Discount & Promotional Pricing Guidelines

Launching Items On Market - Newly Published Items

For newly published items:

1. The item may not be advertised as having a “discounted” or “sale” price within the first thirty (30) days after launch (the “Item Launch Period”).
2. The item may be advertised as having a lower “introductory” price when launched, but only if:
   • the reference to “introductory” pricing lasts no longer than the Item Launch Period (i.e., thirty (30) days); and
   • at the time of launch, you intend for the price to truly be introductory only and you have an honest intention to increase the price after the Item Launch Period.
3. Promotions that advertise tiered or graded pricing changes are not permitted on Envato Market, including during the Item Launch Period.
4. See the Running a Promotional Price section below for more information on running a Promotional Price period after the Item Launch Period.

For example;

• You can’t publish or launch an item at $25 and advertise it as a “50% introductory price”, unless you actually intend to raise the price to $50 at the end of the Item Launch Period.
• You can’t launch an item with tiered introductory pricing (or advertising such pricing), for example “$10 > $15 > $20 > $30”

Running a Promotional Price/Sale

For items generally that have been up for sale for longer than the Item Launch Period (i.e., after the first thirty (30) days), you may advertise an item as having a Promotional Price in the following circumstances only:

1. The item must have been sold at a higher price point (we’ll call this the “Original Price”) for at least thirty (30) consecutive days before any lowered price may be advertised as a Promotional Price. We’ll call this the “Price Consistency Rule”. The Price Consistency Rule also means that if you place an item on sale (with a Promotional Price) for a certain sale period, once that sale ends, that item won’t be eligible for another sale for another thirty (30) days at a minimum.

For example:

• You can advertise an item on sale “$50 on sale at $35” (i.e., 30% off) if that item was sold at $50 for at least thirty (30) days before the start of the $35 Promotional Price.
• You place an item on sale for one week, from $50 to a Promotional Price of $35 (i.e., 30% off). Say that sale ends on 1 April - the Promotional Price ends and the item goes back to $50. To satisfy the Price Consistency Rule (and if the item is kept at $50), it’s next eligible for sale on 1 May.

2. A Promotional Price may only be calculated/displayed in relation to the Original Price of the item.
3. In order for a new Original Price to take effect, the item must have sold at that price point for at least thirty (30) consecutive days.

For example, you can’t raise the price of a $50 item up to $100 for a few days, then reduce it to $25 and advertise it as a Promotional Price of “75% off” or “Save $75”. The Original Price in this case is $50, so the discount is only 50%.

4. Generally speaking, the item should not have been sold at or below the Promotional Price at any time before the new promotion, except in the case of previous promotions.

For example, if an item was sold for an Original Price of $50, you can’t change the Original Price of that item to $300 and then offer a Promotion Price of $150 (50% off). The item was previously sold at a full price ($50) lower than the Promotional Price.

5. A promotion must last no longer than thirty (30) days, in total (the “30 Day Sale Rule”). If a sale lasts longer than thirty days, the relevant Promotional Price is effectively considered to be the new Original Price, and therefore may not be continually advertised as a Promotional Price. After a promotion has ended, if you do not want to return the item to its Original Price then you are free to edit to a lower Original Price, but you can’t call it a “discount”, “sale” or similar description identifying it as a special price anymore, and it will not be identified as “on sale” by Market.

For example, if you’re promoting a holiday discount on an item that starts on Dec 1st, it must end no later than Jan 1st.

6. Each item can be “on sale” (that is, have a Promotional Price) for a total of sixty (60) days in any rolling 365 day period (the “Annual Cap Rule”). Subject to other Promotional Price rules, you can use those days how you see fit throughout the year.

For example, you can’t run a different promotional discount on an item every week for the entire year.

7. Items participating in a promotion officially led or coordinated by Envato (an “Envato-led Campaign”) are treated slightly differently. Sale durations for Envato-led Campaigns do not count towards the limitations described in the:

• 30 Day Sale Rule; or
• Annual Cap Rule,

as long as all other Promotional Price rules are followed. This means that the period during which an item has a Promotional Price because is it participating in an Envato-led Campaign does not:

• count towards the 30 Day Sale Rule, if the relevant item was on sale/had a Promotional Price immediately before, or is scheduled for sale/have a Promotional Price immediately after, an Envato-led Campaign; or
• count towards the Annual Cap Rule, which means that the 60 days under the Annual Cap Rule is something for your use as author, for the campaigns, sales and promotions you wish to run in your own right.

