Video on Elements

Is this a joke! Ohh Yes we are really happy to hear this news!

Hey James,

At this point, I’m right in the middle on this. This may be yet another ‘new and exciting’ direction that Envato is adding to its product line, but it is challenging for an author who places a lot of their eggs in the Envato basket to see such major changes.

I’m really trying to look at this from both sides. I can see the competition in the marketplace, and the value this could add to certain niches, but there are a lot of things I’m struggling with that Envato has been very vague with. I also understand that when you get as big as Envato is, words have to be chosen carefully.

It may help to give my pros and cons list as an author, and some questions. @jamesgiroux, if I’m misunderstanding anything on this list, I apologize. I want to be as thorough and detailed as I can, for me and for other authors to make the best decisions moving forward.

Pros:

  1. It is invite only. This helps to ensure there isn’t an over-saturation of mediocre copycat products (at least in the early stages). I think @Wayman is smart to ask the question though of what the probability of this being converted to a simple pass/fail test like becoming an author on the main site is.

  2. You allow exclusive items to continue to remain exclusive while being on both platforms. Essentially, you’re allowing double-dipping since it’s all in the Envato ecosystem.

  3. The Item Points system acknowledges that a minimal product and a robust product are not equal.

  4. Your Fair use Policy seems to somewhat filter abuse.

  5. You cannot sign up for 1 month, download 100+ AE template, then unsubscribe – the annual plan helps filter out those who may try and abuse the system, but this again begs the question of the likelihood of being a trap, as @Wayman has mentioned, where one day you will just announce, “Well, we removed that, as we have data indicating it doesn’t affect the health of the market.”

Cons:

  1. Let’s say I’m an agency, and I’ve been buying templates for client projects. I really don’t understand how this doesn’t HURT the original markets. Say they were spending $1000 a month on AE templates, but now they can just subscribe to Elements for $30/month – how can this actually help the market? Envato went from making $300 a month from that client (in this example, 30% of $1000), to $15, and the author receives much, much less.

  2. It really seems to devalue products. Now, obviously a robust product will get more downloads on Elements, but here’s the real question – would an author make more exclusively on Videohive without submitting to Elements, or would they be better off dispersing it across Videohive and Elements? You really don’t need to make many single item sales on Envato to make up for 100 (or whatever) downloads from Elements, and certainly there will be instances where if a buyer sees an item they want to buy on Videohive is available on Elements they will convert – and most likely download other products of yours they may have purchased in the future.

  3. Honest buyers who purchase a new license every time they create a new product will undoubtedly switch to Elements if the product they have been purchasing is available there – because technically they are still being honest, but the earnings from that product is now a minuscule fraction of what it was before.

  4. The banners marketing Elements converts buyers who were previously not looking to join Elements, and who were far more likely to purchase from the main site. As an author, this leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It goes back to con #1, it seems you are literally shooting yourself in the foot here, and the authors on the main site in the process. A logical progression of this type of cross-platform marketing would be a banner on an item saying ‘This item is available on Elements’ when an author opts in an item on Elements.

  5. Downloading is unlimited. I appreciate the fact you are trying to more accurately compensate authors via the points system, but the fundamental flaw in this system is the fact that the more each individual subscriber downloads, the less each seller makes. It just seems counterproductive, especially when compared to a credits system, as there is no incentive for the buyer to not abuse the unlimited downloads. It’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet, sure its frowned upon to overfill your plate and throw away food, but what are you going to do about it? Are you going to cancel their account for the exact reason that you pushed in the marketing for the site, UNLIMITED downloads?

  6. Which brings me to my last con, the lack of transparency (I hesitate to include this one, but in the end decided to include it). Anyone can see how much money an item earned on the main sites, anyone can see exactly how many sales the top seller has and it drives a lot of new authors to start selling – they can see the potential! They can see that real people are really valuing these products and authors can really make thousands of dollars with the right type of products.

Elements feels like Envatos response to the other players in the marketplace. It feels to me as if you’re saying “if buyers want unlimited, cheap options, and everyone else is doing it, we might as well get in the game, too.” But at what expense? The devaluation of the digital assets we sell, with the one-price-buys-all approach just doesn’t seem… wise. It almost seems to confirm the devaluation of items by its current lack of transparency about product earnings.

