Many of us have noticed how the current 35–50% marketing fee, stacked on top of royalty fee deductions (any royalty over 10%) All of the deductions, makes earnings unpredictable. After all the cuts, creators often end up with only a fraction of the intended royalty. To make up for it, many raise prices yet this can make products look overpriced compared to competitors.
Zazzle’s official documentation says these fees fund marketing across search engines, social media, and partnerships. What I’m not sure about and what I keep wondering is whether they also cover national TV or magazine ads, which are extremely expensive in the U.S. If that’s the case, it feels excessive, especially since those campaigns usually highlight only a few designers or products. Meanwhile, all of us contribute to the same marketing pool, whether we’re featured or not. ( not sure about who pays for national TV and magazine ads)
When you add both deductions (excess royalty and marketing fees) together, the gap between listed royalty and actual payout becomes even harder to manage.
In my opinion , a fairer range of 25–40% for marketing fees would: Bring Zazzle closer to industry norms Make royalties easier to understand Ensure costs are shared more equitably Help keep product prices competitive. (I would rather not pay any fees but somehow, I don’t think that will ever be the case)
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Do you feel current marketing fees reflect the value you personally receive from Zazzle’s advertising?
Would a 25–40% range make royalties clearer and help keep product prices competitive?
Should Zazzle publish a transparent breakdown of how marketing fees are spent so creators know what they’re funding?
I’ve never grasped the concept of ‘excess royalty fee’ although it’s not new - pre April Fool’s Day changes of '24 they hit when royalty exceeded 14.9%.
Before I jump to my thoughts on marketing fees - in my opinion there is a lack of transparency with the 3rd party situation. I understand not telling us that, say, Jane Doe is the 3rd party credited for the sale - but I do have an issue with Zazzle not being straight forward about the sales they are credited with. Not that I get very many sales anymore anyway, but once upon a time I had a lot of “none” referrer sales - but not anymore, haven’t seen one in ages. In fact, since “the changes” I have had ONE self sale and every single other sale I have made have been 3rd party.
Just my opinion but I do feel that the marketing fees are excessive and the different rates depending on the product category make me less likely to create anything in higher product categories. Of course I’d rather not have fees but to me something like 20% would be slightly more palatable.
For comparison: Awhile back RB smacked the crap out of “standard” accounts, taking 50% of earnings. Premium and Pro accounts weren’t affected. HOWEVER, that has changed - premium accounts now have 20% taken. Pro accounts ‘sell for free.’ They have also implemented an excess markup fee - if your markup is over 20% they take 50% of the amount OVER 20%.
Do I think I receive fair value for marketing fees? I have no clue. I can say that once I could go to images in a search engine, type my store name in and turn some of my products up - they aren’t there anymore but to be fair that could be search algorithms. I do know I seem to get a lot less views on my products these days - and my actual views and linkover histories are on two different planets.
I really like the variety of products Z offers but these pay cuts along with the requests we create mockups for our products and jump through other hoops do make me wonder if it’s worth it anymore.
you’ve voiced so many of the same concerns I’ve had. The “excess royalty fee” has always been unclear to me, and the way referrals have shifted feels fishy I’ve never had so many 3rd‑party sales before. I used to see “none” referrer sales regularly, and I even earned bonus monthly before April 1st. Now I only get a few referrals each month, and honestly the Ambassador program feels questionable. The tiered fees by product category are discouraging. A flat 20% would feel more balanced and less like a penalty for choosing certain products. It’s hard to justify investing time when the structure itself seems stacked against us.
That said, the upside for me is the creative process itself. I love making mockups and designing pretty things. Being very visual, I find creating to be a real stress reducer especially since I’m a full‑time caregiver to my husband. Even though I earn about half of what I did last year, which is disheartening, a couple hundred dollars a month still helps supplement my income. I think many of us are in the same boat: questioning whether the effort is worth it, but also finding joy in the act of creating. For me, that joy is what keeps me going, even when the numbers don’t add up the way they used to.
This idea probably won’t be popular, but rather than dealing with this ‘marketing fee’ thing I think I’d rather see all accounts pay $5 a month for using marketplace. If a designer has their store set to private they obviously aren’t being marketed by Z so they would pay nothing, as they do their own marketing. Dormant accounts should be charged as well since their designs do take up server space and could potentially be marketed, or in lieu of that hide products in long dormant accounts. (This could serve to help clean up the marketplace.) Higher volume sellers (not me, sigh) would come out ahead but the bottom line is everyone would know up front what their costs will be. Of course, Z wouldn’t make as much so I can’t see this ever happening.
(Another designer I know personally has or will be deleting their store. They were hit with the $2 per month non-active account fee, which ate their earnings before they were aware of it.)
I was just looking over my last few sales with royalty set at 16.9%. It looks like after fees are taken out I get 9-10%. Four of one particular shirt have sold in total, all within the last 30 days. The last sale, customer bought two - I made $1.88 per shirt…
…funny how that works. I have things listed with another pod - for this same shirt design I get $4 if it isn’t on sale, $2 if it is on sale.
I can’t speak for other designers but with no clarification as to which 3rd party sales are credited to Z, and with all the available methods of cookies, and other trackers etc. coming into play it leaves some designers questioning just how all this is working for (or against) designers. Myself, I don’t understand how or why all the “none” for referrer sales have totally disappeared.
