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Comment by handzhiev | Hacker News Reader

A bit offtopic, but I don't understand why plugin authors are so happy to give 30%-60% of their revenue to Codecanyon. What value are they providing to charge so much?

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Would love to know as well. I'm selling a plugin from my own site and had wrote of Codecanyon once I saw their pricing structure. I'm a bit curious if a big part of the reason is that doing the payment & plugin delivery is difficult for average WP dev. Would be interested to here success stories and comparisons.

Setting up payment and delivery is very simple and I've done it a bunch of times. I wouldn't underestimate the "average WP dev" either, they are getting a lot better than perhaps people on here may give them credit for. I can say the competition is certainly higher quality since when I started a few years ago but this has always been a side-business of mine alongside various startup jobs and other businesses.

The simple answer to why I use Codecanyon is access to a large, targeted customer base that is ready to spend money. That's not an easy thing to replicate. No matter the combination of PPC, content marketing, influencers and direct contact I try.

Thanks. Based on your feedback, I'll evaluate Codecanyon again when I revamp my plugin. Just so you know, I didn't mean to come across as flippantly judgemental about Codecanyon or WP plugin devs. All the best.

Hey no worries, I didn't take it as judgemental. There are a wide range of skillsets in WP dev and I agree that traditionally it's been seen as a bit more low quality. However that is definitely changing as more people get into WordPress development. Good luck with your plugins!

It's a good point... I've gone back and forth on this a lot and I guess it just comes down to the sheer number of customers I can get via Codecanyon compared to selling directly.

Believe me I've tried on many occassions over the last few years to setup direct sales of my various plugins and software. But I can't seem to drive enough targeted traffic to match the income via marketplaces like Codecanyon.

As someone who did a lot of market research before launching a paid plugin, the main reason is exposure. There is no other marketplace that comes close to the number of potential customers. Of course, you can roll your own solution but since almost nobody publishes numbers on how their business is going it's hard to see if it's more or less profitable.

From my own experience, the exposure you get at Codecanyon is not much. Their marketplace is crowded. It's far better to go freemium or try SEO or adwords.

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