FAQ

General

Yes, with a few major differences than other WordPress marketplaces like Mojo or ThemeForest.
On our platform you can sell Ready-Made WordPress sites as a subscription service model and get recurring revenue. The services include Managed WordPress Hosting on AWS.

What is Ready-Made WordpPress site?

Ready-Made WordPress site is not some special thing, but just a regular WordPress site which includes installed theme, plugins and content. And on our platform, you can sell a whole WordPress site as a service.
The buyers (your customers) will get a clone of your WordPress site which is fully designed/developed by you.
The cloned site is completely separated (independent) from the original one. So they can manage it on their own according to their needs.

What are the differences between Ready-Made WordPress site and common WordPress theme?

Even if people get/buy a beautiful WordPress theme, they will still have to manage a lot of things on their own. In other words, they will have to take care of choosing hosting vendor, purchase a domain & SSL, struggle with WordPress installation and so on.
If the customer doesn’t have enough technical knowledge, he may face some problems and he may try to find another theme, ask a professional developer or even quit building his own website with WordPress.
With ReadyShip, they will get fully functional Ready-Made WordPress site with managed WordPress hosting in minutes! And all they will need to do is just change the demo content according to their needs.

Will I be able to make more profit than before? (Compared to other marketplaces)

Yes. With ReadyShip you can make bigger and more stable profit than other WordPress theme/plugin marketplaces.
Here is a simple example. On other marketplaces the average price of themes is around $50, which is only one-time payment per customer.
The minimum selling price on ReadyShip is $59/month of which $24 are the seller’s profit ($35 goes for hosting). That means $288/year per customer. So the profit per customer will be 5 – 10 times bigger than other marketplaces.

How much does your service cost?

Nothing! Selling on ReadyShip is completely free. You will never be asked to pay anything. Cool, Right? 🙂

How to start selling

What do I need to do to start selling?

Overall, it’s quite easy for you.

Register on our platform: https//factory.readyship.co/
Sign in & create your first product(a WordPress site).
Build the WordPress site as you usually do.
Put some description and set pricing plan on the product
Publish it for sale on the platform. https://readyship.co/products

How’s the selling process done?

The process is very simple. The customers will go to the checkout page of your product and then click Launch Website. Then they will choose payment plan, set domain and start building a clone of your product. And in just a few minutes the buyers will get their own website.

How is the product review process done?

We will check your site to make sure there are no problems.

License checks: Check if your WordPress site contains any split licensed plugins/themes. About plugins/themes licenses
Source code security check: The code is checked for suspicious code that may have sneaked in. The code is checked by both machines and people.
We will test your site to make sure there will be no problems with cloning your site.

If there are some problems with your product, we will inform you about the reason and further instructions via email.

If I make any changes on my product, will that affect the existing customer’s website?

No. Your changes will not affect your existing customers websites, because they are completely independent from your WordPress. So feel free to add changes anytime.

Can I add changes to my products after publishing them?

Yes.
But after you add changes, please make sure to submit a new release version. This step will apply the changes you made.

How can I integrate ReadyShip with my existing WordPress business?

You can simply advertise your ReadyShip products on your own website so you can lead your customers to the checkout page.

Themes, Plugins and Licenses

Can I use themes/plugins developed by someone else?

Yes. You are allowed to use any existing themes/plugins that are licensed under 100% GPL.
Especially, all the themes/plugins published on WordPress.org are licensed under 100% GPL, so you can use any of them safely.

Will my plugins’ settings and customizations work on the customer’s site?

Yes, all settings will be cloned as well.
Since the database and files under wp-content directory of the WordPress site will be cloned entirely, all your settings/customizations will be applied to the customer’s new WordPress.

Can I use split licensed plugins/themes like the ones sold on ThemeForest or other marketplaces?

We strongly recommend using only 100% GPL plugins/themes. In most cases, a split license prohibits the plugin/theme to be used for reselling.
Please check the terms of the plugins/themes if they are 100% licesed under GPL.

Are there any special requirements or limiations?

There aren’t any special requirements or limiations except that the products must not contain any license issues with themes, plugins, images or demo content.

Hosting & Domains

What are the specs of your hosting servers?

To maximize the performance speed, we provide AWS Fullstack Architecture which includes CloudFront CDN, SSD, S3, EC2/ECS(Docker), RDS, Load Balancer, Lambda functions (for monitoring website’s health) and so on.

