Opportunities Ahead: New Ambassador Program & Important Terms of Use Changes

[Heather]

Hi Creators,

First and foremost, we want to express our sincere gratitude for your valuable feedback and insights. We truly appreciate the time you’ve taken to submit your questions and feedback through our form regarding the updates to our Terms of Use, which are effective today, April 1st. We’ve carefully reviewed each of your questions and, based on your feedback, have put together a comprehensive Creator FAQ and Ambassador FAQ to help clarify the changes and provide more detail. 

As we all know, the world around us is constantly evolving. Marketing costs are rising, and competition for Customer attention is higher than ever. In order to keep up with these changes and continue thriving together, we too must adapt and grow. We understand that change can be challenging, but it's essential for us to stay dynamic and align with the ever-evolving landscape.

For almost 20 years, we’ve been proud to be a marketplace where Creators from all walks of life can sell their Content, and many have even built a sustainable income doing what they love. Creators are the heart and soul of our platform, and we truly appreciate the partnership we’ve built with all of you. 

With the launch of our new Ambassador Program, we want to ensure that Creators who actively promote their Products and drive traffic are properly rewarded. The new program simplifies the Earnings model, ensures a fairer fee distribution, and aligns financial incentives with Creators’ success. Whether you’re actively promoting your Content or allowing us to handle it, we’re here to support your growth. 

We’re hopeful about the new opportunities this opens up for you as a Creator. This update means you’ll have the chance to earn what we would pay those “other guys”—and we hope you see it as a way to grow your Earnings in meaningful ways. 

To keep the discussion and questions for us organized, please reply to this dedicated thread and we ask you to continue to submit your questions to the form. We also opened an “Ambassador Program” board for Creators to discuss specific topics together. 

Once again, thank you for your continued contributions to our community. We can’t wait to see what the future holds as we continue to evolve together in our marketplace.

Warmly,

The Zazzle Team 

UPDATE - 4/2/25

Hi Creators,

We’ve heard some common questions that we’d like to address and clarify. We've updated our FAQ's to include these questions, and will be addressing more soon.  

1. Why does it seem like the Excess Royalty is taken out twice for the Self-Promotion?
2. Why am I being charged a Marketing Royalty Fee for Self-Promotion Sales?
3. Why in some cases did I make more money in the Promoter 2.0 Program? 

Q: Why does it seem like the Excess Royalty is taken out twice for the Self-Promotion example below? 

Example 1: Self-Promotion Link (own Product) in Clothing & Shoes with Your Royalty Rate set at 12% 

• Product Price (= Net Referral Sales for this example): $100
• Your Royalty Rate: 12% → $12 Gross Royalty
• Excess Royalty Fee: → 5% of $12 = $0.60
  (applies because Your Royalty Rate is above 10%. The fee is 5% of your Gross Royalty) 
• Marketing Royalty Fee: → 35% of $12 = $4.20
  (applies to all Referred Sales. For Clothing & Shoes, it's 35% of your Gross Royalty) 
• Royalty: → $7.20
  (after deduction of Royalty Fees)
• Referral Commission for a Referred Sale via a Self-Promotion Link
• Department Rate: → 35% of Net Referral Sales
  (Clothing & Shoes)
• Self-Promotion Earnings Goal: → 35% of $100 is a $35 Goal.
  (from this $35 goal, you’ve already earned $7.20 in Net Royalties and the $0.60 Excess Royalty Fee applies)
• Referral Commission from Self-Promotion Link: → $35 - $7.20 - $0.60 = $27.20
• Your Earnings = $34.40
  ($7.20 paid via Royalty, $27.20 paid via Referral Commission).
• Note: Because Your Royalty Rate was above 10%, the Excess Royalty Fee slightly reduced the total Earnings you could have received from the Referred Sale via a Self-Promotion Link.

A: If you look at Example 1, the Self-Promotion Earnings Goal is $35, and the Excess Royalty Fee is $0.60. Your Earnings are $34.40 ($35 - $0.60). So while we need to deduct the Excess Royalty Fee from the Gross Royalties to help calculate the Royalty - which we then use to calculate the Referral Commission by deducting it from the Self-Promotion Earnings Goal - it is more to do the math to figure out the amounts you’ve earned rather than actually being taken out twice.

Q: Why am I being charged a Marketing Royalty Fee for Self-Promotion Sales?

A: The Marketing Royalty Fee applies whenever a sale is referred, whether by you, another Ambassador, or Zazzle. This structure helps our systems run smoothly across all types of Referrals.  So in order to make sure your Earnings hit the Self-Promotion Earnings Goal (which is based on the Department Rate), we calculate your Referral Commission to make up the difference between the Self-Promotion Earnings Goal and your Royalty.  The math can be a little bit complicated, but the end result is the same - your Earnings for that sale do not change.

Q: Why in some cases did I make more money in the Promoter 2.0 Program? 

A: Promoter 2.0 was originally a "beta" program, and we're now expanding it to all Creators. The Ambassador Program is designed to serve a wider population of Creators, while reflecting current marketing costs, so while there were situations where former Promoters benefitted more, this new program is designed to benefit the whole Ambassador community more overall.

[SandyMDesigns]

Someone showed me their earnings on a wedding product at 23.7% and made 39% affiliate earnings. That equals 62.7%. According to what I am reading here if the total earnings are supposed to be 50%, no matter what the creator had set their royalty, the total would not go over the 50%. Is that right? She did show me a screenshot of her total earnings and it was 62.7%.

[SandyMDesigns]

I forget to add this. On this page Presenting Zazzle Ambassador Program it seems to read that Zazzle will be doing less promoting of our products and we will be responsible for bringing the customers to our products. Is that correct?

