Some time ago, there was an interesting idea proposed for increasing sales by adopting a subscription model for each theme instead of a fixed price. (Please note, this is distinct from the Elements all-in-one subscription model.) You can find more details about this discussion here: 💡 Move to the subscription model for Themeforest.
I will duplicate it here:
As you may have noticed Themeforest market is really saturated these days, it is good news for customers as a result of competition is a significant increase in the variety and quality of items. But there is also a backside for authors, they need to spend more time and resources on development and marketing & support but incomes mostly do not grow but fall. And a lot of top authors left the Themeforest market, and move to more profitable platforms where the price of a theme costs $200-350 or change a sphere of business, you can easily find such examples. This is a lose-win situation for authors/customers and neutral for Themeforest, but the trend is not good for all 3 parties.
But fortunately, no need to reinvent the wheel — the answer is a subscription model for Themeforest. Maybe you remember the old days when you could purchase Adobe Photoshop for a one-time payment but since 2013 it is available only with a subscription. Like pretty much every soft in our day, this model works and gives resources and motivation for authors to improve and update new versions. In the themes market, we also can notice such a tendency. Some examples of the subscription model of famous players of the themes market:
You may say about the Envato Elements, but it does not work for Themes. It is not the photos on photo stock. Support and updates are an important part of the themes business and you can’t motivate good authors to do that for a couple of dollars.
The most interesting part. Let’s look at the numbers.
For example, now you sell the themes for $59 and have 1000 sales a year. You will get $41.13 from each sale and $41130 yearly. Envato will get $17870.
And what we would have with a subscription (billed annually) in the next year.
Let’s imagine that we have the same number of 1000 new sales, the churn rate was 30% and we have 700 customers from the previous year: $41130 + $28791 = $69921. Envato will get $30379. I think you get the idea, it is a huge increase in earnings for authors and Envato.
But what about customers? Yes, they will pay more, but in fact, it is $4,9 per month for top themes which quality you can’t find on platforms like Wix or Squarespace (and if you add a domain and hosting, Wix and Squarespace are still much more expensive).
As a result, we have a win-win situation for authors/customers and Envato. Authors increase earnings and motivation, customers get better quality, more motivated authors for still a great price and Envato gets more income and resources for competition with other marketplaces and products.
What do you think?