Marketing Fee Structure Punishes Creators Trying to Stay Afloat

[Jolanda]

I’d like to raise a concern about how Zazzle's 50% marketing fee on gross royalties unfairly penalizes creators who adjust their pricing just to offset increasing platform fees.

Right now, the more you charge for your design (by increasing your royalty), the more Zazzle takes in marketing — even if Zazzle's actual marketing effort remains the same.

Here's a real-world comparison for a 3rd-party envelope sale (250 units):

Set Royalty	Sale Price	Gross Royalty	Excess Royalty Fee (5%)	Marketing Fee (50%)	Net Earnings	Net Royalty %
10%	$212.50	$21.25	$0.00	$10.63	$10.63	5.0%
18%	$235.00	$42.30	$2.12	$21.15	$19.04	8.1%
22%	$245.00	$53.90	$2.70	$26.95	$24.25	9.9%

🧾 As you can see:

• Raising the royalty from 10% to 22% increases the creator’s earnings by ~$13.62…
• …but it also increases Zazzle’s marketing take by over $16 — simply because the royalty is higher.
• The marketing fee is not based on performance, actual advertising costs, or conversions. It’s a flat 50% of your gross royalty — no matter what.

🔍Why should a creator who raises prices only to survive platform fee changes end up being penalized by those same fees?

This structure discourages fair pricing, forces creators into low-margin work, and erodes the financial viability of maintaining a Zazzle store.

💡Suggestion:

• Make marketing fees performance-based or capped
• Provide per-sale transparency
• Stop penalizing creators who are adjusting just to stay afloat

Zazzle’s marketing strategy should empower creators — not punish them for trying to earn a livable income.

[Barbara]

"Innocent" question: Does it cost Z more to market a product that has a 20% royalty than one with a 10% royalty?

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[Jolanda]

Great question — and I think you're making a point many of us are struggling with. It absolutely doesn't cost Zazzle more to market a product with a 20% royalty than one with 10%, yet their flat 50% marketing fee takes a bigger cut the more you charge. That extra money should go to the creator, not Zazzle. It feels like we’re being penalized for trying to earn a fair rate for our work.

[Lais]

I have to play "Devil's advocate" here, it may cost Zazzle more to sell a product that has 20% royalty than one with 10%. For example, a product with a 20% royalty may need to be seen by 1000 potential customers to sell, while one with 10% may need to be seen by 500. We don't actually know it. 

[Jolanda]

It might be true that some products require more exposure to sell, BUT Zazzle’s system doesn’t increase marketing effort just because a product has a higher royalty or price. The exposure (ad spend, placement, etc.) isn’t scaled up for more expensive products — yet the fee is. So you're paying more even when Zazzle’s cost doesn’t go up.

[Windy]

I had not thought about this particular aspect of the marketing fee before. That is OUTRAGEOUS.

Blooming Outrageous.

[Jolanda]

🧮 What Does Zazzle Really Need From Your Sale?

Let’s break down a recent 3rd-party envelope order I received (250 colored envelopes sold for $235.00 with an 18% royalty):

Item                                                           Amount

Retail Price	$235.00
Set Royalty (18%)	$42.30
What I Actually Earned	$19.04
Zazzle’s Take (from royalty)	$23.26
Est. Production Cost (250 × $0.45)	~$112.50
Remaining Revenue (after full royalty)	$192.70
Estimated Profit (if royalty fully paid)	~$80.20

➡️Even after paying me the full royalty and covering production costs, Zazzle would still keep $80+ in margin on this single order.

So why take more than half my royalty too?

The 50% marketing fee isn’t based on actual ad performance or effort. It just scales with my royalty — effectively penalizing creators for valuing their time and work.

Let’s advocate for a more balanced system — one where Zazzle’s success grows alongside the sustainability of its creators.

[Connie]

How can you see the production costs? Does that cover the shipping and handling, too?

[Jolanda]

I don’t have access to Zazzle’s actual production cost data — they don’t share that with us — but I made a conservative estimate based on the retail pricing of similar blank envelopes from other online printers (typically $0.40–$0.60 per envelope when ordered in bulk).

So for the sale of 250 envelopes, I estimated around $0.45 per unit, which adds up to about $112.50 total production cost. This does not include shipping and handling, since those are typically paid separately by the customer at checkout and don’t come out of the sale revenue.

Of course, the exact cost to Zazzle could be higher or lower depending on materials, labor, and overhead — but even with a generous estimate, it’s clear there’s still a very healthy margin after covering production and royalties.

