Upcoming Changes To Zazzle’s Terms of Use

[Heather]

Hello Creators,

We’re making updates to Zazzle's Terms of Use, including the Creator License Agreement, and introducing our new Ambassador Program Agreement, which replaces our Associates Program Agreement. While the onsite experience will not be updated until April 1st, you can preview the updated Terms of Use here. 

We understand you might have additional questions or feedback. Please use this form to share them directly with us. While we may not be able to respond individually at this stage, we’ll review all submissions and address frequently asked questions after the Terms of Use go into effect.

To keep the conversation organized, all community discussions on this topic will be redirected to this thread.

Thank you for your understanding and for helping us make Zazzle a thriving community for all Creators!

Best,

The Zazzle Team

UPDATE 3/24/25: 

Hi Creators - Thank you all so much for your valuable feedback and for taking the time to submit your questions through our form. We truly appreciate your engagement and insights. Rest assured, we are carefully reviewing each question and will address the most commonly asked ones soon.

Timely Update Regarding Royalty Rates: We understand your concerns about adjusting royalty rates, and to support you through this transition, we will be processing royalty rate changes daily from now through April 15th, allowing creators time to make any necessary adjustments. Please note that updates may take 24–48 hours to appear. After April 15th, we’ll return to our regular schedule, with royalty updates processed on the 20th of each month. 

*To clarify: Setting your royalty to 10% exactly will not trigger the Excess Royalty Fee. Royalties above 10%, will trigger the Excess Royalty Fee when changes go into effect 4/1. 

UPDATE 4/7/25

This forum post is now closed for new replies. Please see our most recent update for information about the Terms of Use Changes and information about the new Ambassador Program. Thank you!

[Westerngirl2]

Agreed. Tariffs may very well eventually mean that more products would be produced in the U.S., which would be beneficial all the way around. Won't happen overnight, of course, but there is some manufacturing already relocating back to America, giving more employment opportunities and eventually decreasing prices, it is hoped. Would be nice if it eventually affected some of Zazzle's products that have been made overseas.

[Windy]

I was just reading about the Lego factory planned for Virginia. I don't know how many years ago they first got the idea for it and scouted for a location and bought the land. But well over a year ago, Lego announced a delay, and said they won't start production in that new factory until 2027. Factory siting, permitting and development takes years. And I am not sure what company is going to go through all the trouble to relocate here given the fact that tariff law can be changed any minute of the day, for any reason whatsoever, at the whim of the chief executive.  

[Westerngirl2]

But they are in process of changing regs to make it easier to get permitting and development done. State regs will hopefully follow suit. There’s been a huge investment from off shore companies into the U.S. during the last month. Don’t want to get political, but there is hope for the future business climate, and it would be awesome if POD’s were part of that. Wish I had my crystal ball shined up…ha!

[tsikona]

As I understand, our income will decrease 🙄 most of my sales are referred by a 3rd party. 

[LMGildersleeve]

And most of those 3rd party are most likely Zazzle.

[idraw]

You made a great point about z getting the 3rd party profits.

[LJ]

Trying to find a solution, but it seems my only chance to keep Zazzle a viable option is to adjust my royalties. As per my quick calculations, if I had my royalty percentage set to 14,9%, I will have to increase it to around 26% to receive approximately the same earnings for sales referred by third party (that’s at least 90% of total).

Could anyone please confirm my numbers are at least roughly correct?

[tsikona]

I am planning to leave my royalty as it is and check profit results during April. I am not going to decrease anything. If most creators decrease their royalties, I think increasing royalty would negatively affect my sales. 

[LJ]

I remember once I tried 10%, hoping it will increase sales more than the loss it causes. I used to have pretty consistent sales those days, but that month was almost exactly 1/3 less than with the 14.5%.

Maybe when we all stop panicking and look at the numbers and possible solutions, it will be clear that losing 50% is bad enough, nobody needs the extra loss from decreasing to 9.9%. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of us increased, because the new leftover around net 5% can’t be worth to literally anyone. (Sorry for not censoring my thoughts… difficult times)

[PrintablePretty]

😂Let them thoughts fly. I sure have today! 

[Amanda23]

I will say, I was giggling a little earlier when you mentioned you were on the lower end of income. It’s definitely all about perspective. 

I intend this for a little levity. I haven’t been here nearly as long, spent anywhere near your time, don’t have your huge stock and amazing website, or have your talent! lol

I’m in some discord spots as well, and when people say they didn’t sell anything yesterday, I try to keep it to myself that I’m lucky if I sold something this month.

However, that also means I can’t count on this for any income. I do question if it is worth my time now to try to build. It seems like it is now a Herculean effort to make anything remotely representing the time even I (as someone new-ish) has/can spend. 

I have come to the conclusion I need to think of this as a hobby with hopefully a little bit of income to pay for the photo editing software, etc. I’d like to have. 

The stakes are lower for me. And perhaps when you say you’re on the lower end, I’m thinking lower end for those who make their living here. 

I know why they dropped this news when they did, but it hurts an awful lot that they dropped a bomb and peaced out. Those, especially like you, deserve more.

[PrintablePretty]

😂 I think that is why Jim chimed in with me on discord and was like uhhh Sonya you do know you are in the top 1% right? 😅 Well I wouldn't have guessed that. I think he thought it would make me feel better about all of this but it didn't. It made me even sadder about the boat everyone else is in if my "TO ME" piddly paychecks are top 1%.

Do not get me wrong I am beyond grateful for this platform and the opportunity. But I can barely afford my bills and food and not much else. When these TOUs kick in I likely will not be able to cover my bills. I have no savings, no heath insurance and each check is gone within a day or two of getting it. I struggle all month until the next one comes as my husband is out of work at the moment. Zazzle money is the only money we get. 

I truly worry for those who rely on this money to pay for their medicine, or to supplement their fixed income, or rely on it for any other means of livelihood. I am not just heartbroken and upset for myself I am upset for the entire community and yes even the Top earners and the sellers with all those editors picks 😅

No blinders here and full transparency I absolutely understand I am in a better position than a lot of people, didn't know I was 1% though and even that is sad to me. I bring in 3k to 4k a month, after taxes, costs of all the extra crap I do to try and get a leg up here, software, tools, mockups, website costs, plugins, ads for Instagram, Pinterest, etc (cut those off when hubs lost his job) it isn't a lot for the effort. I wish I was sitting as pretty as it might seem lol. I WANT to be sitting pretty but it isn't happening, the dial doesn't move no matter my efforts. 

I think we all deserve more and deserve better from this platform and part of me wants to think they know it but maybe can't figure out how to implement it or simply can't. I am sure a lot of what they do is governed by a board and stockholders and those kind of driving forces aren't about doing what is best for the community but what is best for the bottom line. 

[Amanda23]

Agreed. Print on Demand is CERTAINLY not the "get rich quick," "easy" scheme so many seem to spread elsewhere online. 

And today, it's even harder. 

I am certain that Zazzle is seeing huge losses this year. Everyone is. And while it may seem to us like they are making so much, I am sure they are feeling it and have other complicating factors we don't even realize. 

If it were not already clear, 2024 and 2025 have made it quite obvious we can count on no one but ourselves in terms of a consistent place/person to rely on. TikTok's 13-hour "closure," Society 6's mass purge of so many talented artists, they all serve as powerful reminders. The problem, of course, is maintaining multiple different outlets and spreading ourselves thin. 

I WILL say you are ahead of many of us with your site; however, even that strategy is such a struggle right now with the advent of AI. (Wish I had realized that before purchasing web hosting for the next four years. rofl. Oh well. Clearly I have bought myself some time to figure that out later.) 

I am currently struggling a bit with how to proceed. I have been trying to leave Facebook (for reasons unrelated to Zazzle...), where I have always spread the word about my products. Unlike most people, the vast majority of my earnings have always been from self-referral. Remember, though, that my earnings don't total 1K yet (at least in terms of what Zazzle "counts" for my seller level). That's not sustainable when trying to grow a business. And the return from advertising to my larger community has not been overwhelming. Most all of my sales have been the result of people with whom I am at least an "acquaintance."

I'm honestly tired of advertising (by posting, I've never spent ad money). And I feel a little "icky" doing it when people are struggling so much. 

However, if we're interpreting things correctly, it's probably what more of us need to focus on. 

The good news is, there will always be holidays, birthdays, weddings, etc. So people are still buying for these instances. They may just be buying less, comparing prices more (meaning artists need to make sure we have "budget" line items too). 

One thing that HAS happened through getting my business name out there is I have now had several people reach out to me for a variety of services unrelated to Zazzle. I encourage people to consider leaving the door open for outside custom work and some tasks that maybe you haven't thought of. Zazzle designers have A LOT of marketable skills in a variety of areas, and as local businesses and even individuals are having to be tighter with their budgets, they might like the more cost-effective independent designer versus the large graphic design company . Hour for hour, I make more money for my remote work like this (by quite a lot) than I do with POD. 

Random spew of info over. My head is going lots of directions today. 

[PrintablePretty]

I just launched the site in January. Still ironing out kinks. Using Zazzle RSS feeds to populate the product pages won't get me very far with google. I emailed developer support to see if they can help me figure a way to use the Zazzle API to import my products with woo commerce somehow. Or any other kind of way I could do that. It would help my SEO with google way more than the feeds. Doing them manually is not an option with 13k products. I'd be 100 years old before it ever got done lol. 

If the API isn't an option or any other bulk way to import then I am debating on removing the feeds entirely and going with the digital boutique idea. Then just putting a link to my Zazzle store on the site much like I have my spoonflower link right now and then promote Zazzle via my blog and Pinterest. The only thing that might save my income at this point is if I can get a working product import option. 

I do use a custom plugin that is mine to populate the rss feeds and custom css to style them and paginate them. If the community is interested in it to try and help their own promotions I'd be happy to make a blog post about it with instructions and link the css and the plugin as a download. It is for WordPress. I saw some posts earlier on the forum where people were trying to figure out how to get the products in their blog. If it will help anyone at all let me know. 

I ‌also thought about making a blog post with Zazzle tips and tricks, tools I use, best products to sell that have worked for me, etc if anyone is interested in that as well. I am a HOT mess obviously and no guru by any means 😅but I want to find a way to be helpful to my fellow Zazzlers in light of all these circumstances if I can. 

I get the posting burnout. I was going ham on Instagram for a long while and haven't posted much as of late. Once I get my mind entirely pieced back together I might take a stab at it again lol. And man.... first day ever for Zazzle forum posting burnout too, haven't gotten much work done today with all my jibber jabber 😂

[Amanda23]

I would be VERY interested in how to get my products on Zazzle. I added one page with "Spring Favorites," and that was my plan to do each season. However if I can get more, that would be ideal. I'm not terribly tech savvy, though, so not sure if I could follow it or not. I AM on Wordpress.org.

[ClareS]

Funnily enough I dropped my rate to 10% this month to see if sales would pick up - I used to be at 12% - never put it as high as 14.5%. I might need to rethink that based on your experience - and when we see the impact of this change in April. 

[Laura]

Funnily enough I raised my royalty rate on most of my products that were at 10% to 12% this month - which has worked out well, thus far - and, I've always had some products as high as 14.9%. The new 10% excessive royalty fee and different department commission %s are making me rethink all of it.

[Laura]

*new excessive royalty fee cap of 10% (instead of 15%)

I have a few odd products at 10.1%, 10.3% etc. so I'm updating those to 10% as I find them to avoid the excess fee in those cases. Wonder how those will be treated between April 1st - 20th or until my updates take effect.

[tiffjamaica]

I also got around 26-27 percent if just assuming I'm slashing my earnings by half for the new marketing fee. I think it will look different once they explain (IF they explain) how it all breaks down. There's the (maybe not existing anymore) 20% carve out for referred sales, the excessive royalty 5%, and the ambassador's 15% to also consider.  I think it's  impossible to figure this out without examples and I'm really shocked they announced this without that follow-up.  With the amount of questions posted in the forum about how to calculate earnings with the existing formula, they HAD to know this was not at all transparent to us.  

[Cat]

I'm not upset about the fact that they want to change the fee structure. It's their business, so it's their right to run it in any way they see fit. But it does bother me that the new fee structure is so confusing that none of us can figure it out. I know they probably have to use legal-speak for legal reasons, but the whole idea of a contract is that there's supposed to be a "meeting of the minds" so that it's absolutely clear what has been agreed to. This doesn't feel clear at all. It's really hard for me to sign on to the new agreement when I really don't understand what I'm agreeing to!

I remain hopeful that they will clarify soon, but I am disappointed in the lack of transparency. It seems like they really need to make a good faith effort to ensure that we understand the new terms. I'm hoping that it's simply an oversight and not an effort to obfuscate the terms of the deal. 

[JLynnW]

You're absolutely right. The email we received seems to only provide a general overview of the changes, with many details still confusing. Important information—especially about the new Ambassador program and how it will affect Creators' past promotions—is still unclear. It’s frustrating to be in a holding pattern, but it looks like we’ll have to wait until April 1st for more concrete answers. Let’s hope the changes aren't as devastating as they seem and that we’re not left in the dark for too long! Remember, being forever hopeful is a good place to be!

[tiffjamaica]

I totally agree. The changes are not minor. Taking a hefty new marketing fee (in addition to negative changes in other fees/referrals) is an enormous change that deserves more than a forum post, vague email, and one week's notice. Disappointed is the right word. Feels like our work load increased double last year (with collections, covers, videos) and now our compensation for it is going to be halved.  I'm really eager for them to clarify all the details.  

[SandyMDesigns]

I'm really glad I came here; it has put everything into perspective for me. I've been putting in countless hours on mockups, and while I used to do well with my earnings, they have significantly declined since last year. Reducing the earnings to just 9.9% (10% has a transaction fee) and giving up to 50% of my profits to a third party doesn't make sense. It’s hard to justify working so hard and creating new products under these conditions.

When it comes to being featured, only a select few consistently appear on the first pages of the marketplace. I've been considering ending my paid domain due to a lack of visitors, as I don't believe it's worth the expense given the minimal earnings I've seen on Zazzle. These print-on-demand services profit from their excessively high base prices, yet this greed persists.

[SandyMDesigns]

I may stand corrected that it is after 10%. I was going with how the royalty is set up now (before April 1st), that you need to keep it at 14.9%, so I assumed that it would be 9.9%.

[mgdesigns]

Having a website costs per year what a pair of shoes cost (or less). If you can, keep it live. A website (for us creators) is not about getting sales, it's about showing customers that you're professional. People think that we are individual shops fulfilling orders ourselves, they don't know what Zazzle is so when they find your product, they might look for our shop name online, especially if they are planning a big event like a wedding. They want someone they can trust, and having a website gives you that. Good luck!

[epcollections]

Zazzle team….please help make the changes ABUNDANTLY clear. This thread with theories and various interpretations should not exist. I’m trying to read and understand the terms and having this extra noise is beyond unhelpful. Make a video or give us bullet points in the community, please. Throwing this up on a Friday, asking for questions, and not actually answering the questions is an *interesting* community/communication strategy, to say the least. It has clearly created more anger, confusion, and fear than necessary. Hoping for more clarity on Monday. 

[PrintablePretty]

@epcollections  I want to apologize if I am the noise and confusion. I know I am all over this thread today. I am bowing out so I can get some work done. It absolutely did turn into more of a conversation thread vs an informational one because of my jabbering. They will likely get in here Monday and clear out my hot mess and the confusion hopefully. I never post on here and always hide in the shadows and I think it is best if I go back to that cause I don't know how to shut up when I get goin! 😅

[epcollections]

🙂 that’s kind of you. I definitely was not intending to single anyone out or place any blame on those posting. People posting their interpretations should actually be helpful, but the interpretations contradict or are incomplete, which is on Zazzle. Reading personal feelings about the matter doesn’t bother me. I’d just really like to know the facts. 

And so on a personal note: I believe we’ll all be fine! In business and life things are bound to change for reasons sometimes beyond our control. This change may even present new opportunities that are yet to be seen. Im grateful the Zazzle model exists and think they’re rockstars at promoting via SEO and paid google ads. If tariffs, ad costs, etc are threatening their business in some way, for example, I’m in support of a solution that helps keep the engine running so they can keep promoting my products. I will just have to adjust my strategy in some way. 

[PrintablePretty]

I agree wholeheartedly. if this is what we must do to help them stay open then I am all for it and will figure something out to adjust. This whole situation has made me so emotional, and I absolutely got carried away in here. I am hoping tomorrow brings us all of the answers we need. 

I also want to clear up my 9.9% message for anyone it may have confused. the new 5% fee threshold will now be at 10% it used to be 15%. I don't know if it ever changed or not but used to be if you set it to 15% you got hit with the 5% fee but if you set it to 14.9% you did not. I assumed it would be the same with the 10% threshold so I mentioned the 9.9% to avoid the 5% fee.

We can still set our royalties to anything we want, but Zazzle tends not to show high royalty items in the marketplace or feature them. I apologize for the confusion. I meant FORCED in the sense that if we go above 9.9% we're penalized with yet another fee, 5%. I saw that it confused some and wanted to clarify my statement. 

[jophb]

I know we are just independent contractors... but we do all of the product designing on this site, we do marketing through cover images, videos, and social media and more. Lately it feels like I'm getting a lot more customer service related messages, so we do customer service as well.  And now we are all getting a 50% pay cut? This feels a lot like we are all getting demoted. 95% or more of sales are 3rd party, it's not like it's a small percentage.

PS, if you commented here, don't forget to also comment in their 'form' above in this post.  They may not be counting our comments here.

[jophb]

Ok, so I might have been wrong on the percentages given the current levels.  But still, a 15-30% decrease in profits is still a massive hit.

[Fantabuloustef]

I’m on Zazzle since almost three years now, and I don’t sell much, but when I see all the additional tasks we are asked to do, I often ask myself if it’s worth it. I make sales on another platform I put my creations on, without making lot of efforts, without adding new work very often, with higher commissions and without any promotion. I don’t even have a shop on this other platform, just selling on their marketplace, so I don’t understand why they succeed at doing so many sales all by themselves and Zazzle can not. Zazzle was my favorite, because I love their editor and all the personalization capabilities, but it’s changing progressively.

[Cat]

I'm trying to sort out exactly how the self-referral percentages work and I'm still confused. The new agreement says:

2.1.2.1. You will earn the same Royalty on Your Product that you would have earned had it been referred by another User; and

2.1.2.2. You will also earn a Referral Commission (calculated as the difference between your total Earnings and your Royalty for that Product).

So, it seems clear that we still receive both a royalty and a referral for those sales, but I don't understand what the part highlighted in red means. Aren't my total earnings and my royalty the same thing? 

The commissions chart says that it's the Percent of Net Referral Sales (Royalty + Referral Commission) * Excess Royalty Fees will be deducted, as applicable. That sounds like the percent is applied to the total sale price. 

Does anybody understand what this means? I can't decide if it means that we're getting more or less than we currently are for self-referrals. If it's a percentage of the total sale price then I think it means we'll be getting more for self referrals. If it's a percentage of something else then I'm not sure. Help.

ETA: The first paragraph also confuses me. I'll earn the same royalty as I would if it had been referred by another user. Does that mean that the marketing royalty fees will apply to our self-referred royalties as well?

[MadjackGG]

So they're pulling a Redbubble and trying to cover it by increasing the referral payout on those odd times when you do get a referral sale. Is that about it? 

And just for good measure, posting to Pinterest from Zazzle isn't working and Pinterest is actively nerfing displaying links on many existing Zazzle pins.

Seems to me that after Zazzle's various fees + whatever else is happening, I'll be lucky to see 50 cents on a $50 sale.

[LindaS1]

They actually DECREASED the referral.  The table shows COMBINED referral and royalty, with the royalty set at 15%. So the 50% for weddings is the same referral bonus as before, 35%. Other categories were reduced below that 35%.

[wheresthekarma]

This change in earnings is just one of the things that is worrisome that is going on with Zazzle.

I have brought this up in other posts as well, but it is just one more thing to add to a list of frustrating things. As MGildersleeve pointed out to me in another post, it's up to me to stay on Zazzle or go, if I don't like what is going on here, but it's not that easy for some of us.

I have been on Zazzle over a decade and put numerous hours into it. I live on disability and started making enough money here where a lot of the programs like food stamps, Medicaid got cut because I was making too much. Now i have to pay for insurance. Yes you get Medicare with disability but if you make a certain amount of money you then have to start paying for it. They just subtract it from your check and that is what has happened.

I felt a little sense of pride that I could work from bed and still figure out a way to support myself, mostly, and stop relying on some of the progams that I was. I literally risked the one thing I could count on (disability and medicare) to follow this pursuit and each year my earnings went up until about a year and a half ago.

Something went wrong. It all started with the collection changes. About that time all the sales started dropping for most Zazzlers. And new Zazzlers could barely make any sales. Products started not indexing.

And yet, Zazzle was asking us to do MORE work. The extra collection work, the cover photos and videos, answering people's messages in chat, most of which are about manufacturing and shipping, which should be Zazzle's job as we arent' getting paid to answer questions. Also with the chat comes the requests for custom work which if we do, comes with hours of our time spent and no guarantee a customer will purchase anything.

Plus now making these cover photos and videos, we are all investing in ai sites and mockup sites which we never had to before. So now we are spending money to do this.

I hate to say it, after all these years of Zazzling, I feel a shift happening. I feel like there is absolutely no concern or respect for us creators.
It makes me sad because being stuck in bed most of the time due to an illness, it has been my hobby, my outlet, my distraction and I have had so much fun doing it, along with helping others learn through my videos on my YouTube channel. But man, enough is enough. It's becoming so stressful and i feel like I'm lying to people when I encourage them to do Zazzle as I am watching all the new sellers freak out about never making any sales despite all the work they put into it.
So between all those changes Zazzle has made in the last year:
1. Change in collections
2. Have to make Cover Photos and Videos (which adds on fees for ai sites we all have to subscribe to now)
3. Pictures of other products above and below our own and all over the page.
4. The random loss of earnings we all have experienced in the last year and a half.
5. The reduction in commissions now in the new T&C
6. The chat box where I do Zazzle's job in answering all the customers questions about shipping and manufacturing.

Maybe it's all just too much. Zazzle should be raising our earnings, not reducing them. Just my opinion. 

Good luck everyone.

[PrintablePretty]

Mannnnn if I could give this a million Kudos I would! 🙂 🙌

[SandyMDesigns]

I cannot agree more. I have been working hard on cover images and going through all the hoops. Every time Zazzle has made changes, it has hurt my earnings. In 2013 before Zazzle changed how the volume bonus worked halfway through that year, I made more on the volume bonus than the royalty earnings. Now I don't make money on the volume bonus. Like many, my earnings have sunk since the collection changes. I am now thinking this work I have put in is not worth it.

[sharonrheafords]

Oh my gosh, I really miss that bonus! It made such a difference.

I think I was oblivious to the collection changes.

[sharonrheafords]

I read your situation and empathize completely. I'm older and my life has flipped into a spiral, but I get up each day to carry on the best I can which used to be the best (not now), and I can't carry much more stress. 

Breathe and don't let it affect your health as it seems to be fragile. 

I can't change all my royalties. I'll see what happens.

I'll also send a prayer your way.