Envato or Own Marketplace Which is Better?

Are you a website designer, developer, WordPress theme or plugin developer? Do you want to sell your job? You may know about the Envato market place to sell your HTML Theme, WordPress Theme, plugin, etc. Is this the best place or is there any other alternative? Let’s discuss in details.

What is the Envato Marketplace?

Envato Market is a collection of themed marketplaces, where you can sell your digital assets.

Envato provides you different 7 marketplaces where you can sell your digital assets as per your skill.

1. www.themeforest.net: Here you can sell

1. WordPress Themes
2. HTML Templates
3. Email Templates
4. PSD Templates

2. www.codecanyon.net: It is the place to sell

1. PHP Scripts
2. WordPress Plugins
3. Javascript / jQuery Codes
4. CSS or HTML5 forms, Buttons, etc.

3. www.videohive.net: Here you can sell your Video effects and stock footage etc

4. www.audiojungle.net: Here you can sell music and audio tracks

5. www.graphicriver.net: It is the place to sell Fonts, logos, icons and more

6. www.photodune.net: Place to sell stock photos

7. www.3docean.net: For 3D print models and CG textures

How to sell your asset

You can create your Envato account at www. account.envato.com and use the user name and password for all the above sites. No need to create multiple accounts for multiple sites. Once your account created you can login to any of the market places and start selling.

You need to upload your asset from admin approval, once the Envato team approve your product it will be live automatically and the viewer can purchase and download your files. Usually, it takes 2-7 days for approval.

But the process is not as easy as described. Your product must pass the quality test by the team. If you are selling Theme, Template or PHP code then you need to create a proper document as per Envato specified format. For more detail please visit Envato Author Help Center.

If your product gets rejected then you can’t re-upload the same product again.

Sell price and how much of this will you earn?

All the price set are in US dollar only. Though Envato show you recommended purchase price it is up to you to set your product price. Any price you set is final. If the price is too high or low then there is also chances of rejection. But in that case, you can change the price and re-upload the product. It is known as Soft rejection.

It is more important how much you earn on each sell. I think Envato fee is a bit high. It charges Fixed Buyer Fee and Author Fee which is very high.

On the basis of this calculation if you sell a PHP script on codecanyon.net on each $10 sell you will get only $3.12, for $15 you will get $6.15, for $20 sell you will get $9.37 and for $25 sell you will get $12.5. Here I think the author fee is very low, what you think?

What about your own marketplace

Is this a good Idea to create your own website and marketplace? Before thinking of own marketplace we should know some other things like do you have a website or blog? How many products do you have 1, 2, 5, 10 or even more? What is the average market price of your products? Most important how serious about your marketplace and selling product online.

If you don’t have a website then you need to create one and for this, you need a suitable domain name for your business and Server space to upload your website. Are you a web developer? Otherwise, you need to hire a better developer to develop your website.

Another option is website builder tools. You can also select a better website builder for your business, which will help you to create a better website very easily without any technical skill, they also provide you ready to use code and environment to start selling your products.

Once your site is ready you can integrate PayPal, Stripe or any other payment gateway to receive payment. Most of the website builder provides an option to integrate payment gateway free of cost.

How to promote your website?

Let’s assume your beautiful website is ready and live now. But how people will know about your website and the products you are selling on your site? It is a tricky and ongoing process to promote your website. Please check our other article to know detail about website promotion, Search engine optimization, Pull more traffic to your website, etc.  Which is better Envato or Own marketplace?

What you think which is better? Let’s discuss some more points.

1. In the case of Envato, it will work if you didn’t promote your products. But in your own site without promotion, no one will visit your website and you can’t sell a single product.

2. In the case of Envato, you need to log in every day and check if someone sends you any message or purchase a product. Envato doesn’t send any mail on sell or if someone asked a question. I personally don’t like this. But on your website, you can set an email alert for each and every action.

3. In the case of Envato, the comment section is open, so anyone can see the comments even before people can see the comment before purchase. So it may misguide the buyer sometime. But in your own site, you can manage this as per your choice.

4. Envato never shares the buyer’s information. In your case, you can collect the buyer’s information and send new related product or promotional newsletters, etc.

5. Envato doesn’t provide any coupons and discounts, but in your case, you can provide coupon and discount on next purchase or multiple product purchases. You can sell combo products on less price etc.

6. Most important factor Envato take a huge cut of each sale, sometimes it is more than 60%. On $15 sell you will get only $6.25. In your own website, you also need to invest in a domain name, server space or website builder, etc.


Now what to do, should we sell of Envato, Create your own website or think of any other alternative? If you have 1, 2 products and you are not interested to create more products then go for Envato, it is best for you. If you are interested to create more products then I will suggest creating your own website.

You can do one thing, start selling a product on Envato and create your own website and start promoting your website. You can send your visitors to Envato page to purchase your product. Once you think your website is getting good traffic and more products are ready, start selling your product on your own website and leave Envato.