Hey everyone!  We've just announced some changes to our marketplace fee structure, as part of a new holistic approach that brings both author and buyer needs into better focus.  Our goal is to create a really fantastic experience that benefits both buyers and authors in the long term.

As part of this update, our fees to non-exclusive authors are decreasing which means an increase in net author earnings.  For a sale of an item with a list price of $100, a non-exclusive author will now have net earnings of $36 (for comparison, in our old fee structure, they would have received $33). We're working steadily towards a more competitive media offering for photos, footage, and other markets dominated by non-exclusive contributors.

The Become an Author page has a complete and more visual representation of this breakdown, with a fancy chart and slider

You can read more about this change on our Market Blog:

• A More Balanced Envato Market
• Author Rundown of Buyer Services Changes

As well as our commitment to strengthening our media markets as part of our 2014 Roadmap.  Thanks!

Could we get something specific to PhotoDune? I read the blog and the detail of service charges with a hypothetical $100 item, but that has nothing to do with photo sales.

What is the Buyer Fee for each size of my photos - which list on the web site from $1 to $9? Let's assume a credit purchase as I understand authors no longer get a cut of the fee for a cash purchase (and that it has been reduced to $1 from $2)

If I'm getting 45% of the $1 to $9, then this is good news.

If I'm getting 45% of something less than $1 to $9, I honestly don't see how this makes any sense - you need to post the royalty rate the author receives out of what the buyer pays. Everything else is your costs of doing business and how you break it down is of no concern to me as an author.

As it is described in the blog it will make PhotoDune purchases look more like the tangle of fees and taxes typically seen on a cell phone bill in the US and everyone hates that complexity (perhaps that won't translate - possibly Australian mobile bills are simpler .

It really obfuscates the bottom line if you say you take 55% but it's really 55% of something other than what I can see on the page where my images are for sale. How and where can I see the number you take 55% of?

Of course, if I have the wrong end of the stick, perhaps you can explain.

That is my impression as well and your experience bears that out.

Hey everyone, I know it's a bit confusing at first   

The $100 split example is one of the clearest ways of thinking about it, but Collis does a better job explaining it and some of the context around it in a few different ways on our forum here if you want to take a closer look:

http://photodune.net/forums/thread/a-more-balanced-envato-market-important-changes/140925?page=3#1109645

I'll redo Collis' example here from a non-exclusive author perspective:

OLD VERSION (Purchase price of $10) Buyer pays Author $10 Author pays Envato $6.70 (67%) Author is left with $3.30

NEW VERSION (Purchase price of $10) Buyer pays Envato $2 (20% platform fee) Buyer pays Author $8 Author pays Envato $4.40 (55% platform fee x $8) Author is left with $3.60

Which means an increase in net author earnings!

The 55% fee on my author page is really confusing and should be changed to 36% royalty. It is really crap to see how much you take from us, just show us what we make. Please.

Seems overly complex, we just need to know our overall percentage of what the buyer pays for our work.

The main problem with Envato from a contributor's perceptive (across the non photo marketplaces) is the same one I outlined for microstock as a whole but much more so. They have a lot of super high quality content priced at a stupidly low prices, which worked fine when supply was short and authors could clean up on the massive volumes of sales per item. Now supply is catching up with demand authors are forced to jump ship to other similar sites letting them set the prices themselves. That's what needs addressing.

A raise is always welcome! Thank you Envato!

Good timing with the latest debacle at istock.  Hope you can get some of their customers that don't like paying a fixed price for any size.