[CapriWedding]

Make marketing fees performance-based or capped
Provide per-sale transparency
Stop penalizing creators who are adjusting just to stay afloat
Zazzle’s marketing strategy should empower creators — not punish them for trying to earn a livable income.

I take my hat off to you for what you have exposed.
Needless to say, I completely agree.

[CapriWedding]

Sorry the system automatically published my same comment twice

[Zorinda]

Jolanda, you raise excellent points.  Just to survive Zazzle’s punitive marketing fee tariffs, we all need to raise royalty rates which, based on the new formula, benefits Zazzle dramatically.   With marketing fees as a % of the gross product price as opposed to the base price, as product prices necessarily increase with higher royalty rates, Zazzle massively increases their take.  So they win. Big.  What you don’t mention is that not only do we lose, but CUSTOMERS lose as they will be forced to pay substantially more not to just cover our losses, but to cover the fact that Zazzle inexplicably extracts a hefty fee from the incremental price hike over the base price. Zazzle in effect gets to double dip.  Either the customers pay up, or they are repelled and leave without making a purchase. 

[Connie]

The marketing fees are a percentage of your gross royalties, NOT the gross product price.

[Jolanda]

Yes, you're right — the marketing fee is taken from the gross royalty. Since the marketing fee is a flat 50% cut from your gross royalty, Zazzle’s take simply increases when you increase your set royalty to compensate for your loss — which in turn raises the sale price.

As can be seen from the 250-envelope third-party sale:

Set Royalty	Sale Price	Gross Royalty	Excess Royalty Fee (5%)	Marketing Fee (50%)	Net Earnings	Net Royalty %
10%	$212.50	$21.25	$0.00	$10.63	$10.63	5.0%
18%	$235.00	$42.30	$2.12	$21.15	$19.04	8.1%
22%	$245.00	$53.90	$2.70	$26.95	$24.25	9.9%

[MadjackGG]

At least with Redbubble they're upfront with their ridiculously punitive 'account fees' and how much they're taking.

I really didn't think Zazzle would fold this way; I've gone from a store that until quite recently was making 1-2 sales per day and which typically returned a 9% actual royalty, to a store that's making next to no sales and if I used the recommended royalty rate, pennies on the dollar on whatever I might sell.  Obviously the economy is a big factor here, but Zazzle's changes have to be a major factor as well. And in typical fashion, Zazzle is saying nothing.

Really disappointed, considering the time and effort I've made over the years to promote and develop my Zazzle storefronts.

[Barbara]

For reasons totally unrelated to Zazzle, I looked up generational use of social media found that YouTube alone has the highest viewership across all generations. Facebook falls beneath that, and then there's the rest of the platforms, which are used mainly by much younger folks. Knowing this makes me wonder if the very best place for Zazzle to advertise is, hands down, YouTube even though it costs more. Since the focus there seems hooked to video subject, that would be how to do the targeting. For instance, when I was watching a lot of videos on metalwork several months ago, I was inundated with ads for Harbor Freight. Now I'm watching videos on watercolor and am seeing ads for Hobby Lobby (Michaels is missing the boat). Who is watching what in order to see Zazzle ads? I've no idea.

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[SimplyDesigned]

Two of the MOST frequent Zazzle ads I see on YT is one that goes "you dont just run a childrens' clothing boutique, you live and breathe it, get all your custom business supplies at Zazzle". And then one about a girls' birthday party "Throwing a birthday party? A princess party? A princess/dinosaur party? Zazzle's got you covered on party supplies". Each about 30 seconds or less, that's not the exact wording of the ads in the quotes but the message/aim of the ad.

[Anne]

Thank you for sharing that, @SimplyDesigned  I would never see it as I am not in the US. I have noticed that YT does show relevant videos, but the advertisements are WAY OFF. (like for instance the show me ads on men's deodorants). Not sure why they do that. It may also be that the frequency in which you see these ads is more important than the duration.

[Barbara]

How interesting! I've never, not even once, seen a Zazzle ad. What's the overall aura of subjects you're drawn to? My subscriptions lean toward the arts, a few podcasts, bookbinding (don't ask me why), diy, and cats. Ads I see are for cars, drugs, movies, and one is how to make your eyelashes look fake. Cat food, yes indeed, cat food. I guess I'm in nobody's demographic. 🙂

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[SimplyDesigned]

Well, I am a YouTuber but its not at all related to Zazzle, design, art or selling things in any way. I watch lots of things on how to improve my channel though. It could be from how choice of words and tone affect how people understand you. It could be a tutorial on a specific editing technique I want to learn. I even watch people that do the same thing I do but have more subscribers, I study how they structure/format/deliver their videos and try to pivot what they do to my own style. Even though I DONT use it in the typical business sense I get zazzle ads, cricut machine ads, etsy ads, redbubble too, sometimes ads for a specific brand of tech like PCs.

