Minimum Extension Price in the Marketplace is Now $29.99

I noticed a change in the marketplace yesterday when updating an extension, where the minimum price required is now $29.99. I asked the OpenCart team and here is the official response:

We are writing to inform you of an important update regarding the pricing policy for extensions listed on the OpenCart platform. Due to the increased charges imposed by banks and payment gateways, we must adjust our pricing strategy to ensure sustainability for all parties involved.

Effective immediately, the minimum price for any extension listed on the OpenCart marketplace must be no less than $29.99.

This change is necessary to cover the rising transaction and operational costs and to maintain a fair marketplace for developers. We ask that you update the pricing of your extensions accordingly.

We appreciate your understanding and cooperation in helping us continue to provide a robust and reliable platform for OpenCart users worldwide.
If you have any questions or need assistance updating your listings, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our support team.

Thank you for your continued contributions to the OpenCart community.

I pointed out to them that if developers aren't forced to update prices then it will result in a situation where older, non-updated extensions will be cheaper than newer ones, which incentivizes people to purchase extensions that are more likely to have problems. I suggested auto-updating all (non-free) extension prices that are less than $29.99 to that price point so this situation doesn't happen. I'm not sure if they'll do that, but if you see the prices on your extensions increase to $29.99, this is the reason.

Thanks for letting us know.

Though I can think of other reasons for the change, that being that it seems to be completely dead around here and it is clear that sales have decreased for sellers.
Right now, there are 8 registered users online: 5 bots, me, paul and 1 other and the number of posts is a tiny fraction of what it used to be.

Where has everyone gone?

grgr wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 27, 2025 7:04 am

Thanks for letting us know.

Though I can think of other reasons for the change, that being that it seems to be completely dead around here and it is clear that sales have decreased for sellers.
Right now, there are 8 registered users online: 5 bots, me, paul and 1 other and the number of posts is a tiny fraction of what it used to be.

Where has everyone gone?

Good question but IF I was to guess I'd say it is because of the confusion and non-support. Yes we have a LOT of people who are willing to jump in and help but the community doesn't have a single notice on the download page about version 4.x.x.x not being ready for production.
ALSO too many of us, and I include myself in this, have been a little course towards some people. I will still ask for people to clarify but I will try to be nicer, then I might not have been as nice as I could in the past. I haven't knowingly been mean, but I do know in written word intent might not come across as nice as intended.

Where do you think people have gone?

I personally think the 29.99 minimum is silly. If someone makes a fix or update and they think it is worth $8 then they should be able to put it out for $8. Come things deserve to have a place to be sold that do not rise up to the value of $29.99 but are still very useful.
Mike

As long as there is no stable release of the 4.1. branch, people will not buy anything from the marketplace.
The more also developers don't update and create new extensions because of that !

And we here in this forum (the most active users) are still recommending the 3.0.4.0 release.

The argument that the costs getting higher is nonsens - it's more because Daniels benefit is getting smaller because if the decreasing sales ..

So, instead of publishing a full working and 99% bugfree 4.1 version, Daniel is adding again new features.
And now he is wondering why the sale is going down .. ?

Setting a minimum limit of $ 29.99 is a very bad idea, because not every extension is that amount worth!
And it must be finally the developers decision if he sell his extension for $ 10,- (or any amount under 29.99).

On the other side, if Daniel (and the team behind) could guarantee that extensions are proper coded, not obfuscated, not calling home, and so on - I could understand that high minimum price.

And as final point, the marketplace should be reworked!
Search is not really working, no "suggested" extensions, no custom (personal) "best list", no recommenadation list, some extension has a "wild" description (some has none").
It makes currently no fun to visit the marketplace.