All websites instances have the following specs:

OS: Amazon Linux 2
CPU: 8 x 3.1 GHz Intel Xeon Scalable (Skylake)
Networking Bandwidth: Up to 25Gbps
Memory: up to 64 GB dynamically
Web Server: Openlitespeed 1.6.5 or later
PHP Version: 7.2.2 or later
Maximum Upload Size: 256 MB
Database (RDS): AWS RDS, Aurora MySQL 5.6.x
Storage: NVMe SSD Instance Storage

This information is current as of July 2020. We will keep improving our hosting services so upgrades will be applied as needed.

Can customers use their own domain? How do you handle domains?

Yes. The customers can use ReadyShip’s subdomain or their own domain. After they launch a website, they can set their own domain name using our domain changing feature.

Can the customer use FTP?

Yes. We will create FTP accounts for each website and we will send the login info to the customer via email.

What about updates? Are WordPress core and themes/plugins going to be updated automatically?

About WordPress core updates:
– Minor updates will be done automatically to ensure security.
– Major updates have to be done manually by the customer.
– We will forcefully update the core version if the website’s WordPress current version is no longer supported.

Plugins and themes updates:
– We will not update them automatically. The customer is completely responsible to update them manually.

Can the customer use SSH or change server configurations?

Currently we’re not providing SSH access to the customers for security reasons. If they want to change their server configurations they can do it through our support.

Our hosting service is managed and already configured for WordPress, so basically they don’t need to touch the server configurations.

Plans & Pricing

How is the selling price defined?

The selling price is defined as follows. You just put your price on top of our server cost ($35/month) and you get the selling price. For example if you put 40$, the selling price will be 75$/month.

What’s the minimum selling price?

The minimum selling price is $59 per month.

If the minimum selling price is $59/month, how much will I get?

Your Profit = Selling Price – Transaction Fee (Stripe Fee 3.6%) – Server Cost – PayPal Fee (4.4%)

In this case you will get around $21.87 on your PayPal account.

Can I change the selling price after I publish my products?

Yes. However the changed price will not affect the existing customers.

What are the differences between the three plans?

	Personal	Business	Enterprise
Monthly Unique Visits	100,000	Unlimited	Unlimited
Monthly Data Transfer Limit	50GB	200GB	1,000GB
Storage Capacity	50GB	200GB	600GB
Daily Backups	1	2	24
Trial Period (Days)	30	30	30

What kind of payment methods can the customer use?

We use Stripe as payment processor and we accept VISA, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, JCB and Diners Club.

Are there any additional paid options of the hosting service?

No. Our hosting service includes server instance, CDN, SSL, FTP, support and 24/7 monitoring. So there aren’t any additional premium options like other hosting companies do.

Billing & Payouts

How will i get my payouts?

You will get your payouts on your PayPal account automatically through our Automatic Billing System.

How are the billings scheduled?

If the customer chose to pay monthly, the first billing will occur right after the trial period ends. After that the customer will be charged every month. For example if the first billing occurred on 8th of January, the customer will be charged on the 8th day of every month.

What if the billing fails?

If the billing fails we will reattempt to charge the customer for three times.

First attempt (after 7 days)
Second attempt (after 14 days)
Third attempt (after 21 days)
If all the attempts fail, the user’s website instance will be suspended and therefore unavailable. If the customer does not contact us, the website will be deleted after 90 days of suspension.

Is ReadyShip a marketplace? (Like ThemeForest?)

No, ReadyShip is not a marketplace. It is a platform creators can use to develop their own subscription business like Wix or Squarespace. In other words, it is a tool that enables you to sell your websites as a subscription.

A typical marketplace sells WordPress themes and other digital assets under that marketplace brand. Our platform is not like that.

We consider the following to be very important:

The centerpiece is always the creator (you).
You should be able to maximize your creativity and uniqueness as much as possible.
The Focus is on strengthening your brand. (which is not limited by the ReadyShip brand)

ReadyShip’s service is the first of its kind.
Therefore, we want to collaborate with creators like you and listen to your feedback! This will help us to expand and improve our features. (We are also web creators!) We encourage you to join us in the discussion so we can make improvements together.

What is your development roadmap?

ReadyShip’s top priority is to make it easy for creators to develop their business, so we plan to constantly evolve and add more features.

