Envato Elements authors reporting lower earnings, even when uploading more items
I am part of a WhatsApp group for Elements authors and I was reading discussions and I noticed that more and more people are complaining about their earnings dropping.
One author said he has over 1500 HQ items on Elements and barely makes $200/month. And some of his items are on the first page of their categories.
Another author said he uploaded a huge number (500+) of new items in the last 4 months, but his earnings barely changed.
Some contacted Envato support and got the usual generic response, that there are more authors and more items, so the subscription revenue is divided between more contributors.
There were also some issues mentioned by them with earnings statistics not updating for weeks, apparently because of a backend migration or some backend issue.
Elements authors are also very happy right now…
What do you expect… boy I am so happy to hear this, the authors who flooded Elements went there like pigs and now they are getting their reward…
There is no value in Elements in the AI age and Envato as a hole has lost the authors passion a long time ago and 99& Envato authors have their own websites now…
Probably Envato will close soon or who know what other plan has the CEO to squize the last buck… not that it matters now…
They have an AI agent now that answers LOL
I hoave only one wish… to get my clients emails ofcourse this will never happen…
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But we do have Envato clients emails, at least of those who asked for support.
About Elements, that was expected I guess.
Well as an idiot I did not saved them… and most emails I have deleted them…
I was never fan of marketing and sending marketing emails so I never consider that as an opportunity. Do you think those emails could help somehow?
It was a failed idea from day one, we all kew that, the problem with the CEO is that it treated it as a bussiness just like a hotel and this is the result. Envato was a colletion of tallented creatives that loved thier work literally… it was way more than a bussines… everything he did from day one was against the author… not a single decision was beneficial for us authors, he treated us like we were the enemy and not even once answered to a single question or concern we had… I blame him for what happend so… f*ck you Mr. Hichame Assi
The last two years on Envato were a nightmare, hard rejetion that made no sense all kind of stupid decisions, banners everywhere, no commication with the staff, I tried writing them many times, everytime I got a generic response probably coppied and pasted.
I bet Hichame Assi will blame AI and the overall industry for the Envato fall… but Envato could have done good even today with the right CEO! how do I know well this prodcut has 1 visit per day somedaus zeor and I sold it three times https://codecanyon.net/item/iza-product-designer-wordpress-woocommerce-plugin/65050471 , and got a custom job for it, in the old days this would have had 300 - 1000 visits per day easy , if only 10 percent converted is amazing but Envato marketplace is just shit hole fro Elements banners… most items are broken, no supprt and some of them do not even exist anymore, the demo pages are dead ends… they just used it to get visits to Elements not that it matters at this point…
Most of my clients were fans of my work from 30k + clients that I had only 100 to buy a new prodcut when released would have beed really good for me now, that would men a 6k in total sales but I am sure I wold have got more…
Using emails from customers who asked for support or emails without explicit allowance for marketing is actually not allowed. I always forget that “detail” so I checked again. So no, you could do nothing with those emails legally.
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Yes, having their email from a support ticket doesn’t automatically mean you can use it for marketing. Without their permission, you could get complaints and potentially legal fines.
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Hi everyone! 
Elements (music) insider here.
I can confirm Elements has been in a steady decline for me in the year I’ve been part of it (since 2025). Currently, it leaves me around $650 a month. Personally, I focus on freelance, commissioned, and custom jobs, and only upload super quick tracks (stuff I can pull off in one or two days tops) when I have the time.
Indeed, uploading new stuff basically doesn’t move the needle anymore. At most, it slightly mitigates the income drop for a very little while.
Now, if there’s still anything worth it while it lasts (because I agree it seems like they are trying to wipe out human contributors), it’s that every now and then a track from the catalog gets some attention and that translates into an income spike and some copyright revenue if the piece gets used in a broadcast or popular content.
Aside from that, I guess the people who are still uploading (fewer and fewer every month) see it for what it is: an ever shrinking side income that’s very likely to vanish at any moment.
Just my two cents from someone who’s still playing on the Titanic.
Cheers, everyone!
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