Hello!
Probably silly question. How does Zazzle calculate royalties for a certain calendar year for 1099 form purposes?
just out of curiosity I added all my royalties from 2023 and they don’t match the amount on 1099 that Zazzle sent me in January 1024 for tax filing purposes. Not even off by a few dollars, but off by almost a hundred dollars.
So I wanted to know how do they calculate royalties that are reported on 1099?
Thank you for any information.
Though I’m certainly not an authority on this, it’s my understanding that the 1099 is based on the payments received in the year, not the money earned during that year. So, when you add up all of the payments you received from January - December 2024 it should be the same amount as the 1099 you receive for 2024.
@womaninlove1980 I’m no authority either but I believe @DesertSky is correct.
What if no payments were received since I have always used earnings for personal purchases? Any insights on how that would ? Please advise. Appreciate any help.
Joan’s Heart Studio
@JoansHeart I’m sure a moderator will eventually chime in here but I believe it doesn’t matter on what you spend your earnings, be it now Zazzle or food or rent - income is income in regard of the 1099 form.
Hi, I have the same question. I just received the tax form in the mail and the total amount differs than the total royalty payout made by Zazzle in 2024. Someone please help explain. thank you
The amount I received as a payout in 2024 does not match the total royalties mentioned in the tax form unfortunately.
I haven’t received anything in the mail 
Huh? I didn’t think to check the amount on my 1099 until just now, and was surprised to find that it’s wrong. I carefully added up all the payments I received in 2024, and Zazzle’s amount is nearly $100 less than it should be.
Now what? Do I faithfully report my real income or the one stated on the 1099?
I contacted customer support for clarification on the difference. i’ll share what they say as soon as they respond back to my questions. My assumption is that they calculated the total royalties cleared for the year not technically when they executed a payout to your account, which is only done until you reach a certain threshold. i’ll keep everyone on the road posted as soon as I have answers.
I’ve checked in former years, and the 1099’s have always been correct to the penny. I can’t imagine they’d add up anything before it’s paid out, given that the payout is the only thing that matters.
I wonder if this is going to be like the year when they had to send out corrected forms.
The amount they showed on my 1099 is off by thousands not hundreds. I am going to contact them by email. I will let you know.
I highly recommend opening a case with the support team. They are still investigating mine. No answer yet.
@FlyGirl How did you open a case? Can I write to support@zazzle.com? The discrepancy on my 1099 is a difference of $5610.59. 
Oh my gosh! Girl time to contact them. I went to https://www.zazzle.com/about/ask and filled out the contact form on their website with the details.You will get a response from support@zazzle by email, then you can exchange feedback back and forth that way going forward. For them to be taking a while that means there might have been a possible problem. I will post something as soon as I hear anything.
Thanks for the quick response! I wrote them at the support email, but I will definitely contact them through the website too. Thanks!
I suspect there are a lot of designers with problematic 1099’s who haven’t thought to check the accuracy. I believe it’s a much larger problem, given that it’s being talked about here in this thread. If only we could change the initial title to something like: “Check your 1099. It could be incorrect!”
@Barbara I think you may be right unfortunately. I wish someone from Zazzle would comment on this thread so we know what is going on.
I would not blindly email our support team. Your email will end up in a very general email inbox that will need to be sorted and sent to the appropriate team. Instead, you should use the ask-a-question (AAQ) page we have here: https://www.zazzle.com/about/ask
Going through this menu system will categorize the email so that the appropriate team can get to work right away. This is the most efficient way to get your email in front of the right person.
And, finally, I must mention that emailing us and using the AAQ page will not magically grant your inquiry any sort of magical powers. Duplicate inquiries actually slow us down. In the future I’d stick with the AAQ page I linked to above.
@Scott thank you for your response. I still had the email in my drafts, so I did not actually send it but used the ask-a-question form. I wasn’t trying to be rude or pushy. Sorry if it seemed that way. I was confused as to the best way to reach out to your team.