Thanks my friend! And spot-on with your explanations. :thumbsup

A free market makes it simple. If you can't afford something or can't justify the expense, you don't buy it.

I don't buy Kobe beef from the butcher because it's price is insane. I also don't stand in the grocery store bitching publicly that the price of Kobe beef is too high. :winkwink:

I had 3 full time designers on staff before closing my design company in 2008 to focus on Elevated X. Could I do what you propose? Absolutely. But I won't because while I am well aware of the fact that people want to pay nothing or next to nothing for software and design services, I'm committed to a business model that works for us and I have other plans for my company.

Offerings like what Zuzana is doing here are fantastic. An introductory price of $499...which will decrease as she sees sales volume...

In a year's time when Zuzana sells 5, 10, or 20+ different designs for a couple hundred bucks and anyone can pay a small amount to have them customized rather than starting from scratch I doubt anyone will be complaining.

This will be far cheaper than custom designs or any design services Elevated X could offer even if I staffed cheap 3rd world designers.

The potential here is far greater than anything I could do in house at Zuzana's level of quality and her level of design related customer service. :thumbsup

AJ

So.. You're saying that I can make half-assed templates and sell them for $79 and get away with it? :upsidedow

Edit: nvm, you meant cheap mainstream sites.. But still, what if I did that and it was missing things like responsiveness, good SEO, little errors, etc. Would that be up to me to fix?
(Not that it would be a problem or that I'm actually going to make an EX theme, just curious)

Please link me where Zuzana made that statement.

Sure. Look at a big template site like templatemonster.com

Good luck emailing them or the designer and having them fix whatever you don't like. Of course some might fix things, but it's a far cry from what Zuzana is offering with there being a person and a company standing behind what's being sold.

Anyone can sell whatever they want, doesn't mean anyone will buy it LOL. I sure as hell will not refer Elevated X users to buy something unless I know someone trusted and reliable is standing behind what they're selling. :)

AJ

Maybe because of supply and demand? If there is no equally good cheaper templates out there.

What a great offer from Elevated X and we?re happy it?s already being taken advantage of. In regards to pricing, it all depends what you are comparing it to. As AJ mentioned, there are several big template stores online that sell full site templates for a very small price. They do, however, have a much larger viewing base and application than a template like this which means they?ll make much more in the long run and that offsets their lower price. Customer service can be unreliable as well.

If you?re someone who?s already been looking at a custom EX template or already received quotes on a custom design then you know it doesn?t come with a small price tag because of the amount of work involved. This template, especially priced at $499, is a great alternative with a much smaller expense. Plus, you can have your site up in a matter of days. You won?t have to go through design revisions, coding, hoping whoever you hired can actually integrate into Elevated X as promised or even possibly losing your whole investment if they disappear on you. If you are already a client of Zuzana Designs, then you know our service doesn?t just stop with a sale. We pride ourselves in our customer service and are always available to answer questions and help as much as we can.

This particular template may not be to your preference. We specifically did this template first because this clean style is actually our most requested type of site design. We are coming out with a wide variety of templates in different styles at different price points. For example, our next template will be this design with infinite scrolling with everything on the home page going to the join.

http://www.zuzanadesigns.com/gfy/elevatedx/home.jpg


http://www.zuzanadesigns.com/gfy/elevatedx/join.jpg

This is a more aggressive style and a preferred second tour style many site users are already using. It's not available yet but shows the different options we'll be giving on templates

This is just the start of many templates to come. Over time, I?m sure we?ll run specials and things of that nature that could save you a % on price. We may even adjust pricing depending on the market and volume of sales. We?re not forcing anyone to buy anything so if the price doesn?t make sense to you, then it?s just not a good fit right now and maybe you?ll like the design and pricing of a future template. This thread is just to let you know this great new option for an Elevated X design is available if you?re interested.

Nice work!

Very nice indeed. :thumbsup

Really Good Design :thumbsup

looks good!

Great design but a bit pricey.

Thanks Matt :) Still hope you come in last in FF though ;)

Thanks :thumbsup

Thanks for the kind words.

Thanks Brian :thumbsup :thumbsup

We are going to launch new templates very soon... So, Stay tuned! :)

five hunnut dollaz? good lawd dats alot of munnay!


lemme get a <div> and a couple lines of css for 76 cents.

http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/10/a8...3E_8690967.jpg

Good luck Zuzana!

Honestly, I thought $999 was a good price.

Working on a couple new templates now :)

:thumbsup

Thanks romeo :)

Thanks for the kind words :thumbsup

I like the second template you posted with the dark color scheme. When will this be ready and will it be $499?

As a smaller operator I'd say $499 is the max I would pay for a template, but something around $299 would be even better.

http://www.zuzanadesigns.com/gfy/elevatedx/home.jpg

http://www.zuzanadesigns.com/gfy/elevatedx/join.jpg


We're hoping to have it all ready next month and the price for that template will be $199.00

then you can buy two now!

that's fuking slick Z :thumbsup:thumbsup

And it's already in the testing phase of the project.
We'll release it very soon :)

Stay tuned! :thumbsup:thumbsup

To everyone bitching about the price, if you can't afford a grand for a pay site, you shouldn't have a pay site at all

Just sent you an email about the templates.. thanks

To all the buyers, you should have received an email from me earlier with a bug fix :)

You're awesome :thumbsup

I've been a designer for nearly 20 years now and had my own template site back in the day for vbulletin and phpBB.

...and holy shiat! $499/$999 for a reusable template? Girl, if you're actually selling that, good for you.

This seems to be indicative of 2 possible scenarios though:

1. There's a gold mine for potential designers to jump on the bandwagon and make templates
2. It's such a complex system, that skinning it is a nightmare..

I remember when skinning vbulletin templates and what a nightmare it was to have to deal with a thousand different locations when making a single skin..

If this system is anything like that, I can understand the price point. But take a look at WordPress; it's generally a sinch to skin, and therefore has what's likely the world's largest template base over any other CMS.

I may just have to look into making my own skin assuming it's not too much of a pita.

We have sold a few.. There is no money in template design though so you should probably not create any ;)

Back to the top for a great deal ;)

Great response so far on this template. Thanks to those who purchased it and we're working on more :)

Lots of satisfied customers with this template. Get a new design for a fraction of the cost of a custom build adult paysite. Send me a message if you want to talk about what we can do to give your sites a fresh look.