Major features to be added:

API for a complete white label: A new feature, which will be able to work with an API will be implemented. Your customers will then see your brand, instead of ReadyShip’s. However, you will not be able to contact customers through ReadyShip. Therefore, all customer support must be provided by the creator. The ReadyShip support team will be available to answer any questions from the creator. We plan to make the cost of infrastructure lower for creators using the API, compared to normal use without the API.
Domain purchasing: ReadyShip will be able to handle domain purchasing. Additionally, we will provide a DNS record-editing function for the purchased domain. This will enable your customers to setup a new website flawlessly.
Development of a marketplace: The creator’s products (websites) will be on a list where people can search, preview, and make a purchase. This will be similar to a marketplace. However, this will be an opt-in feature only for creators who wish to have it. In addition, you have an option to set your product to be listed on the marketplace or not. Ultimately, you, the creator, are the centerpiece. ReadyShip does not want to hinder the development of your brand. We have not yet set a date for this marketplace. (Please join our forum and tell us what you think!)

Can I only sell themes that I developed myself?

No. Even if you did not develop the theme, you can still use it as part of your creative work. A theme is just one of the parts of your creative work. However, if you use someone else’s part, make sure there will be no problems with split licensing or image (or other digital asset) copyright infringement. As with plugins, you can use whatever you please. Nevertheless, the creator will be held accountable for their selections. All the themes in the official WordPress.org theme directory are provided under 100% GPL. Since they are safe to use, we recommend using them.

Can I use any plugins?

Yes, generally there are no restrictions. However, connecting to CDN and external services like Akismet might not be suitable due to license keys. Also, plugins under a split license can be subject to litigation. It’s best to not use such plugins.

Will my plugin settings and customized settings work?

Yes, all settings will be cloned as well. Since your entire database will be cloned, all your product settings will be copied over.
The tables and records created by the plugin will also be cloned. For details, please see “Providing Your Website to the Customers.”

How is WordPress updated?

Updating the WordPress core:
- Minor updates will be done automatically to ensure security.
- Major updates have to be done manually by the customer. However, if the version of the current installation of WordPress is no longer supported, the major update will be done by ReadyShip.
- This update function is similar to the WordPress core’s Automatic Background Updates.
Updating plugins and themes: The customer is responsible to update them manually using the standard WordPress system. ReadyShip will not update them automatically.

Can customers use their own domain names? How do you handle domain names?

The customer can use ReadyShip’s subdomain. After setting up a website, the customer can set his or her own domain name. In this case, the customers must edit the DNS information by themselves.
Specifically, the following two steps are required:

First set the IP address as specified by the DNS A Record.
On the Dashboard, change the website’s domain name.

Can the seller provide his or her own support and services?

Yes, the seller can provide his or her own support! On the creator’s Dashboard, you can see the purchaser’s email address on the customer list. Therefore, you can contact the customer directly and provide support and services.
In such cases, you can include the cost of support and services when you set the pricing.

I do not want to provide support if the customer changes the theme. How do I handle this?

You do not need to provide support if the customer changes the theme. Support can be provided through your email address or the support forum.
When the customer asks for support or has an inquiry, he will first select the support category. If the customer selects “About default theme/plugins usage or customization” the customer will see your email address or the support forum URL.
You can set these settings for each product.

If there is a certified supporter program (customization services after the purchase), I want to join. Is there one?

We currently do not have such a program, but we are thinking about it. If you have any suggestions, let us know on the forum.

What about GPL?

When you provide a customer with a website, you will be providing “Software as a Service” for the user rights instead of “Distribution” as defined by GPL.
This is the same as Automattic, Inc. offering WordPress.com. Therefore, GPL does not apply to the websites you provide to customers. If you want to give the source code for a theme or plugin to customers, there would be no problem with telling customers how to download the source code. You will be free to provide services to your customers at your own discretion.

Can I sell plugins and themes that are under a split license?

We strongly recommend using plugins and themes that are 100% under GPL. In most cases, a split license is used to prohibit the plugin or theme from being provided to multiple websites or via SaaS.
Although we do not prohibit using a split license, you must carefully check the Terms of Use set by the distributor. If you have a split-license item in a product used in multiple websites, you can be sued and be held liable for damages in accordance with the distributor’s Terms of Use.
Make sure that the themes, plugins, and other software you want to use are not under a split license. If it is under a split license, make sure that it can be used in multiple websites or that it can be used in an SaaS product. Read the distributor’s Terms of Use carefully.
Note that ReadyShip will not get involved in any licensing problems. The creator shall be totally responsible to resolve such problems.

← 9. Providing Your Website to the Customer

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