I just got a digital download sale for one of product with self referal. My referal comission is ZERO for this product.
Was it a poster download? This happens occasionally. There is a max % that you can receive on the downloads, and sometimes the royalty maxes it out. I’ve only experienced it on the posters. Here is the feed from when it happened to me a while back:
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This should never happen. In this case, Zazzle is essentially using your artwork without paying you. There is no instance, and no breakdown of Zazzle fees, that should allow this to happen.
Zazzle moderators: please explain this and begin work to resolve this issue, and pay this designer for the use of her artwork.
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Yup, its a poster
It’s because for Self-Promo sales, there is no set number or percent for the Referral part of the commission.
Instead, there is an “Earnings Goal” (EG) of 35, 40, 45, or 50% of total customer paid.
The “formula” is really just a basic [A + B + C = EG] where A (net royalty), B (excess fee), and EG are all known values, leaving C (the referral amount) as the wildcard which will be whatever number is necessary to correctly complete the equation.
It’s easier to think of the “Earnings Goal” (Zazzle’s terminology) as an Earnings Cap, because that’s what it is.
In this case, A (your net royalty of $2.47) is by itself already more than the 40% cap of $2.14, hence $0 for the referral part. The good news is they didn’t actually decrease your net royalty earned to keep you at cap, so you actually earned 46.1% here instead of the 40%. 👍
Because Digital Downloads have such an extraordinary high royalty %, one is almost always going to be at, near, or even over the cap with just the net royalty alone, meaning a very small or even 0 amount for the referral part.
The thing is, the cap only applies to Self-Promo referrals so if you’re promoting a Digital Download, it is more profitable to promote them with your RF# as a Cross-Promo.
I don’t do Digital Downloads but I did activate one when they came out just to see how it all works. It’s a card which is in the 50% bracket:
See how I would earn more in total as an RF# Cross-over than as a Self-promo? Because there’s no cap on that type sale I’d earn the net royalty ($4.11) + 15% ($1.50) instead of ($4.11) + just the ($0.43) required to match the EG of 50%./$5.
People have been asking for an exception to be made to the formula for Digital Downloads ever since the Ambassador program started. One of the changes with the Ambassador Program was decreasing the max royalty we can set on physical goods from 99% to 50%. I believe that’s not because they wanted to keep prices low in the marketplace but because they knew how high royalties would complicate the new Earnings Goal system for Self-Promo sales. Digital Downloads are unique in that they did make an exception in allowing the high royalty %'s to stand but while also applying the same EG/cap formula to them.
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Ok, then Cols, what percent should I put on my poster download royalties? I was hoping to earn $5.00 per download. That meant that I had to set my percentage to 85%. Do I need to reduce that number? When I reduced it to 50%, then I only earn about .80 per download, making it seem not worth my time or effort to offer instant downloads on my posters.
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Oh, challenge accepted 😁!
Provide a link to one of your DD posters and I’ll see if I can figure out how/if you could net $5 as total earnings.
(Posters are complicated with different sizes, and paper types that may count as a User Option, + frame options, but link me to something at a standard size and paper type and I’ll give it a go …)
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Thank you, Cols. Here’s a link to one of my posters:
https://www.zazzle.com/how_to_make_a_wow_picture_anchor_chart_for_kids-256177640706759342
This was less complicated than I thought it would be as I’d forgotten that DD royalties are independent of the physical product it’s attached to. I don’t do digital downloads so I was surprised to find that the pricing is the same across the board, whether a 5x7 card or a 40x60 poster print. So the only difference in calculations is whether the physical product is in the 40% bracket (posters & prints) or the 50% bracket (invitations & stationery).
I’ll make a separate detailed post later, but for right now, to answer your question -
To make total combined earnings of $5.00 on a DD sale attached to your poster (40% bracket) you’d need these royalties:
None sale -> 86.1% royalty = $6.15 list price = $5.03 total earnings
Cross-Promo sale –> 89.2% royalty = $7.90 list price = $5.07 total earnings
Self-Promo sale –> 91.5% royalty = $10.00 list price = $5.03 total earnings
3rd Party sale –> 91.5% royalty = $10.00 list price = $5.03 total earnings
** The total earning for Self-Promo sale is based on Sanainvi’s reports that show that even if the “formula” results in a negative number for the referral amount, that amount is not being deducted from your royalty even though it leaves your total earnings over the EG cap.
** Self-Promo & 3rd Party work out to be the same here because in both cases you’re getting your
[gross royalty - referral carve-out/MRF fee] + $0 referral commission.
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Hey @sanainvi ,
I am checking in with the team on this. I’ll update you as soon as I can.
I appreciate your patience.
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Thanks so much, Cols. So, since most Zazzle sales are registering as third-party sales, does it make sense for me to use the third-party royalty percentage. It would be nice if I could set royalty rates for a variety of sales situations. But I guess that would be a pipe dream.
I would. $10 is a steal for the unlimited potential one gets when buying your art as an instant download.
You’d make your $5 on the common 3rdP sale, $6.53 if successful in getting cross-promo credit, and $8.69 on a rare None sale.
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Thanks, Cols. I wish I had your math skills and analytical mind. I so appreciate all the ways you help me and other designers on this forum. I will revise my download royalty rate per your suggestion. Right now, I’ll only have to revise my rate on 24 downloadable products. It would be nice if we could set separate site-wide royalty rates for physical products and electronic products.
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You can change all digital items in your shop. Under ‘default royalty’ you can change only the digital and apply it to all current items.
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any update?
Hey @sanainvi ,
I’m sorry for the delay here. I followed up with the team. I’ll update you as soon as possible.
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My advice to everyone is do not enable digital downloads, you don’t know who is downloading it and that person can use it as they like, so your perfect image could be placed on a website used for marketing or even sent to a printer where they print if 500 postcards and sell them at a market, if someone wants to use one of your images they can contact you and you can arrange a licence fee, depending on use that would be 50–600 dollars, offering downloads for peanuts is just asking for your work to be used and abused
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Remove digital downloads why hand out artists work for peanuts which can then be used and abused copied and sold on