Vova Feldman of Freemius just shared the news on X that Envato raised its commission for authors to 50%. I haven’t seen the email sent to them so will not comment on that – I’m sure they have articulated their justification well.
Envato just dropped exclusivity and raised author fees to 50% 😳
Effectively killing the last real reason to stay exclusive.
ThemeForest/CodeCanyon have been slowly dying for years:
↓ traffic
↓ innovation
↓ investment in sellersGoing independent is inevitable 🏋️ pic.twitter.com/WHFjFlshOo
— Vova (@vovafeldman) May 14, 2026
There are two takeaways, in my opinion.
Envato is reducing its operational burden
And so they should. They referenced challenging marketing conditions which has been the case for a long time now. The decline started in 2015 and one can imagine that the AI revolution has accelerated the trend downwards.
Look at the trend and financials, Envato’s leadership had a number of options:
- Lower commission rates to make their proposition more appetizing
- Increase the commission rate to make their proposition less valuable to current authors, incentivizing authors to move off the platform
- Shutting down ThemeForest altogether
After crunching the numbers — revenue, operational costs and P&L — they landed on a formula that works for them commercially. An equally important factor is the cross-selling opportunity it creates for their core product, Envato Elements.
The takeaway here, beyond understanding what’s going on, is a business has different levers to try and right the ship. Pricing is one of them, which is always an unpopular one. Or when agencies purge their less profitable clients to focus on the ones that pay the bills. So, before judging the raise and crying foul, consider that you may well be in the same position.
Time for authors to sell direct (as StylemixThemes themes did)
Vova is right. He’s not saying to move off the marketplace altogether, but not to sell on ThemeForest exclusively. Or anywhere else, I would add. If it works operationally so maintaining a presence there isn’t too costly, having visibility there is good for your brand. Being an Elite Author has value.
This is important too: the risk of ThemeForest shutting down has increased. It’s time to take steps to mitigate that.
A few years ago I did some work for StylemixThemes who had made the decision to sell theirproducts directly too. I helped them optimize their MasterStudy pages for SEO and CRO, which proved to be a valuable exercise.
Notice the ThemeForest trust mark?
SEO was a big part of the strategy and if you look at the content and information architecture they developed – check the top navigation – you’ll understand why they were able to get to a point today where they are attracting 4.5K visits a month from 16K+ keywords organically, which has a dollar value of over $6K.
Looking at Google Trends, searches for ‘masterstudy’ have increased too. This is a measure of the growing strength of their brand.
Now, marketing has played a role in this. Their team have done an incredible job on the content front. But without developing a great product, they wouldn’t be where they are now.
Also, Igor Ligay and the leadership team took the right strategic decision at the right time.
Our second breakthrough came in 2021 when we made the strategic decision to shift our focus to WordPress plugin development in response to the downturn in ThemeForest sales. We began creating and selling WordPress plugins through our website, stylemixthemes.com. This pivot marked a remarkable turning point for us.
You can read an interview with Igor here.
Marketplaces are not dead. They are getting smarter
My SEO tool shows that themeforest.net is attracting over 200K visits a month. That’s a good amount of traffic that can be monetized in different ways, not just selling themes. Template Monster are around the 35K visits a month level, which isn’t bad. They may well see a bunch of products migrate over.
What’s more interesting is that new types of marketplaces are being launched. Like cartesian, a startup here in Melbourne. They are bringing their marketplace into products, including WordPress, via AI-driven recommendations:
Users no longer need to browse 10,000s of plugins in a static directory. cartesian’s AI identifies needs in real-time and surfaces relevant solutions automatically as they work.
The system is clever enough to understand what the user is trying to do and then recommends a solution, whether it’s a plugin, theme, or a SaaS.
I absolutely love this idea as it represents the type of innovation the industry needs. Check them out.
How to transition from channel sales to selling direct
That’s a topic worth its own blog post, but here are some ideas:
- Try to stay in the marketplace as you still get sales and visibility
- Leverage the brand equity you have grown over time, even just within the channel
- Figure out ways to reach customers (as you’re unlikely to know who they are)
- Start doing PR. Connect with the WordPress media (but remember that they are only interested in a good story)
- Transitioning to direct is a GTM (Go-To-Market) play. Plan to make as much noise as possible
- Partner with other WordPress businesses – products and agencies. Some of them feature their own marketplaces.
As for the operational side, Vova’s Freemius solution is a great option. There are also Lemon Squeezy, Easy Digital Downloads and Paddle.
A final plug for myself as I will be back freelancing in June. Get in touch if you would like help.