It seems that sales are down everywhere this year but losing 35% - 50% of our royalty plus excess royalty fees make things especially glum. I really do like designing here and appreciate the nice variety of available products to design on but as things stand it’s pretty disheartening. I’m not giving up on Z but I’ve lost a lot of my steam. Come the New Year I hope to clean up and revise my store and see where things go from there.
My understanding of the “excess royalty fee” was to cover credit card fees. The higher the item is priced the higher the credit card fee is to the merchant. So there was no risk to the designer to set a huge price, but a sale would give Zazzle a higher fee without a higher cut.
Thanks for explaining the fees But honestly, I still don’t understand any of this. In my own business, we pay the merchant fees because we’re the actual merchant. Visa/Mastercard are around 3%, Discover closer to 4%, AmEx around 5%, plus the processor’s cut. That’s just part of running the card ourselves. But on Zazzle, creators aren’t the merchant. We’re not running the credit cards, we’re not handling chargebacks, and we’re not processing payments. Yet the “excess royalty fee” ends up shifting those merchant costs onto creators unless we raise our royalties. So even with your explanation, I’m still stuck on the same question: Why are creators covering fees that normally belong to the platform? That’s the part I can’t wrap my head around.
Apparently as long as Zazzle discloses the excess royalty fee, it’s legal in every state. We’re not employees, and we’re not subcontractors doing labor, so we fall under a royalty agreement. That means they can structure the payout however they want as long as it’s written in the terms. But even if it’s legal, it still doesn’t land right. In a normal business setup, the merchant pays the credit‑card fees because they’re the ones running the cards. The designer or supplier never pays those fees. It feels wrong but we all agreed to it on April 1 2025.
Because if a designer sets an item to $10 and Zazzle gets $5, they pay the CC fee on the $10. If another designer sets the same item to $20, Zazzle still gets $5, but pays more for the CC fee. Now imagine a designer sets that same item to $40, Zazzle still gets $5, but pays even more in CC fees.
This fee also started when designers could charge up to 99%. I doubt anyone actually did that, or if they did, I doubt they were able to sell anything at that price. But the potential was there.
okay I understand now, thanks for explaining…now about those marketing fees…can you explain that? What exactly are they…the national fees for TV spots?
I’m not sure if others are seeing the same thing, but no matter what site I go on, I’m being targeted with Zazzle ads. Yes, I know it’s because I visited the Zazzle site. But, for Zazzle to be paying a marketing agency - or in-house - for ads that target Zazzle designers is throwing money away. There should be some way they (whoever is managing the ppc ads etc.) to block designer URLs from seeing the Zazzle ads. Not only is it a waste of marketing dollars that they are passing along the cost to us for, but I am really annoyed seeing the same designs over and over again from the same designers and knowing any sales I made - that they now attribute to 3rd party even when they come directly from my URL - are paying for those designs (not mine) to be promoted.
It sounds like you are talking about static ads, not video ones. Fun fact, those are usually negotiated on a PPC (pay per click) basis. How that works is if nobody clicks then it doesn’t cost them. Its actually not money hemorrhaging like you think and is a cost-effective strategy for a lot of online advertising! Its also usually targeted heavily on interest based so designers will always see them unfortunately, I get them on YT every single day.
I’m talking about static and video ads. No matter what site I’m on, I’m being shown Zazzle ads. I understand the PPC only cost them when people click, but it’s still costing them money to pay a marketer to design, set up the target audiences etc. to get the ads running - only to show them to a large audience of current Zazzle shop owners. Depending on the software, they can drill down on IP addresses, so there is a way to exclude shop owners if they wanted to.
I wish I could have a mod confirm his for me, but with Zazzle being a multimillion dollar company i’m willing to bet they have marketers in house. It would be a silly thing to have a non-affiliated 3rd party make their promotion materials.
I would argue it would cost arguably MORE to drill down and exclude IP’s than it costs to even make the marketing materials. PPC ads are everywhere by everyone, if it wasn’t an effective strategy for the cost nobody including Zazzle would be doing it.
Kind of the same reason why Influencer Marketing is sinking like the titanic. The short of it is Influencers inflate their audiences to get a higher pay rate and when conversions DONT happen (because inflated audience) then the company just burned their money. I see it in the gaming space, beauty, home office, building tool space, pet products.
PPC is not the enemy here, i’m sorry if you don’t like seeing the ads but they DO work. Its cheaper than TV time, Radio ads, even paying for a video ad to play on YT. You could look into changing how websites collect personal data on you when you search and you shouldn’t see nearly as many, if any, Zazzle ads. Or you could do an ad blocker! That would really just **bleep** everything in the bud for you, and you wouldn’t be stuck waiting around for Z to do something.
I don’t know what is going on but I can say that a month after month deduction on royalties means something is going on. You set your royalty percentage to make what you need to make off each creation and you end up making a fraction of that. It is really becoming a problem for me. It’s really sad when you start with 25% and they slam you with 30 and 40% off sales. What was once almost $6 a sale has now dropped to a little less than $2. When you see these problems you have to up your royalty percentage and have to wait til the 20th for it to go into effect, in the meantime you are losing money because of their % off sales and the inability for those royalty rate increases to take effect. I now make a fraction of what I use to, I don’t know if they are trying to get rid of creators or what because that is where this is headed. I wish they would honestly listen to the creators and explain what is going on and address it. I to use to see no referrals on my sales, now they are all third party referrals even though they are self referrals. I personally am about done with Zazzle. It’s not worth the frustration and time it takes to create new content.
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