Run the numbers
How much does Envato's 50% cut actually cost you?
Your yearly cost from the flat 50% is roughly (your old share minus 50%) × your annual revenue. An exclusive author who kept 70% on a $49 plugin selling 40 copies a quarter loses about $1,568 a year — an estimate built from your own inputs, not a forecast. Non-exclusive authors who were on ~45% do not lose here. Run it on your exact numbers.
How the 50% cut works on a single sale
On a $49 plugin, the flat 50% means roughly $24.50 of the item price stays with Envato on every sale. If you were an exclusive author who kept 70%, you used to keep about $34.30 — so the change costs you roughly $9.80 on that one sale. Multiply by your volume and the gap compounds fast.
Your annual number: the formula
Here is the exact formula the loss calculator and the Envato Tax Receipt use:
loss per year = (old share % − 50%) × (last-90-day sales × 4 × item price)
Take your real last-90-day sales, multiply by four to annualise, multiply by your item price, then multiply by how many percentage points you dropped. That is your estimated yearly cost — an estimate from your own inputs, not a promise.
A worked example
Exclusive author, kept 70%, $49 plugin, 40 sales in the last 90 days:
(0.70 − 0.50) × (40 × 4 × $49) = 0.20 × $7,840 = $1,568 per year (estimate)
| Item price | Old share | Sales / 90 days | Estimated annual cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| $29 | 70% | 40 | ~$928 (est.) |
| $49 | 70% | 40 | ~$1,568 (est.) |
| $79 | 70% | 40 | ~$2,528 (est.) |
Every figure here is an estimate, rounded to whole dollars, built from the inputs shown. Your real number depends on your price and your actual 90-day sales pace — put them into the calculator to see it.
Non-exclusive authors: you did not lose here
If you were non-exclusive, you were already on about 45%, so the flat 50% is a small gain, not a loss. The formula above returns zero or a negative for you, and that is the honest answer. You might still choose to move for other reasons — owning your customer list, pricing freedom, no marketplace risk — but not because the split hurt you.
What you keep after you leave
The point of leaving is not this month's cut; it is that every new sale stops paying 50% the day you go live. Where does it go instead?
| Channel | Model | All-in cost (est.) | Who handles EU VAT |
|---|---|---|---|
| CodeCanyon (from 1 Jul 2026) | Marketplace | 50% | Envato |
| Freemius | Merchant of record | ~10.5% (est.) | Freemius |
| Own store + Stripe | Self-host | ~3–5% (est.) | You are liable |
Freemius's ~10.5% is an estimate that breaks down as roughly 4.7% platform + 2.3% WordPress-distribution fee + about 3.5% payment gateway, and it scales down toward 0.5% over $100k per month. An own store keeps more but hands you the VAT. Neither is 50%.
What to do with your number
Once you have it, the decision is concrete: is your next sale worth 50% to Envato, or would you rather keep ~90%? If you want the full move written out, the free 27-step migration checklist covers it end to end, including the honest limits on what actually changed.