9 days ago Updated
Summary: This article outlines the different ways you can earn with Envato. It also looks at the Author Fee structure and the different ways you can get your earnings paid out, depending on where you sell your items.
Whether you’re selling your items on one of our marketplaces, or across Market, Envato Elements and Place it, we want to make it easy for you to understand how your earnings work at Envato.
As we have a couple of different platforms and products, it can seem a little overwhelming to begin with. But for a great overview, please read through this article - All about Envato.
Below we’ll take a brief look at the different ways you can earn across our platforms and products.
To find out more about keeping track of your earnings, please read our article on Managing Your Sales.
Envato Market has a traditional model of a customer purchasing single items that each have their own price set by you, the Author.
The total cost of the item is made up of:
You will then also need to take into account any withholding tax.
So how much of this will you earn?
Let’s take a look at an example.
Using the image above, let’s say you are a new, non-exclusive author looking to sell an item with a regular license.
Putting it all together, let’s find out how much you will earn from the above.
Your Earnings = (List Price/Purchase Price - Buyer Fee - Withholding Tax) - Author Fee
= ($16 - $3 - 10%) - 55%
= ($11.70) - $6.44
= $5.26
So in this example you would earn $5.26 USD.
Your earnings will first be displayed in your Market account as you make sales. On the 8th of every month, any earnings in your Market account will be moved to your Balance Dashboard in your Author Profile. Your earnings will accumulate here until they reach the minimum payout threshold of $50 USD, at which time they will be paid out to your on the next payout day through the payout information you have provided.
Envato Elements earnings work a little differently to the traditional marketplace model. As a subscription platform, we use the subscriber share model to allocate Elements earnings.
With this model, Author earnings are directly linked to the money collected from each individual subscriber. We look at each subscriber in turn and assign you a share of 50%* of their net revenue based on how important your items were to them (i.e your share of all item points they used in that period).
You’ll find some great examples within the Subscriber Share Model article to help explain how this can work across a variety of situations.
* The only exception to the 50% allocation is for Enterprise subscriptions where we assign a share of 25% of net revenue to Authors. This takes into account the costs associated with growing the Enterprise business, as compared to regular self-serve subscriptions. Read more in our Subscriber Share Model article.
Unlike Market and Envato Elements, as an Author you can’t apply to sell on Placeit. You’ll need to first be an Envato Elements Author, and then your items may be considered for sale on Placeit. This does not necessarily mean they will be chosen for sale, but rather they will be selected for Placeit based on what customers are looking for. You can read more about Placeit here.
Customers can purchase items on Placeit either individually, or download them through a paid subscription.
In general, 20% of net revenue from a single purchase or subscription download is allocated to the authors of assets and templates included in the purchase.
This means if the template consists of assets from only 1 author (a mockup, for example), then the author gets 20%.
If multiple assets are used in the purchased item (for example, the user downloaded a design template that includes 1 graphic, 2 fonts and a background) then we split the 20% between authors in the following way:
Envato charges an Author Fee that varies depending on your all-time sales and whether you’ve chosen to sell your work exclusively on Envato.
Non-Exclusive Author Fee: 55%
Exclusive Author Fee: 12.5% - 37.5%
The amount you earn for every sale is calculated by taking the Item Price and deducting our Author Fee.
For Exclusive Authors, the more items you sell, the less our Author Fee becomes.
When a customer makes a purchase, they are charged your Item Price and an Envato Buyer Fee. We call the total amount the List Price. We take the Item Price of all your previous sales to determine our Author Fee.
Check the table below for more Author Fee information for Exclusive Authors:
Envato Elements
Envato Market
Over the last year:
Market authors have full control of their pricing, although we provide tools to help with sales/discounting.
No matter where you sell your items, to get paid you’ll need to make sure you have filled in your personal information and tax details correctly.
As an Envato Author, it’s best to complete your tax forms as early as you can. If you don't, Envato may be required by law to tax your earnings at a higher rate and/or withhold a portion of your earnings to remit to the tax office. And we don't want to do that!
See below for the relevant sections of the Author Agreement.
21. If required by law, we may deduct or withhold taxes (including withholding tax) in connection with your being an Author. If so, we will give you relevant document that’s required by law about the deduction or withholding (like documentation allowing you to access rebates or credits, or to manage your tax affairs).
22. We may collect geographical location information to determine your location, and other information from you that may be used for tax purposes (so the information you give us must be accurate).
At this time, you need to complete your tax forms on the Envato Market platform, whether or not you sell on Market or Envato Elements.
Here's a detailed walk-through of how to complete the tax forms:
Are you already an Envato Market Author?
YES: Skip ahead to step 6.
NO: Work through steps 1 to 8 below.
If you're new to Envato and not currently selling items on Envato Market here's what to do:
For more specific tax form information, please check the following sections
Setting up your payout account is quick and easy. You can follow these steps to set up your payment account:
Once you have accessed your payout profile follow the steps below:
For more details on the payout options available to you, head to our 'Getting started with the Market payout system' article.
Once you have accessed your payout profile follow the steps below:
Refer to the Setting Up your Elements Payout Methods article for more details.
You’ll need to select the most appropriate payment method in order to receive your earnings. Author payments can be made via:
Once set up, we will use this account for processing monthly payouts. You can change your payout account at any time before the 14th of the month.
Check the points below before selecting your payment option.
We encourage you to evaluate the payout options on offer to choose the option that best suits your needs. For information about various options and fees, head to our Help Center article.