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Just saw the bad news. Happy to take this offline with customer service, but really? Charge me the former price of a new license every year but tell me “Last chance to save $12.80, get an extra 6 months support now – $32” as if I don’t know simple arithmetic? Or am I missing something here? Oh yeah, now new license only have 6 mos of updates instead of 12.
Talk about a disincentive to avoid the leaderboard at all costs. And talk about incentive to do all of my websites on a platform with an unlimited all-you-can-eat annual membership at a price that’s fair to both parties.
I don’t think 12 websites is that many and that generates a $768/year annual bill. Love the updates, but they are nowhere near worth that price. Love the free extensions, but I only need a few at best so give me the option not to pay for them.
Hi Mike,
Thanks for writing in. When you say “just saw the bad news”, where did you see this? Are you referring to the Themeforest policy? If so, this is something standard to all items with support on Envato. After 6 months, we wont close your accounts here on the Theme.co community and you will still have access to the forum.
Unless you are referring to something else, then you will still have access to us beyond the 6 months. Hope this helps clarify – thanks!
I mean access to updates. Automatic updates. Do my licenses and activations remain valid? Are there any time limitations to them?
Hi Mike,
Automatic updates for the theme and the bundled plugins will always be available as long as the API key from the license is validated with the domain name. There is no expiration of the licenses that you purchased.
Hope this clears it up. Please feel free to let us know if you have further questions.
Hi! Just jumping in on this. So is there any reason why I should pay for the extra 6 months of support offered on Themeforest when I buy a license of X? Because if your support and updates don’t expire, what on earth is that there for? I’ve been paying for it and passing the extra cost onto my clients. But I don’t get anything for it? This is very confusing…
Can you clear this up a little more for me? Thanks!
Hi Jennifer,
Our apologies for the confusion. Envato updated their terms a few months ago specifically related to their item support policy. Specifically, they have tied support to a period of time whereas in the past it was up to the author to provide. We have always prided ourselves in the support provided and had no limits to support periods, however this change does apply to all products sold on Envato’s network of sites. While customers will still be able to access our community area we will need to abide by Envato’s policies for support as this is something we can not control. If it was up to us, we would continue to provide support in an ongoing manner as part of the theme purchase, however the rules are in place now. There are many ways to address: 1) Each new license includes 6 months access so if you plan to purchase at least 2 licenses per year, you will always have access to our support forum 2) You can purchase a support extension like you already have.
Hopefully that helps clear things up! We will never fully block access to our community area as people need that for things aside from support (license management, upcoming services we’ll be launching, etc), and we continue to make on-demand support resources available via our Knowledge Base that can always be accessed.
#1 – It does to some degree. I guess the next question is this: once my year expires on Envato, what will it cost to renew “support?”
And from what I’m reading on the link you provided, once the support term expires, we no longer get updates to X when you have new releases.
So here’s my challenge. For most of my clients, I create an Envato account on their behalf to buy X. So they will only ever purchase the theme once. And they are asking me what the annual renewal is going to cost and I don’t have an answer.
#2 – On a separate by related subject…
I’m a freelancer, and I want each of my clients to have their own Envato and X Forum accounts because some of them want to take over managing their own content updates, etc., after we’ve launched and I’ve trained them. If they need support from you guys, I don’t want them logging into my account, because they will have access to all my license information. Way too risky.Though I have a lot of licenses here in my own account, I have even more out there that I manage that are in separate accounts. When are you going to create some kind of dashboard for freelancers like me, so that I can securely have access to my own licenses, but not have to log into separate accounts to manage my client licenses when they ask me for help?
Plus, I’m not getting full credit for all the licenses I’m buying from you on behalf of my clients because they are all in separate accounts.
Given that support expires now, it’s even more important for me to have a dashboard to be able to monitor these things on behalf of my clients who only have one license, which will expire. I’ve been asking for a dashboard like this for quite a long time now.
I look forward to your replay – thanks! 🙂
1) You can find more on Envato’s pricing for support packs here. Please also re-read what we have said above and how things are explained on the item support guidelines. Updates are not tied to Envato’s new support policy and continue to be free as long as we are in business. You do NOT have to pay for updates.
2) As you can imagine we have many different types of customers: some building for themselves, some building for clients, some buy licenses on behalf of their clients, some have their clients buy the license so the customer has access to support. There are dozens of permutations of this and as such there is no one size fits all approach that we can take to accommodate all options. It is ultimately up to you for which system works best for your business, however if you want each of your clients to have access to our support forums, the license will need to be in their Themeco account. There is no parent or universal type account where you can manage licenses in your Themeco account on behalf of your clients when they too have a Themeco account you’ve setup for them. We are going to be adding a “referral” system in the future that simply tracks clients you refer to Themeco, but you will not be able to have access to their Themeco account from within your Themeco account. If you have any other questions on item support, please direct any further questions to Envato as we have no direct control over that as it was a universal policy for all supported products sold on ThemeForest. They can be reached at support@envato.com.
Cheers!
Ok, cool on the updates.
The cost of support beyond the year is confusing on their website. It seems like they are only talking about the 6 months you can add at the time of purchase. If I’ve already bought that, and my year of support is up, it’s not really clear how buy another year. Unless that page is the pricing for adding 6 month increments even beyond the first year…. I will email them. This should be easier to understand… ugh…. 🙁
Sure thing, Jennifer! I know they offer it at a cheaper price if the support extension is purchased closer to the time (or at the time) the license is purchased, but they’ll definitely be able to address any questions you may have regarding.
We greatly appreciate your repeat business as it is what allows us to continue to develop and support X, Cornerstone, and the growing Themeco ecosystem. We look forward to continuing to work with you!
