Good day everyone! Hope you all are doing great. I have a dumb question regarding the 5% fee Zazzle may charge upon making a sale. Would anyone be so kind to explain this reason on why Zazzle is charging this 5% fee?
Thank you.
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That 5% fee shows up, it seems, whenever a customer chooses a different form of the product from the one you’ve featured. It can be the most minute switch such as rounded corners where we featured straight corners. Why Zazzle is charging us for this is beyond my ken. I hope someone will come along here who understands the logic of it.
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It could also be your royalty rate. If your royalty rate is 15% or greater, a transaction fee of 5% is applied to your earnings. There’s a key to all the symbols explaining this at the bottom of your ‘Royalty History’ page.
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Thank you Barbara so much for simplifying this. I understand now. I appreciate this
Thank you Shea for replying but I understand now. Much appreciate it 
No, it’s not the percentage removed for having a royalty 15% or above, which I happen to have. That fee isn’t actually shown anywhere. I get those 5% reductions scattered here and there, and it’s always when a customer has fiddled with shapes or papers. How that adds to Zazzle’s work and thus costs us is anybody’s guess.
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I always thought that the 5% for customer changes (user options), was additional earnings for the creator. I think it’s if a customer uses a different option and the price of the item increases, the creator gets 5% x that extra amount. There’s a really good explanation here:
https://community.zazzle.com/t5/ask-a-question/confused-about-royalty-rates-with-user-options/m-p/13292
Hope that’s right!
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It’s always been subtracted from my earnings, and this is often on postcards. What the devil could a customer up- or downgrade from? Shiny vs. non-shiny? Sigh.
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That’s not good if it’s being subtracted. Does the ‘5%’ appear under your royalty rate? I’ve attached a screenshot of a sale with a ‘user option’ :
$16.79 price of ‘Matte Wrapping Paper’, so 10% royalty x $16.79 = $1.68
$9.20 is the extra cost of changing it to gloss paper, so 5% x $9.20 = $0.46
$1.68 + $0.46 = $2.14
This example doesn’t have a 20% carve out for a ‘3rd party referred’, which would have reduced it.
If the 5% fee applies (for royalty 15% or above), a little + sign appears after your royalty rate and that will have reduced it.
I see there in history in a small type under says “transferred to …” a different product
@SheaPrints , yes, that’s exactly as it appears. Way back, I thought I was earning an additional 5%, but I’ve since discovered I was wrong.
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A transfer is when a customer transfers your design to a different product. In the case of that annoying little 5%, the customer has altered the product you’re selling by choosing one of the included options. I get it constantly on postcards, and if I could figure out what option their choosing, I’d choose it myself when publishing the card.
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Perhaps Zazzle’s new motto should be ‘Zazzle; there’s a fee for that’.
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I wish my browser’s spell checker knew the difference between “they’re” and “their.”
In this case the customer got 25% off their order and the upgrade to glossy paper earned you an additional $0.23 compared to if they had just bought matte ($2.14 vs $1.91).
There are times when a pricey upgrade combined with a deep discount can result in you making less than if they hadn’t selected the upgraded option, or even getting no royalty at all. You can read these two threads for a more in-depth look at how the calculations work in these scenarios.
Another weird math problem for royalty received
Zero royalty earned
@Barbara Postcards have a user-option to select an envelope (+$0.17) and the option to remove the “Independent Creator Credit” (+$0.06). Last I could confirm, any option on a product page that has a +$x.xx amount, including these two trivial things, is subject to this 5% calculation method.
The 5% figure related to user-options isn’t a “fee”, but it isn’t exactly the bonus earnings it appears to be on the earnings report, either. It’s just a number that skews the calculations which might result in earning a little more … or a lot less .. depending on the variables involved.
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Wow, it’s a whole lot more complicated than I thought! Thanks for explaining that. I also used your excellent ‘earnings calculator’ yesterday to try and work it out! https://community.zazzle.com/t5/tools/earnings-calculator-no-math-required/m-p/8721
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I stopped trying to figure out my cut… math is too confusing for me
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This isn’t anything new. that 5% fee has been here forever.
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A small service will be held shortly for OP’s joke.
All are welcome to attend.
I’ve made a free spreadsheet calculator for figuring out User Options. Info & download link here:
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