All that said though, I’m completely open to new information and data to develop a clear picture of Elements. I’m not going into this negatively, I’m excited about the new opportunity, but very closely watching the forums, responses to questions and current Elements contributors opinions with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Questions:

  1. Are you including a points tier system for AE templates?

  2. Are you only allowing authors on Envato to participate? For example, can an author who sells on other marketplaces bring their portfolio to Elements? I ask because my concern with this is is this going to be yet another place where you can download the same content as all the other non-exclusive marketplaces online, that have all the same non-exclusive content.

  3. Does an item have to be approved on its marketplace platform (AE templates on Videohive, for example) before it can be included in Elements?

  4. Do you have any plans to make Elements more transparent? Specifically, in terms of product ratings, number of downloads or weekly top downloads (not counting the “Popular” tab). It’s my understanding that you can’t see how many times one of your products has been downloaded in a month - is that correct?

  5. Can an author opt out at any time?

You mentioned in your response:

The goal is not to decrease the value of items that authors create but to introduce a new recurring earning opportunity for authors to earn from those same items with a different type of customer.

I don’t understand two things from this:

  1. Recurring. How do you factor this is recurring – you still need people to download your products to earn points, which earn you money? This seems misleading to me at the moment. I can see how you would say recurring if participants received a percent of the earnings regardless of downloads, but it’s not really recurring. Author payouts are technically recurring, but they are reliant on people buying your products. Is the recurring earnings you’re referring to the Elements Contributor Bonus, which is based on subscribers who don’t download anything? I guess I’m just struggling with this selling point, as it doesn’t seem like it’s a new, recurring earning opportunity for the author, but a way for buyers to pay a recurring Envato fee to download anything they want, and the author makes a fraction of the sale they would make on the regular marketplace.

  2. A different type of customer. It seems all you are doing is presenting someone an opportunity to only have to spend $30/month vs $50/template? How is this not decreasing the value of items? I think what I’m looking for here specifically is, do you have any data or information you can share relating to the different type of customer you’re referring to? I mean, if you’re placing banners across all your marketplaces, it certainly doesn’t appear like it’s a different customer, it looks like it’s the exact customer that’s already buying on the sites.

Thanks James! Excited to learn more about this as it continues to be rolled out.

34 Likes

I support Thomas’s opinion.
He most widely revealed my concern as an author.
It is very unfortunate that Envato does not take into account the opinion of the authors.
It seems that this is the work of marketers who work only with numbers without understanding the market.
A real understanding of the failure will come when the Envato loses first the authors and then the customers. Who will search for better content?
Such a scheme can be acceptable for tents with images, as the creation takes less time and potential consumers thousands of times more!
You can not try to sell the highly specialized complex product in bulk.
You can profit by selling a billion disposable cups.
And go broke selling a factory for their production.
It is impossible to use the same sales model for different types of products.
You can not sell a Ferrari at the price of a Volkswagen Polo.
Okay, it’s clear that the Envato spit on the authors, think about your profits and analyze everything well!
It’s a vicious circle.
To Elements were popular, you need a lot of templates.
That there were many templates, you need a lot of authors.
If there are many authors, the profit of the individual is smaller.
If the profit is less, there is no sense in creating new projects.
There are not many new projects. Elements lose their meaning.
Remember the story, why Colin was created Envato, when Shutterstock ignored him as an author!
Now, Shutterstock also sells Affter Effects templates.
Not on the principle of Elements, but on the principle of videohive.
Why?
Probably because they know by their experience how the subscription works.
For which products it is suitable, and for which it is not.
And it based on many years of experience.
I think they have many times regretted that was ignoring the Collins proposal.
And was - created a competitor, Envato.
These are just my thoughts on this matter.
But they look more realistic than the explanations of jamesgiroux, unfortunately.
Regards.

8 Likes

How about packages? I mean something like collections of icons for example.
Looks like there is no any reason to upload this kind of projects to Elements, because price doesn’t depends on complexity, laboriousness or scale.

