What Should ADP Look Like?

Envato Authors Theme Authors
1

Hello,

This topic has been debated and beaten to death, yet no changes have come from it. Envato forms relationships with authors to help build their marketplace and for the author to help build their brand, it’s a 2 sided coin. Specific decisions that affect this relationship should involve both sides.

ADP pricing has been a disaster in authors eyes, at least most of them that we have spoken with. All the while, it has not affected Envato due to the fixed pricing structure. I’m not sure how any author who is determined to make a living on this marketplace can disagree with that.

We are not fully against ADP. When it was first mentioned to us before it was released, it was going to allow authors to raise their cost by $5 or take it down by $5 … the idea was some kind of range for a certain time period. This made sense to us, it allows sales for special events, promotions for a new product, etc but limits how long it can go and definitely limits how low it can go … that breeds good competition.

Allowing authors to set any damn price they want, is completely absurd. Not only will authors drop prices down to basement level pricing, others will follow, customers will start to view the entire marketplace as lower quality. This is a global marketplace, it is not based off one location.

ADP has only accomplished changed competition because of pricing … not because of a better product, higher ratings or the capabilities the item offers. No, it’s all about pricing. And that is wrong.

What should ADP look like? It should look like what it was originally planned to look like.

  1. Each author has a range of $5-10 to move their item cost up or down. This would require each type of item, ex: WP Theme, to have a set price range as it was in the old days.

  2. When authors drop their prices down, it should be considered a promotion / sale. And the sale should be limited to a certain time frame, 1 week, 2 weeks, etc. The point of this, is that it cannot be continual.

  3. Each author is allowed to have X number of sales a year. This should be easily trackable in the authors dashboard through a new sale history tab.

This is the basic idea of what we feel ADP should be, I’m sure there are many other questions to answer yet I can’t imagine any of them would create a hang up that does not allow this method to pass and succeed.

Maybe Envato should be taking a vote across the marketplace to see what authors really think ADP should be … after all, we are the ones it affects, not Envato.

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2

Why not $10-15, for example. How did you come to a range of $5-10?

3

That range was simply what we talked about long ago when it was in theory … the range can change, I’m sure $10-15 would be fine.

However the range is important, especially considering how long a sale can be, along with how many times a year you can do it.

The point is to avoid overkill with low pricing, limiting that is the goal. So a range, length of sale and # of times a year are all important in determining that.

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4

This topic has been debated and beaten to death

Exactly.

5

Yea was hurrying back to jump into this thread from the store with my wife :stuck_out_tongue:

It is no secret that I am against ADP all the way, but to a certain extent, it would be ok. However, maybe I would define it by %. And all the limitations should be automatic, not manual.

New policies about sales are already set but it is nearly impossible to control all the authors.

And it is through that it was debated a lot and nothing moved, but why give up?
But I would implement something else. More price ranges, so bigger themes should cost more, how would that be defined, it’s open to debate.

This would keep the marketplace healthy in my book. This was always the case before ADP so woocomerce themes, blog themes etc. It would have to expand to multi demo themes etc.

Now I know it’s hard to move Envato away from this now since they did taste the money here.
But none the less healthy debating can be useful, new ideas can come out and you never know.

Cheers

6

Just one comment from a person who “made everyone hate ADP” :slight_smile:

Imagine a web developer who’s doing an entire website for $99. Trust me, those $10-20 make a huge difference to him: whether to purchase an item or to download it for free.

I understand that for many people in Northern America and Western Europe it is impossible to imagine this person. But I know many. Because there are also other countries in the world.

Besides, don’t forget that different items serve different segments of the market both in terms of features and price point. There’s no black and white. There are many shades of gray and other colors in between.

8

Far before your action, we were againts ADP.

But as I sad when others follow your lead you will too!

The point we advocate. How do you not see were this leads?

9

@Anps, I understand your and @ThemeFusion concerns and point of view.

