Seller’s Guide

Before selling in the AppThemes Marketplace, there are a few things you need to know. Please be sure to read all the way through this guide so you have a thorough understanding of what it means to be a marketplace developer. You should also read our Marketplace terms of service.

1. Signing Up to Be a Marketplace Seller

At this time, every marketplace seller will need to sign up to be an AppThemes affiliate. Please follow the steps below.

  1. Login to your AppThemes account
  2. Find “Affiliate Tools” on the right column
  3. Click “Enable my affiliate account”…if you do not see “Enable my affiliate account”, you are likely an affiliate already and can skip ahead to step 5
  4. You are now an affiliate
  5. Under “Affiliate Tools”, click the “Payout Details” link
  6. You will now have to follow instructions on this page to complete necessary tax documents and provide a payout method
    1. We make monthly payouts via PayPal once the $100 threshold has been met

Once you have completed these steps, please email us at marketplace@appthemes.com.

2. Submitting Files for the Marketplace

For each item you plan on selling in the marketplace, the following materials will be needed:

  • Your item to sell (obviously)
    • A .zip file containing all necessary files to install your plugin or child theme directly from the WordPress dashboard. Don’t include several .zip files within a .zip file.
  • Materials for your items page in the marketplace
    • A detailed description of your product and what it does (item-desc.txt)
      • Product name
      • Product description and features (at least 75 words)
      • Works with which theme(s)
      • Minimum version of WordPress & theme required
      • Demo site URL (optional)
      • Version number & release date
      • Is it WordPress Multisite compatible
      • Does it support multiple languages & include a .pot file (i.e. i18n & gettext compatible)
  • Suggested selling price (final price to be set by AppThemes, see below)

Final Package

The naming structure is important and will create delays if not done correctly. Here’s an example of what your entire folder of assets should look like (in all lowercase) before zipping it up and sending to us.

|- my-business-child-theme-name (FOLDER NAME)
|— child-theme-name-1.2.3.zip (item-desc.txt included)

Note: Make sure to delete any temporary files/directories created by your version control software (VCS), code editor, and/or OS. For example, _vti_cnf, .git, .svn, .DS_Store, Thumbs.db are all files that should be excluded.

For a more permanent solution, add these types of files to your VCS global excludes. Here’s how you would exclude these types of files from git exports.

Next, take this entire folder and compress it into a single .zip file. Your .zip file should be named (in all lowercase) one of the following two ways:

  • business-name-product-name-version.zip (i.e. appthemes-classipress-1.2.3.zip)
  • firstinitiallastname-product-name-version.zip (i.e. jdoe-classipress-1.2.3.zip)

Uploading Files

Please take the time to test your products thoroughly. You’ll save everyone time and we’ll be able to to get your item(s) online and generating sales sooner. All files can be uploaded to our DropBox account. We’ll send you a username and password separately.

Once everything has been uploaded, please notify us by sending an email to marketplace@appthemes.com. The current process for uploading files is temporary and will be changed at a later date. We will notify all sellers when that change occurs.

Initial Submission Review

AppThemes will review your files and test them prior to approval. If the submitted item does not work it will be returned to the seller with an explanation. It is up to the seller to make sure their plugin, child theme or any other submitted item works with the most current version of our themes.
Our review process includes several factors. AppThemes reserves the right to exclude or deny submissions for any reason.

Continued Review of Files

From time to time, items in the marketplace are reviewed to ensure that the product works with the latest version of our themes and meets our high quality of standards. If your item does not pass review, you will receive an email notification and your item will become inactive after 30 days if the issue is not resolved.

Exclusivity

AppThemes only accepts items that are exclusive to our marketplace. You are entitled to sell other items elsewhere, but not the same ones. This prevents sellers from competing against their own work on other sites and confuses customers.

Ownership of Files

AppThemes provides the marketplace as a venue to sellers to list items related to our themes and WordPress in general. Sellers retain all applicable rights to their products. Sellers may also remove products sold in the marketplace at any time.

Setting the Price for Items

AppThemes will work with each seller to determine a price for their item in the marketplace. Quality and complexity of the product as well as similarity to other products are all factors in determining price. Ultimately, AppThemes will set the final price. The seller may refuse the price by retracting their submission to the marketplace.

3. Making Money in the AppThemes Marketplace

How Do Sellers Make Money?

Every time an item is sold on the marketplace, 60% of the final sale goes to the seller. Additionally, sellers can earn an additional 30% of the final sale amount by referring customers as a part of our affiliate program. Sellers have a potential to earn up to 90% of the final sale amount.

How Do Sellers Get Paid?

At the end of each month, seller earnings are calculated for all sales completed in that month. Payments to sellers are sent within 15 days after the end of the month. If the 15th day falls on a non-business day (weekends and holidays), payments will be made sent on the next business day.