So I have a question:
If I have project on Videohive with 100 Icons in a single aep file, can I split this file on 100 particular files and upload to Envato Elemens as 100 particular projects? In this case how about moderation, will I get reject with the reason something like “too simple, unfortunatelly we can’t approve it”?

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Thank you for talking the time to answer to our concerns.
Fair use policy is a nice step against abusive customers but something isn’t working as supposed to because as I have written before there are plenty download links over the internet with the title “Envato Elements Full Sources- 3200+ Files”.

Attracting a new kind of customer is great intention for Envato and authors. From what I can understand the profile of the new kind of customer is small production studios with limited budget that can use a great amount of resources for a small annual fee.

How many of those small studios or individual professionals would pay for something that is already available for free? I know from personal experience quite a few envato customers that they buy projects only if they can’t find them for free. Product support certainly isn’t an issue, at least not for AE templates because these customers are using After Effects professionally.

I am saying that there are many potential customers that would have bought envato projects to do their work but either from limited budget or either from personal philosophy they choose to download them for free.

Isn’t elements as it is now making it more tempting for those potential customers to flee to the pirates?

Today envato made my very angry! WHAT?? Unlimited?
We had various forum threads and even official envato posts about such MISLEADING marketing strategies.

Ok @jamesgiroux @matthewcoxy so how exactly is elements UNLIMITED? Isn’t that the best example of misleading marketing strategy ?

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I don’t know why envato everytime take action whithout asking authors. You should be making a survey months ago where authors vote for yes or now. The story of elements reminds me of photodune, I was a seller there and even I had featured photos like many of other authors… Suddenly Envato just decided and deleted most of portfolios and give an end to lots of dreams…

Envato or videohive as I am a videohive seller is not just a marketplace it’s a world where we live, where most os us have his own dream to Earn and quit the 8 hours shitty jobs. You can’t just ignore us everytime like this.

In the end, I know what ever we will say here the element project will be executed.

Unlimited means you don’t need to buy templates anymore and think about licensing:)

Not exactly, you can go unlimited on a selection of items only…
We have the power to decide if our items can sell better on Elements / Videohive or both…

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Well there’s a few reasons…

  1. How many multi-million dollar businesses do you know that operate like that? Sure, get the community involved with the little things, but not the big things that define the business and have a potentially large impact on revenue and longevity.

  2. Ask the people what they want and they’ll say they want faster horses… was the quote attributed to Henry Ford. Envato have the sales data and the trends and the research… they use that data to come up with new initiatives and products and processes. It’s impossible for authors and customers to know if an idea is going to work or not without that data… and it’s not like Envato are going to give out that info as they’re a private company with competitors that have prying eyes.

  3. Envato will vote for stuff that is beneficial to their business. Author’s will vote for stuff that is beneficial for their business… that’s just human nature. If we let the customers vote then they’d also vote for things that are beneficial to them. Customers will probably want cheaper stuff, authors will want higher commissions and quicker reviews, Envato want lower commissions and lower costs. But as it’s a three legged stool, Envato, customers and authors… they have to balance that stool. Too much in favour of any one party and the stool topples over.

Authors may think they know what will make everything better, but as Envato have eleven years worth of data and eleven years worth of experience doing this kind of thing, I prefer to put my faith in their decisions. Yes, not all of their decisions are beneficial to me, and they’re far from perfect, but they are usually beneficial to the business as a whole… so that ensures longevity and ongoing profitability. It’s good that they’re looking for new ways to remain competitive in an evolving and ever-changing marketplace.

Although, if they don’t accept me for Elements, then ignore all of the above… I hate Envato with a passion.

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Neither you are limited when buying licenses from Videohive. You can buy as much licenses as you want. And licenses are at work in elements too. Licensing is everywhere. Moreover elements is actually more limited as the variety of items is tiny fraction compared to any envato market and fewer choices of categories.

Also you have a limit of downloads - fair use policy.

1 Like

LOL Last thing u said is the best.

