is de facto name of the game in entire WordPress ecosystem for example… And its also being adopted in different ecosystems. Because it is the reasonable thing to do.

Its incredible that its being contested and debated at Envato, still, in 2018.

Searching “why i moved away from envato/codecanyon” at Google brings up a lot of successful plugin developers who pulled their plugin from Envato mainly for lack of that feature. And these involve biggest plugins like Easy Digital Downloads - which is making ~$400,000/year alone.

Actually, such blog posts come up even if you search google for codecanyon for something else related to wordpress - meaning that these articles are highly circulated and read.

…

Solutions and approaches listed in this thread do not work.Leave aside the funding of development of a piece of software which is going to be used by many people cannot be tied to peripherals like support fee.

The current setup is ok when you are operationg at small script/developer level with a few thousand users tops, but what happens when your software gets installed in 50,000-100,000 sites?

You suddenly find out that you cant just sell your software one-time and then expect to ride on it. The software gets bigger, it becomes a major project, requires serious time and effort.

You cant tie revenue into support either - support is labor-intensive, and takes time away from development. Not only a fraction of users ask for paid support, but also support is almost always manual labor intensive. At the latest, its not a profit-maker.

So, you expect you can maintain a project which is now massive with over 50,000 users with a fraction of users requiring paid support and tying you up into providing that support, taking time from development?

You cant. That’s why Pippin Williams had had closed off even free community support at their forum at EDD, and then jacked up the prices for support quite high - because its a loss leader.

You DO need to fund your development, eventually. With Envato’s software model, it wont work in the long run.

The maximum you can expect would be to pop your new software at envato, have sales, gain reputation, and then when the plugin takes off and things start to get real and you need to keep financing development after 1-2 years, take your plugin off envato so that you can require license renewals for updates.

That’s what many successful wp plugin developers do.

It would be much easier and better for both the developers and envato if envato caught on with the actual practice that is adopted internet-wide. Ie - not treating software sales like selling crackers, one time - buy, eat it, and its gone - but instead bring a yearly renewal mechanic for updates. In addition to support.

For example Im now going back and forth, thinking whether i should put my new plugin up in envato for what benefit it may bring, as opposed to the issue of dealing with users who will buy the plugin one-time and practically feel entitled to own entire future features, bugfixes and whatnot stretching into decades. I have everything ready to submit - all files, banners, documentation, package, supplementary resources, demo - but i am not exactly sure whether i should submit it to envato…

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Just to be clear I agree entirely with all your points aboutnauthkrs needing to be compensated etc.

But - could you give an example of a marketplace that operates using same model as envato i.e. where the author retains all copyright and the right to remove items as and when they want; and which sells items based on subscriptions?

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If someone wants that he should not provide item updates to their old customers after a specific point of development then I have an option for you:- You can create separate Addons or Modules to extend your main product and then sell them like a sub-part of your main item.