Purchasing the same product multiple times, the support time frame doesn't accumulate

Envato Customers Purchases and Subscriptions
#1

Hello,

I have purchased multiple licenses for the same product (theme/plugins) and Envato (Themeforest/Codecanyon) charges me the same amount for EACH license for support for that product and that is supposed to be for each time for 6 months but instead I get 6 calendar months in total even if I pay 10x, and that I cannot find it normal, nor legal. More than this, most of the developers will enforce the support expiration limit on their private support forums and ticketing systems so we are left speaking to the walls if we are not paying again the support renewal that we’ve already paid X times …

Can you please make sure that if we have a support active for that product and if we purchase another license with the support to add the support timeframe to the amount existing already ?

Otherwise you need to change the pricing to be without support and let us purchase the support whenever we need to.

Or change the support system to a number of requests without expiration because I have products that I purchased and haven’t used in 7 months and when I tried to use the product it would crash and create many issues, and I couldn’t ask for support as it was expired already… so not fair at all to be forced to pay something without benefiting from it at all.

Hope that you’ll find this useful and implement one solution.

Thank you.

#2

Hello @atriumlabs

You’ve raised a tricky one here but there is a logic behind this system. Let’s break it down:

  1. The first 6 months of support included are basically free of charge, as this benefit is included in the main price of the item. You do not pay extra for support unless you want to extend it for 12 months.

  2. If you look at the support process from another perspective, it makes sense to be like this. Here’s why:

Think of it as support for your project, not for the item itself. If you purchase 10 licenses, this means you’ll have 10 end products which are supported by the author.

If you accumulate all the licenses, this would mean you will have an extended, x years long support period for all 10 projects, which doesn’t benefit the author one bit.

  1. Now think about agencies which purchase in bulk and actually create 10 end products in the span of 6 months right after getting the files. They’ve finished the end product, with some help from the author and everybody is happy. Does that mean they have x more years of support? No, but if you accumulate them, they would be able to contact the author after three years and get support.

In the stock industry this is a tricky situation because authors do not have just one project for one client. They have one project for n number of clients. This allows them to offer the item for sale at a reduced price. But if they were required to offer support for years, the price of the item would naturally grow (considerably).

I’m not saying there is no room for improvement, and a system of “purchasing support when needed” was raised before. If you want to make sure your idea gets to the right ears, you can send them an email with your suggestion here → Envato Market Help and Support

1 Like
#3

What Mrs Enabled said. But if you only have one end product then you only need one license… there’s no benefit to buying additional licenses unless you are creating more end products. If you need additional support after the initial six months is up, it would be easier and cheaper to just extend your support period.

As it stands, you’re not paying again for support X times, you’re buying X more licenses, each of which come with six months of support from the date of purchase. You should be buying 1 license and renewing the support X times as needed.

1 Like
#4

Thank you for your replies @MrsEnabled, @SpaceStockFootage

As with everything in life, there’s no perfect solution, but we should always find ways to improve the current one.

I don’t know if you’ve ever purchased a product on Themeforest or Codecanyon and look at the invoice, the 6 months support is invoiced separately, so there’s no “free” stuff you are getting with the license. So based on the invoice I am entitled to X times the 6 months of paid support based on the amount of licenses I’m getting as I’m enforced into purchasing the 6 months support that is “included” but basically a paid addition that is not accumulating with the rest.

I understand what you are saying regarding multiple end products, but keeping in mind that 99% of the requests I’m doing(and many of us) are regarding a bug that is in the product and nothing related to the end project and the developer needs to fix it once and that will be done for all other clients who are request the same thing, then why be enforced into paying X times the 6 months support fee ? and if I am still enforced into this, why not accumulate it as it’s not fair to us either, to pay and pay again and not even request once a service in 6 months and then once we are out of the 6 months timeframe to be blocked into paying the support fee again… Plus, unfortunately some developers send a lot of updates without doing the standard quality assurance to test their releases and that creates a lot of issues and headaches for us the clients and then we are obligated to ask for a bug fix that of course will trigger the support payment request from the developer…

You can take a look at a screenshot from an invoice(example) that is clearly showing the 6 months support enforced on the invoice and you can multiply that with the amount of licenses purchased and once I get to the 7th month I cannot even send them a message on their private support forum because it’s limited to those who have an active support … but I have paid X times the 6 months support fee… if you don’t believe me it’s easy to check it out when you do the payment of any product that has support “offered”, purchase that 2 times and you’ll see that you are paying 2 times the support fee. PS: this is just an example of an invoice, and in this case the developer offered to help by email after I have requested it publicly, but still it’s not fair to pay X times that 6 months support fee and then find ways to convince the developer that they should help you even if Envato shows that your support has expired.