I have an assumption that the time for project approval will increase. and for the authors who will be on the elements there will be a small window of approval of the projects. the authors will be forced to move on to the elements

So let me understand: if they ask me to join Elements, can I choose which files from my portfolio to upload there? is there a review process for the new ones? How long can I wait before I can decide to join or not?
I was thinking that if they will ever ask me to join, I might just upload on elements the items that I haven’t sold for years and gave me minimum return. I wouldn’t actually mind to sell those items that are forgotten in my portfolio, they never been competitive in Videohive so I assume they won’t in Elements either.

Btw, I have a fun fact: 90% of exclusive authors (the ones I know), upload their works on the “other market” (Where is existing a subscription system. I’m sure you know that market I mean), only those projects that were rejected on Videohive.

If you make your own survey among exclusive authors who upload their projects to “other market”, I’m sure you will get more accurate data.

And just thinking out loud: Of all subscription systems, the most understandable and the most correct (in my personal opinion of course) is the subscription system of Shutterstock. For example, on Videohive you can buy 5 items for $200, but on Elements you can buy these 5 items for only $150. This will attract new customers who want to sign on and save money, this ensures that 50% of the profits will be distributed only between 5 authors (if each item has a different author). It’s like little bundles that were used on Videohive before. $50 is a good discount. You do not turn $200 into $2 you are not giving everything for nothing, you just offer your customers to save on a wholesale purchase.

If Elements had a subscription system like on Shutterstock, then I would be the first one who started knocking at your door and asking you - Please take me in! I want to be a part of Elements! Something tells me that many authors from Videohive would prefer to do the same. And they will upload quality works, not only those that have already been rejected in another market.

7 Likes

Hi guys,

I was interested to compare the subscription system and the system of “one project = one price” (as Videohive works) from the point of view of the authors who have experience in the sale of their projects in different markets, with different payout systems. So, was created a survey of authors (from 51 to 88 authors) who sell their projects on Videohive and another market (with the subscription system). I can’t call the name of this market in order not to violate the forum rules. Let this market will be called conventionally “M” market. I’m sure many authors know what the market I mean.

I do not aim to convince or dissuade somebody to take part in Elements, or other markets. The only purpose of this survey was to learn the experience of other authors regarding the different payout systems. But in any case, James (@jamesgiroux), if these data which I publish, violate Envato policy, I apologize in advance. Just delete this survey. (Also, if your team has Russian-speaking people, I can give a link to a social network vk.com where a survey was conducted.)

Once again, I want to thank all the authors who participated in the survey.

So, let everyone draw their own conclusions:






10 Likes

Great points, Thomas (@ThomasKovar)! Thank you for your detailed comment and your questions. I’m sure you expressed the opinion of many authors here (mine included).

Now I tried to understand what the average percentage Elements offers to an author for a single download of his project compared to Videohive. I’m not sure if I calculated it correctly, but I would like to share this. I hope James (@jamesgiroux) or other authors will point out my mistakes if I do something wrong in my calculations.

Let’s take the settlement table from the Elements site - https://help.contributors.elements.envato.com/hc/en-us/articles/216749198-What-is-the-Subscriber-Share-model-

*First, I do not know why there is $49. If I’m not mistaken, it is the old price of the subscription. Now Elements has only the subscription price of $29 / month.

*Secondly, I will not take into account the type of subscriber “D”. It seems to me that such subscribers (who download only one product from Elements within a month) will be less than purchases of extended licenses on Videohive.

*Thirdly, the table shows the percentage of profits. It should be noted that this percentage is not from $29, but only from half of this amount, which is for authors of Elements. This is an important point to understand what the average percentage Elements offers to an author for a single download of his project compared to Videohive.

So, let's take as a basis the type of subscriber "B" ($29 / month).


50% of $29 goes to Envato. Authors can get only $29/2 = $14.5 = 20 points.
Each author can get a maximum only 3 points for one download. 3 points = $2.18 This means that from the total amount of $29 that the buyer paid, the author’s payout 7.5% ($2.18). Well, it’s very far from 70% on videohive.

