Array launched a redesign of its theme shop this week along with drastic price cuts for single theme and club purchases. After conducting a customer survey earlier this year, the company moved to act on feedback regarding its pricing structure.
Previously, Array offered single theme purchases ranging in price from $49 to $89 and the entire collection for $199. The new pricing is more straightforward with all single themes at $49 and club membership for $89.
The company, which began under the name Okay Themes and rebranded two years ago, announced last April that it would be returning to Themeforest after disappointing experiences selling on Creative Market and WordPress.com. Array currently has five items in its portfolio on Themeforest ranging in price from $44-64. The company negotiated an agreement with the marketplace that gives them a better rate than other non-exclusive authors typically receive.
“Although I can’t go into this in too much detail, we are actually not operating at the typical non-exclusive author rates, as most would rightfully assume,” founder Mike McAlister said in a comment on our post about the news. “We’ve worked out a mutually beneficial agreement with Envato that gives us a little more room for experimentation and bandwidth for providing quality support.”
With equal or more affordable pricing at Themeforest, customers had little incentive to buy directly from the Array website with the previous pricing structure in place. The new $89 club membership is now more compelling for those who are interested in purchasing multiple themes directly from Array.
In addition to the the redesign and new pricing, Array released a free theme pack to help potential customers get acquainted with their products before purchasing. The pack includes five of their most popular themes, some of which were not previously offered for free, including Author, Editor, Fixed, Typable and Transmit. Editor is also available on WordPress.org and WordPress.com.
Array’s journey over the past two years, which includes pulling out of Themeforest, rebranding, and then jumping back into the marketplace with a more beneficial arrangement, necessitated an update in its pricing structure in order to remain competitive. Customers gravitate towards straightforward pricing that they can understand, especially when products are sold across multiple marketplaces.
The theme shop’s experimentation with selling on Themeforest, WordPress.com, Creative Market, Mojo Marketplace, and Array’s own website shows how much it has had to adapt to reach potential customers. Commercial WordPress themes are a multi-million dollar industry, but there’s no single avenue paved to success even when partnering with one of the dominant marketplaces.
Thanks for the write-up, Sarah!
I made a principled decision several years ago when I first started releasing commercial products to only create honest, finely-crafted products that solve more problems than they create. As many can imagine, this isn’t the road to millions of dollars in an industry where many are willing to release products with more “features” (headaches), lower standards and lower prices. As you mention, it’s a race to compete for attention despite the popularity of avenues you choose to distribute through.
The tradeoff is that we have 100% complete creative autonomy to wake up every day and create fulfilling products, experiment with design, try out new avenues and continue fighting the good fight towards better WordPress products.
A great post by Adrian Kosmaczewski, recently highlighted on the Tavern, had a poignant quote that I think many can learn something from.
“Do not worry about hype. Keep doing your thing, keep learning what you were learning, and move on. Pay attention to it only if you have a genuine interest, or if you feel that it could bring you some benefit in the medium or long run.”
Array’s journey has never been towards any dollar amount or someone else’s idea of what our success should be. Instead, our priority remains focused on making beautiful, honest products that we think are helping our customers and benefitting the medium as a whole. It would be great to see more of a focus on true craftsmanship and less on revenue reports.