Summary: As an Envato author, you must ensure that your WordPress Template Kit meets the requirements outlined in this article.
You may also find the How to Create a Template Kit and the Template Kits Commercial Demand guide helpful.
Please note: Our Template Kit requirements may change from time to time as this is a new content type. Please check back here regularly to confirm your Template Kit complies with our guidelines going forward.
Technical Template Kit Requirements
Technical Template Kit Requirements
- You must use the “Envato Template Kit - Export” plugin to create your Template Kit
- A Template Kit must contain at least 10 templates, these can be a mixture of Page Templates and/or Block/Section/Popup/Pattern Templates. While 10 is the minimum, many Template Kits have more. Most contain multiple page designs broken up into multiple section templates. Kits containing a single page design are unlikely to be accepted.
- A Template Kit must be a “cohesive collection of templates”
- This means they should share a similar visual style & design.
- They can be focused on a particular “niche” (eg Gym, Hairdresser, Lawyer) or a particular design/visual style (eg Material, Retro, Minimal).
- A kit should not contain a lot of the same templates (eg 50 FAQ blocks, or 20 landing pages is not allowed).
- A kit should not contain dark and light versions of templates, these templates would need to be separate Template Kits.
- A kit should not contain a “bundle” of different designs (e.g. Cafe, Child Care and Website Hosting templates are not allowed together, they should be 3 separate kits).
- A Template Kit must contain templates for a single site builder.
- A Template Kit must be created with Elementor and/or Elementor Pro
- Please note: We plan to be “builder agnostic” and in the future our Export plugin will support any popular, modern site builder that has an open source free version, with a reliable import/export feature.
- A Template Kit must be optimised to work with the Hello theme from Elementor.
- Please note: We may change our recommended Template Kit theme in the future.
- The Template Kit live demo must be running the Hello Theme from Elementor.
- The Template Kit must not require a theme other than Hello on the import screen.
- A Template Kit can require free Third Party Plugins / add ons for Elementor, as long as those add ons are hosted on the WordPress.org plugin repository. Premium plugins/add ons are not allowed, apart from Elementor Pro.
- Elementor Global Styles
- Template Kits support Elementor global theme styles. You are welcome to take advantage of this feature and include the “Global Styles” in your final export ZIP file. If using Global Styles please confirm the Export and Import process works correctly, and the imported templates look like your live demo/screenshots.
- A Template Kit can not include Custom CSS.
- This means no CSS can be used from the Elementor Pro or other 3rd party plugins.
- This means no CSS can be used from the WordPress Customizer area or theme stylesheet files.
- We do not allow any Custom HTML, ID’s or Class Names. These can conflict with other elements on the page causing a poor user experience. We allow ID’s for jump menu purposes but only on full page templates (not individual block templates).
- Dynamic Content
- Dynamic content are areas that pull data from WordPress such as: “Latest Blog Posts” and “Our Products”. These items must not be “static” or “fake” with hard coded data in the Template. Once a customer imports a Template we expect it to show dynamic data from their website.
Testing your Template Kit
- Your Template Kit must work with the “Envato Template Kit - Import” plugin.
- You must test importing your Template Kit on a local testing site running Hello theme and confirm the imported templates look the same as your screenshots and live demo.
- If planning to use a 3rd party plugin with your Template Kit, please confirm the plugin data exports and imports correctly. Some 3rd party plugins are not compatible with an export/import process and cannot be used in a Template Kit.
Naming Requirements
- The ThemeForest Item Title Guidelines must be followed. In particular, please note this part:
- Unique item titles that are easy to remember are more effective in creating a brand. For newly published Items, you must include your brand name at the beginning of your item title. For example “Avada” is the brand name and “Avada | Responsive Multi-Purpose Theme” is the full title.
- For template kits specifically, the brand name can be used more than once if you create a series of related Template Kits sharing a common feel (eg “Neon - Photography Template Kit” and “Neon - Cafe Template Kit”). However, the brand name must not be your author name.
- A Template Kit name must be unique. You must not use an existing brand name from an item by another author in any category (e.g. using Avada - Photography Template Kit is not allowed unless you are ThemeFusion).
Live Preview Requirements
- A Template Kit Live Preview (a.k.a. “Demo”) must be hosted by the Author and all assets included in the kit must be importable via the user.
- We recommend building your Template Kit directly on the Live Preview website using the Template Kit export plugin. We do not support building Template Kit on a private localhost website address.
- We recommend setting up a new WordPress multisite for your Template Kit demos and having a separate site for each demo.
- The Live Preview URL must remain active for the life of your Template Kit.
Image Requirements
- All images (including photos, graphics and icons) used inside a Template Kit Live Preview (a.k.a. “Demo”) must be the same images linked to in the Template Kit files to ensure the user imports are “like for like”.
- For example, the live demo cannot have photos of cats and then the imported template has a gray placeholder or watermarked images.
- All content that contains images of people or property must be sourced from Envato Elements or Twenty20's commercially cleared library. If the end customer wishes to retain these for use in their end product, they must license directly from Envato Elements or Twenty20. All content that is sourced from Envato Elements or Twenty20 must be disclosed and linked to from your item description. This is to ensure images are properly commercially cleared.
- All other content that does not contain images of people or property must be appropriately licensed for use by the customer in their end product according to the applicable Envato license (Market and/or Elements). For example, if you use CC0 content, it is you, not the CC0 source, who is responsible for ensuring the content is suitable for use on Envato.
- You may also use graphics and images you have created yourself or have licensed, provided they are suitable for license to customers under the applicable Envato license.
- As part of the Template Kit export, you’ll need to provide links to all of the images used in your kit. This will be inspected by our review team.
- No brands or trademarks are allowed – this means all logos must be fake/use fake names.
- Please ensure all images are highly optimised BEFORE uploading to your WordPress website. Example: If the image is only used as a 200px thumbnail, only upload a 200px thumbnail to WordPress. We recommend resizing all images and running them through tinypng.com or similar before uploading to WordPress. Unnecessarily large images will result in Template Kit rejection.
For further information please check out the How To Create A Template Kit Guide, and the Template Kits Commercial Demand Guide