The two prices sit next to each other on the same item page, one of them several times the other, and the cheaper one is correct far more often than buyers expect. Choosing between a regular license vs extended license is not a question about how big your project is, how many pages it has, or how long you will use the file. It is a question about one thing only: whether the people who end up using your finished work will have to pay to get at it.
This is an independent editorial review. Envato did not review or approve this article.
Envato was founded in Australia and its marketplace terms name a United States corporation as the contracting party and New York law as the governing law, with item costs stated in US dollars; the license wording quoted here was read from its own published pages on the date of writing, it is summarized rather than interpreted, and nothing here is legal advice about any particular project.
You can see Envato Market’s current terms on its official site:
Reading regular license vs extended license in one table
Each row below is unpacked in a section of its own.
| What you are comparing | Regular | Extended |
|---|---|---|
| End products covered | One | One |
| Finished work given away free | Permitted | Permitted |
| Finished work sold to its users | Not permitted | Permitted |
| Number of people who may use the free result | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Handing the result to one paying client | Permitted | Permitted |
| Reselling the file itself | Never | Never |
| Customers building their own products from it | One license each, not one in total | One license each, not one in total |
Both tiers cover exactly one end product
This is the fact that reframes the whole decision, and it is published in the plainest possible form. The marketplace’s own side-by-side listing of the two tiers carries a row headed “Number of end products” with the value “1” under each of them.
The terms say the same thing in sentences. Under the Regular License, “You are licensed to use the Item to create one single End Product for yourself or for one client,” described as “a single application.” The Extended License opens with the identical clause. Volume is not what either tier sells.
What counts as an End Product is defined too, and it is not merely “a file you made.” The terms say an End Product is a thing “requiring an application of skill and effort.” For a template it is an adapted implementation of the item rather than the item as supplied, and for anything else “an End Product is a work that incorporates the Item as well as other things.” Dropping an item into an empty page and calling it finished is not the shape the definition has in mind.
The only question that moves you between them
Having established that the tiers are identical on quantity, there is exactly one axis left.
The published summary puts it directly: “If your end product including the item is going to be free to the end user then a Regular License is what you need,” and “An Extended License is required if the end user must pay to use the end product.” The comparison table says it a third time, with “Use in a free end product (more than one end user allowed)” permitted under both, and “Use in an end product that’s sold” permitted only under the Extended tier.
“Free” is a defined term rather than a loose one: “No fee is paid by the end user to access the End Product. The End Product is not sold.”
Two consequences surprise people, and both follow from reading that definition literally:
- A commercial website that earns money from advertising or from selling goods is still free to its visitors, because nobody pays to load the page.
- A free site with one section behind a paywall is not, because some end users are paying for access to part of the end product.
The terms also make room for the freelancer case without an upgrade. “You can create one End Product for a client, and you can transfer that single End Product to your client for any fee,” and “You can make any number of copies of the single End Product, as long as the End Product is distributed for Free.” Charging your client is not the same as charging your client’s visitors.
What a regular license vs extended license comparison leaves out
Almost every regular license vs extended license comparison stops at the free-or-paid test. The clause that actually produces unexpected costs is further down.
Clause 9 of the terms bars using an item inside an application that lets an end user configure a digital or physical product for themselves, and then names the only route that is allowed: you may do it “only if you purchase a separate license for each final product incorporating the Item.”
Read against the one-end-product rule, that is the whole licensing model in two sentences. If your product is a thing you built, you buy one license. If your product is a machine that lets strangers build things, you buy one license per thing they build. A design tool, a print-on-demand storefront, a customizable card shop or a website builder sits in the second category, and the number is not capped.
Where regular license or extended license which is better stops being the question
Framing it as regular license or extended license which is better implies one is an upgrade of the other, and the terms do not support that reading. The Extended tier adds a permission; it does not add capacity, quality or longevity.
The prohibitions are identical across both, and they are the part that catches resellers rather than buyers:
- “You can’t re-distribute the Item as stock, in a tool or template, or with source files.”
- “You can’t re-distribute or make available the Item as-is or with superficial modifications.”
- “you can’t extract and use a single component of an Item on a stand-alone basis.”
- “You must not permit an end user of the End Product to extract the Item and use it” separately from it.
- “You can’t use an Item in a logo, trademark, or service mark.”
That last one is worth a second look if you are buying a graphic. A mark is the one asset a business most wants to own outright, and it is excluded under both tiers rather than unlocked by the more expensive one.
What a regular license vs extended license review cannot settle for you
A regular license vs extended license review can describe the tiers accurately and still leave your own answer open, because the terms turn on facts about your project that only you have.
- Paid access for your end users. That is a separate question from being paid yourself, and it has a separate answer.
- One thing or a factory. Clause 9 depends on this and nothing on the item page asks you.
- Whether your plan changes later. A free product that adds a paid tier next year has moved tiers, and the license did not move with it.
- Whether the asset is headed for a logo, in which case no tier on the page covers it.
What to check before you buy
Four things, and none of them require reading the full terms twice.
- Count your end products. If the answer is more than one, you are buying more than one license whichever tier you pick.
- Ask who pays, and specifically whether anyone pays to get in rather than to buy something once inside.
- Check whether a customer will be configuring anything, because that converts the purchase into a per-item cost.
- Rule out the trademark use before you fall in love with a mark.
Frequently Asked Questions
These are the questions buyers ask after they have read the item page and are hovering over the wrong tier.
My client is paying me. Do I need the Extended tier?
Not on that basis alone. The terms allow transferring a single end product to one client for a fee. What matters is whether the client’s own users then pay to access the result.
My site sells products. Is that an end product that is sold?
The published guidance treats a storefront as free to its end users, because visitors can reach the site without paying. The paid-access test is about entry to the end product itself.
Can one license cover a theme I use on five sites?
No. Both tiers cover one end product, so five implementations means five licenses regardless of which tier you choose.
Does the Extended tier let me resell the file?
No, and that restriction is identical under both. Redistributing the item as stock, as a template, or with source files is prohibited either way.
You can see Envato Market’s current terms on its official site:
Bottom line
The two tiers are the same license in every respect but one, and the question is whether your end users reach into their pockets to get at what you built. Count your end products first, answer the paid-access question second, and check clause 9 before you build anything that lets customers make their own.