To a free market. If what you say about ADP was true, #1 selling theme would be the cheapest one. Yet sky have not fallen to the ground. Market simply does not work that way.

Here, take a look: 2025's Newest Premium WordPress themes from ThemeForest - there are plenty dirt-cheap themes, but I don’t see them invading Top 10. Why?

10

This is a process. The proof is your theme you nearly tripled your income with the price drop. Again you can do a test bring your price up to 59 and ull see.

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IMO it’s wrong to focus on one product and ignore thousand of others.

Besides, do you really think that we just lowered the price and were sitting on our backsides ever since? Can you rule out the possibility that theme was improved a bit? Or maybe we did something in terms of marketing? Or maybe theme shifted to a market segment where it fits a bit better?

I can suggest another test. You can bring some of your items price to our level. Or even lower…

I will reiterate:

12

We are completely agree with @ThemeFusion. Ever since ADP, we are losing trust in envato. @Anps voicing against ADP for very long time, good to see top author’s voice on this matter.

We are also reduced price on few of our items because we are very small team. we don’t have big money for marketing. So we have no other choice to get more pageviews on our item (Our recent theme pageviews dropped to 25 - 30 after 30 days of launch, few pageviews no sales, so to compete with other items we have to reduce prices)

I hope this topic will not ignored again by envato like always. HOPE TO SEE CHANGES!!!

Everyone please join this topic and share your opinion.

13

We agree with @ThemeFusion. The ADP need to change, the price range should be limit in $5 - $10 and limited time set sale off to 2 - 3weeks a year or limit X number of sales a year.

We want more top author raise this again. Hope this topic will not ignored.

14

Totally agree with everything above. Also, what I noticed with a new released themes is that they continue to sell only when the launch promo runs. After the price is back to normal, buyers stop to buy it and start searching for another theme with a low launch price.

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15

I wondered, at Envato, have anything been changed so far because of the community pressure? I’m asking generally. US tax cut, ADP, contest rules, affiliate program, account based exclusivity etc. whatever you can think of. Which one has changed?

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16

As I said before. I did not say you do not work on your item. And you do advertise but in front of it all is the price. Why did you put the shiny red price tag on the thumbnail?

And to say why others cheap themes do not get to top 10, that is just a populistic statement.

I did not say you got on top 10 with the price drop I said you got to second place, that’s a big difference.
Us lowering the price would bring us more sales for sure, but because of the lack of exposure you have, it would not give that effect.

Again nobody is stating that your theme does not deserve to be on top, but if you are stating that you got where you are now, has nothing to do with the price and if you believe that, then well that’s just funny :stuck_out_tongue:

I mean your slogan on the main screen is pay less get more, are you really still going to deny it?

17

One thing as I remember was, there was an announcement that the payouts will no longer be possible to make to multiple accounts but only one, (if I am mistaken correct me) then, later on, they changed back with some changes.

18

i also agree with all of you guys. And i think there should be a limit like first launch or happy birthday discounts etc. for few times every year.

But the reason we are talking about ADP is low sales. And i think ADP is not the biggest reason of it. if you dont have a good item, then you will not get sales even if price is $13. But there are also lots of good items they can not get good sales. So that authors drop their prices to get minimum of 50 sales to be on weekly popular list. Otherwise they can not show up their items to buyers before it gets lost under latest items. and i understand this.

But there is another problem,

i can see that there are more than 10 items on weekly popular list. They change price till they get 50+ sales. Once they are guarantied 50 sales then they change the price back. This is a problem for new GOOD items. i understand this also.

So if ADP is cancelled or limited this will give a chance to new GOOD items to get more sales and this is all i think.

19

Totally agree with everything!!! @ThemeFusion

20

ADP works well in my opinion.

The only thing that could be improved is separated support price from the product price itself.

21

All those threads and discussions are really pointless, you should all learn this by now. Show me please one example when they actually listened to us?
“this is not a democracy anymore, it’s a envatorship”

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