But this is not all. $2.18 (7.5%) the author will receive only on the condition that the subscriber will not download more than 7 products (from the same category of points - bout this just below) per month. $14.5 for only seven authors. If the subscriber downloads only 3 items, there will be good news - 3 authors will share this $14.5. But, if the subscriber will download more than 7 products (from the same category of points), then one author will not even get $2.18 (7.5%). For example, a subscriber downloads 10-15 products per month (the same category of points) from different authors, which means that this $14.5 pie will have to be divided between a large number of authors. In other words, in this case, one author will not receive even 7.5% (less than $2.18 of his author’s reward).
Depending on the number of downloads by one subscriber, the share for authors reward ($14.5) will be “blurred” and will become smaller. Envato’s share (50%) will not participate in the “blurring”. This is similar to the film “The Social Network”, which shows how Mark Zuckerberg “blurred” the share of his friend, and left his own share unchanged.

Of course, the author can earn more from $14.5 of one subscriber, if the subscriber will download other projects of the same author. On Videohive this would mean that the buyer has to buy the project once again for $29 and you will get 70% + 70% instead of 7.5% + 7.5% on Elements.

Also, it is worth noting that Elements has different points for different types of goods. More info here - https://help.contributors.elements.envato.com/hc/en-us/articles/217377117-What-are-Item-Points-

At the moment there are no points for After Effects templates, but I think it will be about 5-6 points for one template. But this does not really matter because 6 points are $4.36. And to get these $4.36 from $14.5 (which are for authors), the subscriber has to download no more than 3 products (from the same category of points).

That’s why I believe that Elements is a good business model for a commercial company like Envato, but this is absolutely a dishonest model in relation to the authors. It’s like if you decided to rent a place for your shop in a shopping mall, and the tenant tells you - “I’ll give you a place, I’ll call people into this shopping mall, but I’ll take 50% of your every client purchase and other 42.5% I’ll give other sellers here, but you will get 7.5% from each purchase of your client”. Certainly, this is a very crude example, but very similar to be the truth.

If I do something wrong, and my calculations about revealing the average profit from one download are incorrect, please let me know, let’s discuss this.

5 Likes

You’re not getting 7.5% commission… you’re getting 50% of the share for your item. The only way they could give you 50% of the subscription price for your item, is if every subscriber just downloaded one item per monthly $29 payment. Then it’s pretty much just The Marketplace, rather than Elements. It works differently, so you can’t really compare them using the same yard stick. Take this other example… which doesn’t really work either, but it’s using your same kind of logic:

The buyer only downloads one item during the month, it’s your Graphic River item which is priced at $3 on the Marketplace. You get $14.50 for it. So rather than getting 70% of the Graphic River price, or 50% of the price… you’re getting nearly 500%.

As for people not downloading anything being as rare as extended licenses… that doesn’t seem to be the case. A lot of people are getting bonuses every month for people not downloading stuff, and I’ve heard it can be $100 or more, on top of their subscriber share. And it will be more common as people are signing up for annual subscriptions. Don’t need anything on a monthly sub… cancel. Don’t need anything on an annual sub… you can’t cancel. Go on holiday for four weeks, you’re unlikely to download anything… in a coma for two months, then we hope they pull through and wish them a speedy recovery… but that’s bonuses all round!

This is 100% incorrect…

“I’ll give you a place, I’ll call people into this shopping mall, but I’ll take 50% of your every client purchase and other 42.5% I’ll give other sellers here, but you will get 7.5% from each purchase of your client”

A more accurate statement would be…

“Every person who comes in the mall is only allowed to bring in $29. I will take $14.50 from them as an entry fee. They are then welcome to spend their money in whatever shops they like, and however they like. They can spend $14.50 in one shop, $7.25 in two shops, $1.45 in ten shops… whatever they like. They have to spend the full $14.50 though. If they don’t go in any shops, I’ll distribute the $14.50 to every shop equally.”

Basically, you won’t get 7.5% of every client purchase. If a customer buys something from your shop and no other shops… you’ll get 50%. One from your shop and one from a different shop… 25%, and so on and so forth. If only 15% of their purchases are from your shop, and you get a 50% cut, then why should you get any more than 7.5%?