Screenshot 2021-10-19 at 14.07.07
Screenshot 2021-10-19 at 14.07.071660Ă—520 50.8 KB

I understand that developers are not happy to just sell once and then do the updates and support, and I get that, I’m also a developer and I know that continuing to develop a product is not easy, nor cheap, but I also know that enforcing a fee on a client and not providing a service for the amount requested will not be taken nicely nor do any good for future collaboration.

Thank you.

#5

You are looking at it mainly from the buyer point of view. Of course that accumulative support would be great for buyers, but it would be a total nightmare for authors. Idea that I have to provide a support for a single buyer for several years because he bought like ten licenses is nuts and absolutely unsustainable for the business. Theme prices are already super low and sales/profits are getting lower and lower each year. What you are asking would have a very negative impact on the business. The way how support works now is simply a compromise.

#6

@LSVRthemes I get what you are saying, but then don’t force the client to purchase support for each license … they can purchase support whenever they will need it/request it … so that we’ll not pay X times support fees and not even ask a question once in those 6 months enforced… if the license costs 30 $ than sell that, and then offer the paid support at X amount, but not say the product cost 50 $ and you’ll have 6 months of support included, but when you look at the invoice the product costs 30$ and the enforced support is at 20$ that I’m paying for each license… do you see what I’m saying ?
From a legal standpoint maybe Envato should have left the 6 months support “to be included” in the licenses and not add it as a separate item on the invoice, at least I know that the license costs X and that’s it, but when you see the added 6 months support on the invoice and you are not benefiting from it in reality… it gives the buyer a false impression.

#7

The authors set the prices of their items and they have no control over the price of the support. If the support period was invoiced or purchased separately (not included in the price), there is a high probability (99%) that the item price would remain the same - meaning the author would increase the item price, even without the support which again, will be in the buyer’s disadvantage as the customer will have to give more money in the end.

Not to mention that the fact that support in included in the main price is an incentive for the authors to create easily customizable items so they reduce the number of support tickets. It’s a great method for both the buyer and the author.

The main idea is: the market (offer and demand) is the one that regulates the prices. And for stock files, that are cheap already, I’m not seeing a decrease in price without the support being included.

P.S. legally, there is everything ok as it states clearly that the price includes support and you are not charged more for it than it says.

#8

@MrsEnabled I understand that the license price will go at the current level of license+support as it was before adding the support fees… I’ve been a customer of Envato from the beginnings and I have seen the trends + a customer of Envato Elements from where I have not relied to themes and plugins except for just testing them without actually purchasing it from Themeforest or Codecanyon because of the difficulty in keeping them updated and the lack of support, so I get the need of support and updates, but the way this are currently looking at the invoice, we can all see that Envato is enforcing the 6 months support fee for the same product even if we are purchasing multiple licenses … it’s per license and not per product even if it is a single product that we are purchasing in the end. So legally speaking it is still an enforced purchase as long as you are not providing a way to purchase just the license without the support.

#9

Hi @atriumlabs, your point is logical but according to Envato license terms are not eligible. We know Envato each license will be valid for a single end product. So, if a customer purchased 10 licenses then the customer will use those 10 licenses for 10 end products (for example 10 websites). So, Envato provides 6 months included support (if item marked as supported) for each license. So that customers can reach the Author and ask for support and support for the technical query for the end product. According to your thought if customer purchase 10 license but purchase only one 6 month support and ask for support for 10 end products (example 10 website) then it will be a great loss for the Author because Author has to spend more times to provide support for 10 end products (example 10 website). As the customer purchased 10 licenses they may need support for 10 end products (for example 10 websites), Envato included 6-month support with each license for a single end product which is fair for both Author and Customer. Thanks

#10

Then I’m not sure what you are trying to achieve? Let’s say Envato (pretty sure it will not happen) excludes the 6 months of support and every author on the marketplace raises the prices again to be at the same level as before (license+support). We can both agree that will happen. I’ll make up some numbers so I can express myself clearly:

Item price: $20 (licence+support) → Envato takes the support out → Item price: $20 without support and the support will be invoiced separately at $5

You want to get 10 licenses of one WP Theme → $200 (no support period included)
You struggle in the first month with the theme (which can be installed on one single domain based on your purchase code) and you buy the support → $5
After 3 months you struggle with the same theme (which is installed on another domain based on another purchase code) and you buy the support → $5

And so on. If you run into problems with all of them, that means another $50 to the initial no support price.

On the other hand, if the support is included, the price remains the same even if you do or do not use the support system.

the prices and scenarios are for demonstration purposes only