Similarly, if an item is participating in an Envato-led Campaign, the Price Consistency Rule doesn’t apply only if the pre-Promotional Price (i.e., Original Price) for both your sale and the Envato-led Campaign remain the same.

For example:

• Say you have an item that’s been on sale for 28 days straight, and you’ve also opted that same item into an official Envato sale that’s going to last for 7 days. Envato’s sale starts on day 29. So your item would technically have a Promotional Price for 35 consecutive days. This is ok, because the Envato-led Campaign does not count towards the 30 Day Sale Rule, and your own sale otherwise complies with that rule (i.e., it only went for 28 days).
• You’ve had an item on sale for 56 days in a calendar year, and that item is eligible to participate in an official Envato sale that’s going to last for 7 days before that year is up. The item remains eligible, even though it would have been on sale for more than sixty (60) days for that year, because the Envato-led Campaign, lasting one week, doesn’t count to your sixty (60) day limit.
• You have an item that’s on sale from an Original Price of $100 down to a Promotional Price of $50. Your sale ends on 15 September. That item may still be ok to participate in an Envato-led Campaign that starts on 1 October, as long as the Original Price remains at $100 through that period.

8. Do not attempt to advertise an artificially inflated price or misleading promotional value.

Misleading Pricing

1. You have ultimate control over the price you set, but you may only select a price if you truly and sincerely believe that you will sell items at that price. You may not price an item too high or too low with no intention of making a sale at that price.
2. You cannot display an item price that your item has never had (e.g., “other items are listed at $65 but ours is only $43”).
3. While you may generally market the value of your item (including using dollar value amounts), you cannot display or represent the value of any included components or features as part of your item’s price or in a way it could be perceived as a promotional price (e.g., “Our price $60 + $200 added value = $260 = Now only $49").
4. Any item that bundles other components should include an easy-to-find “disclaimer” or reference to the following help article so that customers can fully understand what they are receiving as part of their purchase. For more information, see Bundled Plugins.

For Example:

• “For more info on how our bundled plugins work, check out this article.”
• “Some restrictions apply on these bundled components, for details, check out this article.”

The disclaimer should be visible pre-purchase and in close proximity to the marketing (for example, using an asterisk or number in a preview image that refers to an easily located footnote/clarification just underneath the image).

5. As mentioned above under “Launching Items On Market - Newly Published Items”, promotions that advertise tiered or graded pricing changes are not permitted on Envato Market, including during the Item Launch Period.

Titles, Thumbnails & Preview Images

1. Item titles must not be altered to include Promotional Price details.

For example, if your item is titled “Corporate Theme” you cannot rename it to “Corporate Theme - On sale” or “Corporate Theme - Save $10” or “Corporate Theme - 50% off”, etc.

2. Item Thumbnails and Preview Images should have no more than 1/5th of the space devoted to Promotional Price text or graphics (e.g., “Sale”, “Discount”, “% Off”, etc.).
3. Item Preview Images should not be completely replaced with a Promotional Price advertisement. Remember that Envato and our affiliates rely on these images to promote your items externally, and so they should always primarily reflect the nature and content of your item (not simply its price).
4. Additional dedicated Promotional Price advertisements, text, and graphics may be added to the item description.

Reporting Discount & Promotional Pricing Guideline Violations

1. If possible, reach out to the offending author to advise them they are not following the guidelines.
2. Collect evidence of the violation (a screenshot, item description copy, image, etc.) and report the violation to Envato.
3. Envato will investigate the report and take action as required:
   • If an author is found to be in violation of these guidelines, we will inform the author and request that they make the necessary changes to their item page.
   • If an author fails to respond within the designated time frame, their item may be disabled.
   • If an author is repeatedly in violation of these guidelines, it could mean the suspension of their author account or even a permanent ban.