Last month, we talked about how Envato laid off around 15% of its workforce in preparation for an economic slowdown.
This month, Envato continued its “slimming down” by shutting down Envato Studio with less than two months’ notice.
If you’re not familiar with Envato Studio, it’s a freelance marketplace where web freelancers can connect with clients for jobs.
Collectively, Envato Studio providers have completed more than 230,000 jobs over the platform’s eight-year lifespan, so a lot of people have based some or all of their income around the marketplace.
Naturally, a lot of the Envato Studio freelancers are upset as they have very little time to replace that income. Additionally, many providers have built up solid reputations on the platform which will disappear soon.
Overall, providers seem to wish that Envato would’ve given them longer to prepare. They also asked Envato to create an archived read-only version of the site so that providers can still showcase their reviews and reputation.
Personally, I think this frustration is justified as Envato Studio had a higher-than-average service fee of 30%. When providers are giving up 30% of their revenue to the platform, the platform should have some more responsibility towards them (in my opinion, at least).
For reference, Upwork’s fee ranges from 20% to 5% depending on the volume of work.
Unless something changes, though, Envato Studio will shut down on August 21, 2022. You can read the official announcement here, as well as a post from WP Tavern with more details.
If you’re a freelancer looking for a new spot to find clients, you can read our full roundup of the best freelance websites.
In addition to closing Envato Studio, Envato will also shut down its Twenty20 stock photo site, which allowed people to buy and sell “real-world stock photos.”
If you need some alternatives, we have a post on where to find free images for blogs. We also have our own free stock photo site – MyStockPhotos.