Edit to add: Here is Zazzle's Youtube channel, I scrolled down the videos and its a mix of tutorial-like ones with ad videos like ones i've seen, for those curious about the ads. Zazzle - YouTube

[Barbara]

Who knows how YouTube's algorithm works? If, however, you're watching things that have anything at all to do with online PODs, that's how you're being targeted. One day, I deliberately ran searches on things I wasn't particularly interested in just shatter the algorithm that was feeding me the same types of videos ad nauseum. I didn't think to pay attention to the ads that showed up.

It's been quite a time since I looked at Zazzle's YouTube channel because they stopped making the information ones. I kind of miss those. The quickies they do now for new products don't generally interest me.

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[Windy]

Here's the birthday party one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwXPnktx41s

and I guess this is the other one mentioned. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-KOoQiJSIw

[Barbara]

Both of those ads have the good points an ad should have, and they involve what Zazzle can do for you, the customer. It's seemingly not about Zazzle but about you. The only blight on the landscape is their habit of adding a 'z' to words like "amazing." Of course, this is just my own little tic and likely of no consequence.

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[Mariholly]

@Windy 

Thanks! So they're also using the videos they publish on their YouTube channel as ads.

Well, that seems like a good idea, and now the marketing budget must be much bigger, but I have a couple of comments.

In the case of the birthday one, I’d love to know which sellers those designs belong to—I'm curious to know who they’re promoting: a new seller, a top-top one...

And I say I’d love to know because the link in the description, at least for me, takes you to the generic page, where the first thing I see is wedding stationery, and I’m not sure how good that is—but I might be wrong, it’s just my opinion.

10 days into May, and 5 of them with no sales, by the way.

[Barbara]

---

@Mariholly wrote:

10 days into May, and 5 of them with no sales, by the way.

---

You and I are an exact match--10 days with 5 sales. Thinking about this, I remembered seeing people elsewhere on the forums who've had no sales for a month or more. You and I are doing fabulously! LOL

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[mylittleeden]

The second one they could have gone one step further and used the custom fabric Zazzle offers to make her dresses she sells... Cool ads and although not my designs it gives us all an insight as to the marketplaces they are targeting too. Thanks for sharing.

[Windy]

Agreed. "Zamazing" means nothing to me whatsoever, and I do not know what the company is trying to convey. I can see, however, that the goal is to broaden the sales past the wedding space. These ads are trying to appeal to small business and family birthday parties.

[Barbara]

Zazzle has been into various types of wordplay for years, and now and then, they've left me scratching my head. One of them involved a Hindu term I was unfamiliar with--namaste. Zazzle might be better served by staying away from such things.

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[CrazyMermaid]

Anyone who has taken a yoga class, is familiar with the term. It is pretty mainstream. 

[SimplyDesigned]

To add onto what CrazyMermaid said, it is a foreign word but anyone familiar with yoga knows it. It can be used as a hello/goodbye but it means pretty much "I acknowledge you respectfully" if I had to put it into english/western terms. It means "I bow to you", to express honor, shared humanity in India.

I remember when Zazzle used it. I want to also say (I THINK) when they used "Namaste" was when they either launched the yoga mats or were pushing them pretty hard. During covid people could purchase a mat and do it from home, but even now after, people take their mats to do public classes.

I am on the fence about Z using "Namaste" for commercial purposes though, its got the potential to upset folks in the countries where the word originated from, its got spiritual meaning. But Z also wouldn't have been in business this long if they didn't have someone on payroll to weight the risk/reward of these things.

[CrazyMermaid]

"In the U.S., about 1 out of 6 adults say they practice yoga, according to new survey data published Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." From a 2024 Study. Looks like a pretty sizable US market. (I have 3 Namaste t-shirts in my closet right now.)

[Barbara]

Well, there's the problem! I don't own any t-shirts. 😄

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[Barbara]

It was well before the yoga mats when they (first?) used it for something to do with the home: "I'd rather namaste at home." Being one of those who never studied yoga, I thought they'd made an enormous typo. Not a good idea to use a pun that relies on everyone knowing its root--and also liking puns.

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