Shopify has updated its developer revenue share percentage
There have been several announcements from Shopify lately, including a new Online Store 2.0. However, what has caught the eye of many people in the eCommerce space is the update to their developer revenue share percentage. It’s going from 20% to 0% for the first $1 million in gross sales and 15% after the first $1 million (USD).
There has been some talk about this in the Post Status Slack #ecommerce channel for how it compares with the WooCommerce marketplace. That comparison has brought up some interesting details about the rates and conditions for having a WooCommerce plugin in the official WooCommerce marketplace.
As an example, currently “developers can earn 60% of net revenue for the sale of their exclusive extension or 40% for non-exclusive, meaning the extension is sold both on our Marketplace and off-platform.” Those rates seem a bit high to some, but Devin Says mentioned “it may still be worth it for some businesses depending on their customer acquisition costs.”
The WooCommerce vendor agreement had the most reaction in community conversations — in particular, the “upon termination” section. This covers a situation where developers want to quit selling a product in the marketplace. Apparently, WooCommerce has the option to “fork the Product(s) under the Applicable License and continue to sell them.”🍴
There is no doubt the WooCommerce marketplace has great value for merchants in general. But as someone not invested in the eCommerce space as deeply others, I am interested to see if the moves Shopify is making will influence decisions touching the WooCommerce brand and policies. Also, will we see these changing policies at Shopify move the needle in terms of more new store owners choosing Shopify and developers choosing them as the preferred platform to sell their products?