The price an author will get varies from $14.50 to a couple of cents, there’s no way to give an exact number as it varies considerably depending on the behaviour of the subscribers from one month to the next.

As for your survey… I feel it’s a bit misleading. Sure, you’ve just put it out there for people to draw their own conclusions, but it’s apparent you’re not that keen on the idea of Elements, and you probably feel that the survey results support that stance. Here’s some important points I feel people should keep in mind when looking at the results…

  1. The results show that the subscription service is not as profitable as this marketplace. That might lead people to believe that subscription services aren’t as good as marketplaces. However, it might just as likely be a case of one site being more popular than another. I upload to several sites. Some make a lot more than others. The ones that don’t make me as much as VideoHive just aren’t as popular… these things happen. Different sites are never going to bring in exactly the same amount as other sites.

Take the UK. Sales of the iPhone are less in the UK than they are in the US. That doesn’t mean the UK is bad for Apple, it just happens to be somewhere that doesn’t make them as much money as the US. However, it’s still a welcome additional revenue stream.

So if you had run the survey using another marketplace, rather than a subscription service, it would still show that one site is better than the other, That might have been VideoHive, it might have been the other site. But just like a lower result on the subscription doesn’t automatically mean that subscription sites are bad, a lower result on the other marketplace, doesn’t mean that marketplaces are bad, or the lower earning marketplace is bad.

  1. The results show that people have smaller portfolios at the subscription site, and that they usually upload their rejected stuff there. Is that a fair comparison? I’d be interested to see if the results would be considerably different if people had larger portfolios at the subscription site, and if they uploaded their rejected stuff to VideoHive rather than the other way around.

  2. Envato aren’t saying that Elements will earn authors as much as, or more than the Marketplace. Sales are kind of like energy, in that they cannot be created or destroyed, only changed from one state to another. There are exceptions which can make a bit of an impact, but the odds of Envato coming up with a new product that makes as much as the Marketplace, would be an impressive feat.

What they are saying, is that authors on Elements will (on average) notice an overall increase than if they were just selling on the Marketplace. An important question you didn’t include on your survey, but which can be estimated based on your results, would be:

Do you earn more selling on VideoHive and the subscription site, than you would if you were just selling on VideoHive?

It looks like the answer would be 100% yes. And that’s the point… Envato aren’t saying that Elements is going to be as good as, or replace the Marketplace… they’re saying it’s an opportunity for additional revenue. Maybe it’s a glass half full/empty type situation… but you’re looking at Elements like a site that earns 80% less than VideoHive (random percentage example), and Envato want you to look at it like a site that earns you an extra 20% on top of your VideoHive earnings.

(i.e. I earn $1000 a month on VideoHive, but only $200 on Elements. Elements is terrible… VS. …I earn $1000 a month on VideoHive, and since joining Elements, I earn an extra $200 on top of that. Elements is great!)

But still, it would be interesting to see the results of the survey when it’s a direct comparison… when a new subscription service (Elements) is compared with this existing subscription service, rather than two very different products from two different companies.

4 Likes

A couple of authors here have asked some really in-depth questions and raised some good points. Many authors have commented that this captures a lot of their thoughts and questions too so I thought I would take the time to unpack these a bit more and try to answer as many questions as I can. If you do not see your question or thinking represented in these, then please feel free to follow up with your own question or comment.

That is correct. This definitely crossover of customers from Envato Market to Envato Elements as well as new customers directly to Envato Elements who have never purchased from Envato Market. Part of the reason for this is that we’re looking to increase the overall lifetime value of a customer. This means doing what we can to turn one-time buyers into long-term customers.

Envato Elements represents an opportunity to take someone who might have an ongoing need for creative assets from buying once (and then having to do all the acquisition work again to convince them to buy a second item) to someone who right away sees the increased value of committing for the longer term. Envato Elements isn’t for everyone and that is why it exists alongside Envato Market.

There is a lot going on for Envato Market. We try not to do too many big dramatic changes at once as every change has the potential to impact conversion and earnings (either positively or negatively). We test and experiment rigorously and introduce changes gradually.

That said, we have a number of ongoing projects and tests that should give you a sense of where we’re headed.