Recurring Payments

At this time, we do not allow recurring payments on products sold in the marketplace. All items are sold for a one time only payment.

Minimum Balance

There is no minimum balance each seller needs to maintain in order to get paid for the prior months sales.

Chargebacks

Occasionally AppThemes receives chargebacks from credit card companies and payment gateways. It is not unusual for these chargebacks to be the result of fraud or identity theft. While AppThemes makes every effort to avoid chargebacks, they do occur. All chargebacks will be deducted from the sellers earnings.

4. Supporting Items Sold in the Marketplace

Sellers are responsible for supporting customers who purchased their item(s). Sellers are also expected to fix bugs and provide general maintenance updates for their items.
Each seller will receive a dedicated space within the AppThemes forums to support their products. Support for products sold in the marketplace must be provided in the AppThemes provided forum space.

Sellers may use their forum space to support, promote or link to items they sell in the marketplace. Sellers will have moderator access to their dedicated forums and receive email notifications whenever a new thread or post is created. Sellers may not use their forum space to support, promote or link to items not sold in the marketplace.
Outside of their designated support space, sellers may not use the AppThemes forums to support, promote or link to any items – regardless of whether or not that item is sold in the marketplace.

5. Legal Requirements

All marketplace sellers must have full rights to any item sold in the AppThemes Marketplace. That includes having full rights or license to use any auxiliary content that it makes use of.
Copyright laws are something that we take very seriously. There are serious consequences for doing the wrong thing. Please avoid misusing the work of other people. If you have any questions about copyright or other licensing concerns, please contact us at support[at]appthemes[dot]com.

If we discover that a work has violated copyright, the seller will be banned from our marketplace and funds made from the sale of that work will be withheld. Additionally, it is possible that the affected party could take legal action against you.

What is Copyright?

You can find a full definition of copyright on the U.S. Copyright office website. The following is a very short description.

Copyright is a form of protection grounded in the U.S. Constitution and granted by law for original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Copyright covers both published and unpublished works.

Only the copyright holder of a work may do the following:

  • Make copies of the work and distribute them.
  • Create derivative works or alter the work in any way.
  • Sell the work in either its original version or in an altered form.
  • Grant or sell licenses to use the work.

Remember the creator of a work retains copyright to it even if they don’t expressly tell you so.

Licenses and Using Other People’s Work

The seller is responsible for all copyright use or potential copyright violations in his or her files. For sellers to make use of another person’s work, they must have a license to do so.
Sellers should look carefully at licenses to see what they permit and what they do not. Different licenses may allow developers to do different things. To use an asset, sellers should have a license that allows the assets use in items for resale and redistribution.

What happens if there doesn’t appear to be a license?

If no license is expressly granted, sellers should contact the original copyright holder and receive written permission.
The penalties for breaching copyright can be severe. AppThemes takes copyright violations very seriously and will not tolerate copyright violation in the marketplace.

What is a Copyright Infringement?

A copyright infringement or violation is the unauthorized use of work that is covered by copyright. If you use, alter or sell another person or company’s work without a license or their written permission then you are violating their copyright and are breaking the law.

If you suspect another file has infringed on the copyright of your work or others, you should contact AppThemes support to report it.

Here are some requirements to comply with copyright violations:

  • The item must NOT include any brand names, logos or trademarks. – For example you cannot use an Apple or McDonalds logo, even if you have recreated it, photographed it, or altered it. You cannot use a photo of a watch if the brand name of the watch is legible.
  • The item must NOT be based on any other item. – For example you cannot submit a website template that is based on an established website. Similarly you cannot submit an item which is too similar to another item for sale in the AppThemes Marketplace or another website.
  • You must NOT upload an item that uses free or purchased components from any other source UNLESS you have an express license to do so. – For example you cannot download a file then use part or all of it in a file for sale unless it specifically states that it is usable in items for resale.
  • You must NOT upload an item that uses government or military property – For example you cannot submit an item that contains a presidential seal or military insignia.
  • You must NOT purchase or download any item then resell it – you cannot submit an item that you have purchased or downloaded from another site.

6. Licenses

WordPress and AppThemes products are licensed under version 3 of the GNU General Public License (“GPLv3”) or later.  This means all derivative works (in the copyright-law sense) of AppThemes and WordPress must also be licensed under the GPLv3 or later.  Since Cascading Style Sheets (“CSS”) and images are not considered derivative works, they may be sold under a proprietary license, but such proprietary license must give purchasers in the marketplace a perpetual, royalty-free, irrevocable license to copy, display, and make derivative works of the CSS and images, either for personal or commercial use.

If you do not want to or cannot grant these rights, your items cannot be sold in the marketplace. Please do not attempt to upload them as they will be rejected.

Now that you’ve read the entire sellers guide, you’re ready to continue on!