ThemeForest is part of this seven-property Envato Market family (merged in 2014), which also includes the now exceptionally well-known WordPress plugin market, CodeCanyon.
Because of its prevalence, ThemeForest is among the greatest ways for WordPress developers to make a living — just develop a theme, upload it to ThemeForest and, after validation by quality management, start selling to a huge pool of qualified buyers. Based on if they sell only through ThemeForest and what their sales volume is, theme developers earn somewhere between 45% and 87.5percent of their earnings .
Although Envato’s financial details aren’t publicly disclosed, the stats that are available are absolutely staggering. In 2014, it was revealed that Envato had paid a cool quarter of a billion bucks to its vendors , with 48 of its vendors having generated more than $1 million worth of earnings each.
From a motif purchaser’s standpoint — the principal focus of this article — you are spoiled for choice. ThemeForest lists an astonishing 12,000-plus WordPress themes, generally priced about $60 per year, though Envato transferred to let writers set their own pricing in 2016.
How does ThemeForest work?
ThemeForest makes your job easier with filters instantly. From the search bar, you may look up a phrase related to the type of your business, so the search engine shows you topics made specifically for this.
Themeforest.net
The’best sellers’ option is excellent for people that want a motif that is certified good and continues to be purchased multiple occasions. If individuals purchased a theme per hundred occasions, it must be really great (think of all of the individuals who recommended it to their friends or individuals who have seen their competition use a similar person ).
On the flip side, you will find groups, tags it is possible to use, cost selection, rating, software versions, and programs themes are compatible with.
All themes have previews and descriptions about what they contain, such as what kinds of businesses they’re made for, the amount of pages they havethe plugins that they contain, in short, their most noteworthy attributes. Pretty good, isn’t it?
Advantages of working with ThemeForest:
I am sure everyone knows it, but it must be said anyway. There is really no competition when it comes to building a theme/template company (really building a company, not merely developing a motif once in awhile). No additional market has the stability and security in the future that Envato provides to its sellers.
1) Tremendous traffic. Your themes get exposed to lots of relevant people. All you’ve got is to convince them that you have a good product.
2) Another significant choice is your exclusivity. Some choose the non-exclusive way of selling their subjects everywhere, not just Envato, also are happy with 50% revenue. However, the majority are sticking to Envato and selling their own subjects only there.
Personally, we’ve never considered any other potential than selling topics on ThemeForest.
3) Envato does care about you being known as an elite/power elite writer. Like for example the new theme increase — your theme reaches Envato’s homepage when it is released and gets super-exposure from the very first days.
4) You have to raise good money on Support! Though quality of support will not matter a lot.
5) Finally, last but not least, the community. You have an opportunity to talk to real developers like yourself. You can learn from them, you are able to share thoughts and pick up some interesting ideas yourself, and let’s be fair, not so many of us invent things nowadays.
Disadvantages of ThemeForest:
1) High Standards. This seems somewhat complicated in the beginning, even annoying at times, particularly after a few soft and hard palate, but what does not kill us, does actually make us stronger. Like it or not, Envato has to have these high standards to maintain their level of quality and avoid condescending looks from the WP community.
2) This is a real”drawback” everyone has willingly subscribe to — the faceless element. This doesn’t have such dramatic effect as it did in the old days, but nevertheless is a substantial element. Customers buy from Envato, not in the brand. We used to have countless support tickets addressing us since the Envato support team, which does not help the brand-building, not at all. Especially for its new sellers.
3) This contrasts with the prior announcement, but it is seldom very pleasant to recognize that you are only a cog in the machine.
4) This results in another large issue — the costs. It appears fair that everybody has to set their own costs on their own products. But this made things quite complicated. Some authors abused the system to get their products recorded as the most expensive items, listing them at simply ludicrous prices. Or the topics that are being sold with almost 0% revenue for the writer, just for marketing purposes. And that’s not actually talking about the multi-skin templates which in fact could be used for building lots of websites for the price of one.
Conclusion
If you plan on selling your theme on ThemeForest, then get ready to package yourself with lots of patience. Don’t be afraid to try various marketplaces to offer your plugins or topics , do not be scared to experiment and change, and most importantly: do not get too comfortable, stay hungry!
In general, I would say the experience was a rough one, but I had heard a great deal from it. It also added to my overall experience.