  1. We’ve recently introduced a new header bar for Envato Market
  2. We’ve recently introduced a new search results page for PhotoDune
  3. We’ve updated the layout for VideoHive results
  4. We’ve updated the layout for Envato Market category pages
  5. We’ve launched Envato Websites

I could go on but there many projects that are launching value for authors regularly and more are always coming.

Envato Elements will always be a smaller, curated collection of items and authors. There is no plan to make it as big as Envato Market or grow the library that way.

In terms of the migration of customers, we’re looking to grow the lifetime value of customers generally, that means we’re looking to increase the number of Envato Elements subscribers who switch from monthly to annual plans. It also means we’re looking to find ways to grow the value of Envato Market customers through the introduction of new services and offerings. Over the years you’ve seen this through the introduction of Envato Studio, Envato Hosted, Envato Sites, Item Support Renewals, and it will continue with whatever comes next.

The cost of acquiring new customers is much higher than the cost of getting what customers we do have to buy more from authors. We want to improve both and we’ll keep working on new and creative ways to support authors earning more.

This is a great question and one we’ve asked of ourselves as well. I can’t say never but at this time there are no plans to introduce AE templates to monthly subscribers. The goal is to incentivise Envato Elements subscribers to upgrade to annual plans in exchange for these premium content types (notably WordPress and After Effects items).

An author will be able to remove items as quickly as they add them. They’ll have to visit the item page and revert their previous action to make it available on Elements.

Here is the complete license terms for Envato Elements. I have nothing new to add with regards to how it will impact video on Elements at this time.

As stated above, we have a fair use policy in place and teams that regularly review download patterns to assess whether we think a subscriber may have malicious intentions.

As mentioned earlier, we do have a Fair Use Policy which our team actively enforces. In general, it is up to the author to decide what, if any, of their rights have been breached by a subscriber with regard to the use of any item sourced from Elements. As with Envato Market, the process of filing a DMCA remains the same.

This is a question that needs a bit more time. I’ve asked the relevant team what our approach is here and I am waiting for their input. I’ll release a follow up post with the answer to this question as soon as we’ve got it available.

I think ‘trap’ is a negative connotation that implies Envato is somehow working against authors. The ‘us vs. them’ thinking is not how we operate internally. What we try to do is assess what is in the best interest of authors broadly and what levers/controls we have that will lead to increasing earnings for authors. It comes out of our value that we succeed when the community succeeds and we measure ourselves against that value constantly.

There are no plans to switch annual item types to monthly item types but as you’ve said, to rule it out completely would not be wise either. If there is a clear value to both authors and Envato that the lever of requiring an annual subscription isn’t necessary and potentially has become a hindrance to the type of customer that Envato Elements is after, then I believe authors would want us to revisit that to do what we can to ensure that we’re doing everything we can to grow earnings for authors.

Envato Elements will always be a curated collection of items. Not all will be available on Envato Market but neither will the collection compete with the scale of the library that is available on Envato Market.

With regard to the amount of earnings each month, this looks at earnings per item as the core metric. With a subscription service like Envato Elements, there’s a subtle shift to channel based earnings and earnings growth over time.

With a single item purchase, each transaction is it. There’s no guarantee that a customer will come back and purchase again. So each transaction is finite. It might be the same customer purchasing every month but in terms of forecasting and planning, there is no guarantee that the same customer will purchase at the same rate each month.

With a subscription, each subscription starts and continues, and each new subscription is added on top of the previous one. We’re able to build on top of the ongoing spending of that same customer. This is what we mean by incremental earnings. It’s a shift in thinking away from finite per-item earnings to incremental per-channel earnings.

If the only metric here was the per-item revenue then yes, you could argue this devalues products. However, if you look at portfolio performance across VideoHive and compare that with portfolio performance on Elements, I think having them both would generally be better. Not all subscribers are VideoHive customers and with incremental earnings potential on Elements, the overall value of the portfolio grows over time whereas the VideoHive portfolio alone is much more prone to fluctuation.

This assumes that a customer will always be a repeat purchaser of a specific author’s items. That’s not always the case. With Elements, even when a customer doesn’t download anything, authors earn from them, raising the value of their portfolio and increasing their earnings over time.

