Item support policy

Support is a commitment by the seller to answer questions and fix faults in the item they published, for a set period after you buy it. It is part of what you pay for on a paid item.

It is provided by the seller, not by us. Sellers here are individuals and small studios, not a staffed helpdesk, and the policy is written on that basis.

Your support status for each item is shown in My licences, together with the date it ends.

• Bugs in the item. Something in the code does not work as described, and the seller fixes it
• Installation and first setup on an environment the item page says it supports
• Questions about shipped functionality, meaning the features the item actually came with
• Problems introduced by an update the seller published, where something that worked has stopped working
• Clarifying the documentation where it is thin or unclear about what the item does

A fault that means the item never worked as described may also be grounds for a refund. See the refund policy.

• Custom development. New features, design changes, or anything built to your specification rather than shipped with the item
• Installing the item for you. Sellers help you install it; they are not obliged to do it themselves
• Your own code, or code written by another developer on top of the item, including changes to the item's own files
• Third party components, plugins, themes, APIs or services the item page never claimed to work with
• Hosting and server problems, including your PHP version, database, email delivery or certificates
• General teaching of the language or framework the item is written in
• Requests made after the window has ended

Many sellers will do that work as a separate paid job. Ask them, since you are dealing with the person who wrote the code.

The seller sets the length on each item. It is not a single period across the marketplace, and it may be none at all.

• Before buying, the window is on the item page next to the price
• After buying, the exact end date is in My licences
• The clock starts on purchase, not on installation or first use

The window is recorded on your licence when you buy. A seller shortening the support period on an item later does not shorten yours. What you bought is what you keep.

Support running out costs you the seller's time and nothing else. You keep:

• The licence and your right to use the item, permanently
• Downloads, with no expiry and no limit
• Every future version the seller publishes, at no cost

The item does not stop working and is not restricted in any way. See the licence terms and the download policy.

Where a seller offers renewal on an item, the option appears on the item page and next to the item in My licences once your window has run out, at a price the seller sets.

Renewal extends from where your last window ended, not from the day you pay. If support lapsed in March and you renew in June for six months, you are covered to the following September. You never pay twice for the same stretch of calendar, and there is no advantage to renewing the moment it expires.

You may also renew before the window lapses where a seller offers it, and it stacks onto the end of your current period rather than replacing it.

Not every seller offers renewal. If the option does not appear, that seller has not enabled it on that item, and there is no way to buy it.

Which route you choose changes how quickly you get a useful answer.

Comments, for anything public

Use the comments on the item page for questions other buyers would benefit from reading. Read the existing ones first, because popular items have usually answered your question already. If you own the item, your comment carries a Purchased badge, and the seller's replies are marked Author.

Support requests, for anything private

Open a support request from the item in My licences for anything involving your licence, your account, your purchase code, or details from your server. It reaches the seller with your purchase attached, so they can see what you bought and which tier you hold without asking.

Sellers answer well-described problems first, simply because they can. Include:

• What you expected to happen
• What happened instead
• How to reproduce it
• Your versions, of the item and of the environment
• The exact error text, rather than a description of it
• A screenshot where the problem is visual

A reply within a couple of working days is normal. Sellers are in every timezone. A serious bug should be acknowledged faster than a question about a preference.

Give it a few working days first. If there is still nothing and you are inside your support window, open a ticket with the item name and your order number.

We can see whether the request reached them. Persistent failure to answer buyers inside a window they paid for is a breach of the seller terms, and it is one of the few things that reliably leads to items being unpublished.

Where an item genuinely never worked as described and the seller will not fix it, that becomes a refund question rather than a support one.

Sellers are under no obligation to provide support on a free item, and commonly offer none. The item page states the window before you download.

Take that into account before building something you depend on. Where a seller does offer support on a free item, everything in this policy applies unchanged. See the free items policy.

We do not provide technical support for the contents of an item. We cannot debug your installation, and we are not the authors of the code.

What we do handle is everything platform-side: your account, your licences, downloads that will not start, payments, and sellers who are not meeting their obligations. If you are not sure which it is, ask us and we will route it.

We may update this policy. The date at the top of this page shows when it last changed, and material changes will be announced on the blog. Support windows already recorded on a licence continue on the terms under which they were issued.

For questions about this policy, or to report something that breaches it: