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!

[sharonrheafords]

Well, the nice man from india on ETSY for some reason just gave me 36 more pieces of beautiful digital art on top of the 90+ after I purchased so much all over the internet, so .... I knew I would anyway, I'm going to keep creating and posting on Zazzle. I'm too hooked on Zazzle to not. I have a lot of personal decisions to make, but Zazzle has been my love for too many years even though my earnings took a dive after the bonus loss ... and no referrals recently. I cannot lower my royalties though. In fact, I printed "ColsCreations" post and have it by the laptop.

Now, praying my laptop lives after drinking the coffee .... and all the flash drives including 7 LaCie storage drives survive, off to work on my house until tonight.

I'll sell my house to get out of debt, and yes, of course, I want to make money again on Zazzle (and I'm not savvy as most of you regarding all the necessary promoting, etc.; yet, I just enjoy creating quality product for good customers as I always expect quality for my money - 'even send groceries back - so picky ....) .... It's the bright side of my days now.

[zehda]

Heather I am in the promoter program. Will it just automatically change to the ambassador program, or do I have to join the ambassador program? If I need to join, where is that on Zazzle?

[CLC]

This whole thing reminds me of the movie "the secret to my success" I understand that most businesses are feeling the pains of higher cost of product and lower profits, but there were other ways to increase profits without reducing the income to designers. What bothers me the most in these changes is the "Marketing Royalty Fee" why are we paying for advertising? We are not manufacturing or selling these products, we are designing artwork to help the products sell and getting a royalty from our design if a product is sold. The company selling the physical products would be the one advertising them and that expense is configured into the final cost of product

[jophb]

They also likely get the tax write off as well for 'marketing & advertising costs'. There is even a section of taxes for commissions paid to influencers.  Plus we as creators do a ton of marketing on Zazzle's behalf. : (

[J32Design]

Zazzle can spin it all they want. If they are hurting then they should raise their base prices to a point that works for them. I wouldn't even mind a reasonable monthly fee to sell on Zazzle to offset some of their costs for storing images etc. Taking percentages of designers, is a money grab. Plain and simple.

And look at where it is going. Designers make less and less and are being punished/penalized if you don't follow their royalty guidelines which has now been lowered to 10%. Without designers Zazzle would have nothing to sell, but Zazzle is over saturated with designers and their work and that is why they can get away with it. There will always be someone who is willing to work for less just to make a buck or two.

[KLP]

Question, unless you are in the top elite and getting regular sales then agreed a monthly fee structure to sell on a platform works out, however if you are in the lower percentile and struggling with getting foot traffic to your shop, whether it is because you have trouble with tagging and getting ranked on google searches and / or designs that may not be so generically acceptable, and therefore make the odd sale but not monthly - how would this be fair.

I myself have kept off those type of platforms for that exact reason, I do not mind paying per piece sold rather than paying a monthly fee as I deem it fairer for the smaller newer type POD creators that have no idea how their art if going to perform in market.  I would not want to be in a position where I am racking up bills monthly for art that is not selling for whatever reason.  I always had the thought also that if my art did take off, then I could move to one of those platforms and maybe get a bigger chunk of the pie for myself.

[ArtVixen]

So now we have to pay Zazzle a 5% royalty fee to process a payment if we exceed the 10% royalty? Why should we pay for processing a payment? We only supply artwork, we don't run Zazzle. This seems like a rip off to me. We should be working together to make more sales instead of punishing artists. 

[sharonrheafords]

I'm getting the impression that as a result of the changes (I haven't even read all since, as all do, I do have to take a few hours daily to deal with life) most are going to raise their royalties rather than lower them now - to cover all the fees. The price of the product will go up, but the Zazzle discounts can negate that. I'm not touching all I have on my stores, because it would be impossible; yet, I will raise the royalty on any new product posted. I'm just trying to figure how high most are going to go. There's a great chart below ColCreations created and shared.

[ArtVixen]

I'll be raising my royalties too. I'm not sure to what percentage, but I'm not going to keep it at 14.9%. Thank you for the info on the chart! 

[CLC]

You can go into your settings and change your default royalty rate and it will change the rate on all your listings, just takes a few seconds. Since they are updating the royalty rates daily until the 15th, I will be experimenting until I get a rate I am satisfied with

[sharonrheafords]

I forgot all about that. THANK YOU!

[MadjackGG]

Given I often make around 8-9% on sales with my current rate of 14.5% after fees deducted, including a flat 20% VAT where applicable and a further 5% tax on payout, I don't see how I can drop to 10% as a royalty rate and not be reduced to making pennies. 

[sharonrheafords]

It looks like many are choosing to raise their rates over 20% to compensate as a result of the change rather than lower them . There is a great chart and details below by ColsCreations; yet, I'm not sure how high to safely go or what others will be doing.

[KLP]

I think I am going to go mixed bag : most of mine are already at around 10% and I get the odd sale here and there - def not one of the top 1%, and although I would like more, I find it exciting when I do get a sale. So going forward when products come up for review I will decide then shall I increase it or will I keep it at 10%.  I believe by having a mixed percentile then if only those that are in the 10% get preferential marketing, I might be lucky, and once the customer is in my shop, my marketing plan is based that they will have a look around and maybe buy some chips with the hamburger they originally came to get.

[KLP]

P.S. when reviewing old products I will also factor in a bit of research at the time as too what others are charging for a similar product and where I feel my product would be best suited - low to attract customers or high for a bigger royalty / something I have put more time into creating.

[ColsCreations]

The new Name Your Royalty Table shows that Value Phone Cases are capped at 5% royalty.
But in this post from James dated January 2023, he says the cap was removed and 'you can now choose your royalty the same as any other product on Zazzle'.

So is the cap back in place again or was it just an oversight they were included here with Heart products at max of 5%?

[LMGildersleeve]

HERE is your answer Col. Second table down.

Note, the Value Cases & Heart Products are still 5% Maximum royalty rates.

Ambassador-Referral-Commissions-Creator-Royalties

[ColsCreations]

That's the table I linked to which is what prompted me to ask if it's a mistake or if they did actually reverse the January 2023 decision to remove the cap on them.

[Fiorenzo]

Do we have to reapply to the Ambassador program from our Promoter and Associate programs or does it transfer automatically? Thanks!

[LMGildersleeve]

You may want to use the link they give you for asking this question in their initial post. I don't believe anyone has found that answer yet.

[Cat]

Same question. I also want to know if old RF links will still be valid and how the share tools will work in terms of will they automatically use an RF link when promoting other people's products and a clean link for your own, or will we need to control all of that manually. (I asked all of those questions via the form.)

[SheaPrints]

I also asked this via the form!
- As an Ambassador, do creators simultaneously have access to both marketing methods 'Self-Promotional' and 'Cross-Promotional'?
- Do they choose which method to use when they generate a link directly from a Zazzle page to platforms like Pinterest?
- Will the generated link automatically include the correct URL?

I'm also wondering about referral cookies. If a customer visits a "clean" 'Self-Promotional' link to one of your products, and then purchases a different product with your 'Cross-Promotional' link, what happens? Will that purchase not qualify for a referral because of the 'Self-Promotional' cookie duration? And, what happens if it's the other way around? 🤔

[Es]

What exactly is secondary content? Does that mean we can use other designers images? I am so confused. Also what is the marketing fee for? And is the excess royalty fee still 5%. I wish these tables made more sense to me.

[ClareS]

Secondary content is content that creators can upload for customers to use, we can't use them in our designs though. https://help.zazzle.com/hc/en-us/articles/360039941013-Secondary-Content-FAQ

[Es]

Thanks

[Rachel_E]

We always had the royalty fee, but before the threshold was 15% and now it will be 10%.  But on the top of that, now they will be carving out up to 50% of our royalties (for marketing), if the sales is done by a 3rd party (15%).  Honestly I feel like crying - put so much efforts on getting this stood up and as most of my things are sold via 3rd party (I am not good promoting at all), I will lose 50% of all.  That is it for me. I will no longer invest time at Zazzle.  That is seriously triggering CafePress PTSD.

There is an option to not allow Zazzle to advertise your products - I wonder if you saying you don't want it to be advertised by them, we will still need to pay Marketing Fee.

Basically:

Price	Royalty	Commision	Zazzle cut (50%)	Promoter cut (15%)	Royalty fee	Final earning after all fees
10	15%	1.5	0.75	0.225	0.075	0.45

So, in order to do the same amount of money, if you are not good promoting, you need to set up the royalty in this case at 50% - which I just did to all products on my paper store. The only good news is that the threshold for volume has been reduced, so we might have 5% bonus on royalties, and will be able to reduce a little the margin. But leaving at 10% is not possible, most of us have costs of subscriptions for images, website costs, taxes, etc... is just not going to worth the effort of keep putting new products.

Price	Royalty	Commission	Zazzle cut (50%)	Promoter cut (15%)	Royalty fee	Final earning
10	50%	5	2.5	0.75	0.25	1.5

Might not sell anything anymore, as it will be far too expensive. 😞

PS: This is NOT AI, I did the math in excel, let me know if you disagree.

[ClareS]

There is a marketing fee now - it's 20% -so you won't lose 50% of royalties, you'll drop by 30%. And if most of your products are sold by a 3rd party (as are mine and a lot of designers) then opting out of marketing will leave you with no sales at all, because Zazzle marketing appears as 3rd party. If your current royalty rate is 10% then increasing it to 17% will offset the additional marketing fees for 3rd party sales. You don't need to go as high as 50%.

[Rachel_E]

Ok - you are right.  I can't find the information about 20%, but indeed, today there is already at least 15%.  Reading again is one OR another so is not 15%+50%. So roughly, as my margin is 15%, that will be about 23%:

Price	Royalty	Commision	Zazzle / Promoter cut	Royalty fee	Final earning
10	23%	2.3	0.69	0.115	1.495
10	15%	1.5	0.45	0.075	0.975

[Colorflow]

Hi Where did you find the information that it is 20%?  I thought it varied depending on the product sold.

[jessletterman]

It does vary by the product sold
https://help.zazzle.com/hc/en-us/articles/30810357489175-Ambassador-Referral-Commissions-Creator-Roy... 

[Rachel_E]

Nowadays is 20%. Found in the current creator agreement.

[Westerngirl2]

There is so much info floating around, it's hard to grasp it all. I certainly appreciate everyone's effort to interpret this and break it down so that we can get a better handle on it, and how to move forward. Y'all are amazing! I have to say, though, that I am extremely disappointed in how Zazzle has handled this. I don't want to overly criticize a company that I have appreciated greatly for 14 years, and have felt has been a blessing in my life, and given me an opportunity to move beyond my traditional art career...but this feels like a punch to the gut. It's their business, and they can certainly run it as they see fit. I do wonder if, with everything I've read here and the way many of us feel, they may be making a mistake. But...it's theirs to make. As many have expressed, it's up to us to decide whether this is now worth continuing to plow ahead...or not.

Again, thanks to everyone for all the time and effort that you've put in to (1) creating all the wonderful designs that have made Z the very best POD out there, and (2) putting in the same effort to try to decipher and explain these sudden changes. This community is the BEST!

[Rachel_E]

I am very upset because is not a matter if we continue to plow ahead, but how much effort and money we put on it already. Particularly with the latest add cover thing. I think is a bad decision - it ruined CP (the big CP exodus). That is pretty much the same thing they are doing.

[sharonrheafords]

It's good seeing your face. You've always been an input of sound logic, and I totally agree with all you are saying here although I have to admit, I'm not even reading or trying to interpret the entire Zazzle Document - not out of disrespect by any means as I also have been a part of our team forever and a day (2006?), and I also feel a strong kinship with Zazzle.

I can't help but step back and take a walk down memory lane (in my personal life now too often) and remember what fun it was, how profitable it was (before I spent - and in debt continue - double digit thousands on art .... to now make less than $300.00 some months), and how we all actually knew and helped each other (and many I remember with such fondness are diamond, gold, and platinum now, but my foreign sales have me stuck in silver for many years). 

Zazzle helped so many personally. I had UPS bring HUGE BOXES into my house once where a department had chipped in out of their pockets and ordered art supplies from Amazon for my students when I taught. I had not sung the blues about needing supplies, asked nothing from anyone, and will never forget that. Zazzle honored a daughter's wish and sent a dying designer and her family to Disney I believe it was. Of course I have no idea what all they did for those in need, but they did, and it's just my belief that people have the propensity to be who they are and do what they do, and those same owners and most of the leaders are still here. They are good people. 

We're still here with so many more now, and we work hard which benefits the quality of Zazzle as seen by the public....and which is why this latest change is as many say a kick in the gut.

I don't know how to do half the things you all do as far as adding this and that expected of us, analytics, etc, and I don't have time in life to learn; yet, I haven't been chastised for it by Zazzle. I don't get the monthly check we used to get before the bonus drop. I spend more than I earn while ignoring severe never before in life deep debts as I sit on the computer until 4 in the morning designing to earn $2.00 on a product which isn't profit to me considering all I spent and time we all spend .... ignoring sitting in my home on the property assets that will save me if I focus on selling it which I will sadly do now out of desperation ...

Unless I get penalized for not doing all expected of me, I'll continue to design on Zazzle in moderation and more after I sell a house and get 13 hrs in my hurricane flooded car up to Ohio to plow through another.

It's difficult for me to change (after so much change piled on me in my life). It's difficult for us all to continue with these latest changes. Full circle here, but I don't believe the Zazzle administration has changed, so maybe they are doing this to stay afloat, and when so many designers have been hurt, maybe they'll amend it allowing us to survive also? One can only hope, yes?

I decided last night to raise my royalties as many are doing rather than lower them, picked a random number suggested 23.7, changed them all on the account page. Should I go higher? Are you all?

Oh, may I add concern over referrals? I guess I'll never got those anymore. As is, I feel I couldn't get a referral if I sat on a street corner in the snow with a baby and a sign begging for one. There's an ad strategy!

Excuse typos. I need a new laptop (as this is now omitting letters and juxtaposing sentences), but it's low on the list for me these days. Groceries and my pups' health .... maybe even my own risky 13 hour spine surgery to be able to walk the beach with my pups before it's too late for us ('getting there) ... Everything tops the list including real estate taxes and bills, bills, bills .... and I know some of you who make Zazzle successful and pure quality are in the same boat.

My sincere heartfelt admiration, prayers, and hopes go out to all of you. 

[Es]

I have a lot of items at 40% and I have definitely made more iin sales than when everything was 14.9% I think most zazzle customers are looking for something special rather than something cheap. I just pray and leave the rest up to God.

[KLP]

Isn't there a marketing perception somewhere out there in the ethers - that there is a consumer group who will pay top dollar for something they like as they believe they are getting a better product designated by the amount they pay?  - I could be wrong.

[KLP]

P.S. and there is always the thought - if customer likes it - they will buy it - no matter what the $$$$ - they buy it because they like it and want it.

[Rachel_E]

I ended up doing updated calculations, with 30% more of carveout (cause indeed there is a 20% nowadays already) and raised all my best sellers store to 26.6, which happened to be the "magic number" to keep making the same amount I do today. I am hoping you are right and people buys for the quality rather than price 🙂

[Mariholly]

I don't want to seem ungrateful either. I've said it before: I will always be grateful for the opportunity given, and I fully understand that it’s their company and their rules. However, I can’t stop thinking about how incredibly unfair it is that they’re once again asking us for an extra and very significant effort, as it directly impacts our finances, while we continue to face daily problems with sharing, indexing, with problems updating sales, views, and more...

On top of that, are we being punished with lower commissions? They’ve told us they won’t respond until the new changes take effect, and no one seems to have replied to other posts either, although it's to be assumed that they are well aware of this. How are we supposed to feel about this? Happy and content? I think we feel frustrated. Personally, I've done, I believe, two cover photos and two design variations, to which royalty increases have already been applied, without even knowing if that will be good or bad, and I have no desire to do anything at all.

[Fantabuloustef]

I’m also afraid these new rules will discourage the best designers, lead to Zazzle lowering its global quality and finally finishing like many other POD platforms with 90% of AI generated picture of very low quality… 

I think about that, because to earn money with low commissions, you need to make more sales, and to me, it means more products created quickly in order to spend more time in promotion, and less at designing. We all know that a high quality design requires a huge amount of work, and if this work is not estimated at its fair value, I don’t see any other future for Zazzle than to become a place where quantity matters more than quality. It’s very sad. 😔