Yes, you are right that this could impact earnings. However, as After Effects items are priced at far less (generally) than the cost of an annual subscription to Envato Elements, a customer/subscriber would have to see the potential value of a subscription over the one-time cost of the item. In situations like that, the lifetime value of the customer and the potential long-term earning potential for authors is likely more valuable than a single item purchase.

Yes. If a subscriber is abusing the system and not abiding by the Fair Use Policy, then absolutely we would cancel their account. The monthly median for subscribers downloading is between 12-16 items per month. Each time they choose to download an item they are presented with a ‘project use’ modal where they must describe the project they are using the item for or whether it’s for trial purposes. In either case, authors are allocated item points for the download activity. It also serves to regulate subscriber downloading.

The ease of project attribution has been one of the reasons why average download behavior remains lower than many authors anticipate. Subscribers like it too.

This is something we’ve heard from subscribers and authors on Envato Elements too. It’s something we’re exploring and investigating more.

One of the strengths of Envato is that our community of authors are so diverse and the items they create are diverse too. This diversity enables us to offer a great selection of items to customers in a variety of ways. It is not about devaluing the work of authors but opening up our authors to new earning opportunities with customers who may not otherwise purchase from Envato or who would help authors earn more over time with a different payment structure.

Yes and no. AE templates will be part of the tiered points system on Envato Elements but there will not be separate tiers of points for AE templates within Elements.

Only Envato Market authors are being considered and invited at this time.

Yes. An author must also have a higher approval ratio (meaning fewer items rejected for content requirement violations) and a clean track record of legal integrity (meaning no fraud, IP, copyright, trademark or other legal violations).

We don’t have anything in the current roadmap for this but we are actively researching and evaluating and prioritising what we will be working on next.

Yes.

Oh man, I liked it when I could answer with one word. :wink:

The Elements Contributor Bonus takes the author net revenue of an individual subscription and divides it equally among all contributing Envato Elements authors. This means that authors are guaranteed earnings even when subscribers don’t download anything.

The recurring earning opportunity I mentioned is a way for authors to have access to the same customer month after month. You are right that a subscriber will still need to download your items for you to collect earning points.

However, you will not have to convince a subscriber that the value of your work is worth their purchase, that is already done and you can focus on the quality of your item instead.

I cannot share any specific data but I can describe the type of customer to you. When we talk about different types of customers, for Envato Elements, we are generally referring to those customers who have an ongoing need for digital assets. Often, we describe these as agency-type customers or freelancers with a solid customer base of their own who are regularly producing end products for them. It could also refer to those in larger companies who are their internal designer/developer with an ongoing need for digital creative assets.

Most importantly though, outside of the different type of customer, what we’ve seen is that there is a growing number of ‘new’ customers who are choosing Envato Elements and who might not have chosen Envato authors at all without it. This represents the growth potential for authors.

This is a great question and one we see a lot from Envato Elements authors. Generally speaking, this is not how we want Envato Elements to go. It’s a way to game the system that we ask authors not to do. When it comes to After Effects in particular, an item will have to go through the Envato Market review process before it can be included on Elements and as such, it likely wouldn’t get through if it was broken up in this way.

If an item isn’t selling or hasn’t sold in the past, putting it into a different platform isn’t likely to produce the results you’re after. The authors on Envato Elements who do the best are the ones who publish their best. Great items perform well regardless of whether they are downloaded regularly or purchased as a one-off.

Some authors believe that just uploading heaps of content will spread the net wide enough that the volume of downloads will counterbalance the lower performance of their items. Our data shows us that this generally doesn’t work.

Furthermore, authors who regularly upload lower performing items will be going against the agreement they make to us when they become an Envato Elements author. Their items will be removed by our team and their ongoing inclusion in Envato Elements would be at risk.


Thanks to all our authors for taking the time to write and ask these great questions.

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Thanks a lot, James, for your time to reply us. I really appreciate it. At this stage, I don’t have any substantive questions to write here, because the main puzzles of the picture became visible to me better. Once again, thank you.

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