[xBrie]

The marketing royalty fees on an item that we referred seems insane. Like....you didn't market it? In your example you take almost HALF in market royalty fees of their royalty **even when they referred the sale.** That makes no sense. This feels as if you are essentially making sellers pay for your marketing costs and trying to spin it as a good thing. If I set a 12% royalty, the ONLY thing that should take from that is your new "Excess Royalty Fee" and any discount  coupons the customers used. You are making this way too complicated for sellers to figure out what their royalties should be for each product. I will be turning off the digital download option for all of my invitations since I am no longer getting $5-8 per digital sale, but $3.89 when they pay $9.50.  I will now only be selling my digital designs on Etsy and shopify, it's no longer worth it here! 

[rileyandzoe]

I think the marketing royalty fee goes to yourself as part of your total "referral commission" for self-referred sales. It's all very confusing, but that was my interpretation in the example above. Is that right?

[xBrie]

Today I made a sale for 100 invites that I referred. Here was my royalty. AND I referred the item.

$275.00

7.0%

$9.63 USD

$9.63

So it makes NO sense to me, that my royalty is not 7% of $275.00 ($19.25) Since no one else was involved in the sale, there should be no cut taken. It's not over 10%, so no fee. But that doesn't appear to be the case, they just gave over half away to a "Marketing Royalty Fee"? that was only supposed to be 35%?

The Referral was also listed at 47% for this product, but 47% of $275 is $129.95, so none of this is adding up. We shouldn't have to be doing 3 steps of calculations for every sale to see if we were paid fairly.

$275.00

47%

$127.88 USD

$127.88

I was excited about this change as I am sure many were when they saw the possibility of 50%, but when you dig deeper into it they really do seem to be making us pay for their marketing expenses with no way to opt out of it. If they plan to keep this, I want an option to opt out of Zazzle marketing my items cross platforms. The motivation for sellers to get 40-50% is enough to make many of us want to promote more, but your hidden (but not so hidden, just complicated and unfair) fees are making it hard to price anything fairly.

You taking a cut from sales you had nothing to do with promoting to pay for your marketing is really my biggest issue here. The second is the complications of having to try and calculate in all these fees to get a fair commission for me without completely being out of the pricing range for my customers. Yesterday I got $3.89 for a digital product that the customer paid $9.50 for and my royalty is set to 91% . That is CRAZY! This cost you almost nothing to produce and there is no reason it should not be my 91% - 15% (if referred by someone else) for a minimum of $7.22 when the product is not on sale. But instead, $3.89. 

Zazzle please rethink some of this. I do think in the long run you will have sellers less motivated to create quality items. If all of your sellers have to up their costs to make up for their lost royalties, you will lose so many potential customers in this economy. Your invitations will all cost $2.50+ each when a customer can print them at Walmart for $1.00 each and all your digital invitations will be $12-15 when they are on average $5-8 on Etsy and so many free options on canva! This is not competitive pricing 💔

[jophb]

PLEASE remove the 'marketing fee' on self-referrals of digital products. You are making us lose half the sale! It's insane.  Additionally why did I only get 4% on the referral??? This is so messed up!

[tnestico]

Wow, this is insane, I am hoping to sell many invitations, but seeing what you got from that big sale doesn't motivate me anymore to do all that work...wow wow wow. Crazy.

[SandyMDesigns]

I am confused. I thought the 3rd party would always get 15%. My recent sales show that the 3rd party had gotten 40%. I thought those percentages were only for self-promotion.

[jophb]

Lovely.  One of these I spent the time to promote, and brought Zazzle a customer... and was rewarded with half the pay.  (for anyone who doesn't know yet, the 'self referral' you get on these is only $.45)

[Mistica]

I really need for this to get simplier.

Let's pretend I have a tons of blogs (I don't) that even get traffic,...and all the products were wedding invites. Does that mean that each blog sale gets me 50% ?

But if sold from the market place.... pennies?

[MargPhoto]

Zazzle has made everything so complicated. I see some people actually are making less for a self referral? So is it better to not use the self referral link? I just feel confused about this whole thing 

[osea]

I've not read everything now as I'm tired due to my health. I started on Zazzle with over-suggested royalty rate, but I proposed something interesting and I got real sales. Now I'm setting/keeping royalties lower to try to boost again. 

[glitterandchic]

Just made a 4% referral for a sale I brought to Zazzle.   I have never made such a low rate.  However, the royalty on the product shows 92.9% rate on a $10.16 sale but the royalty was $4.25 which is clearly not 92.9% so I'm confused.  All of my products are now set at 10% for royalties.  I'm completely lost. Feels like the new math of 2025. 

[rileyandzoe]

I also just made my first self-referred sale since the adjustments - on a digital invitation. Mine are set to 92% and I am also very confused about where the rest of the royalty went?? I thought self-referrals meant we kept the marketing fee part of the sale as part of our referral commission, but clearly not. That makes no sense and seems incredibly unfair.

Sale price was $10.65, my royaly at 92% was only $4.41 and a measly $0.43 for my referral. What the heck, Zazzle?! 😢

[osea]

Maybe there is some missunderstanding for someone. Check here Ambassador Referral Commissions & Creator Royalties – Zazzle Help Center

If it's time for someone to do the math, it's important to remember the percentage can refers to different cases: % about Product price and % about royalties.

[xBrie]

Thanks Osea, that definitely clears some of the questions about where the profits were going up. Only makes me more heartbroken. 

Marketing Royalty Fee Table (by Department):

Marketplace Department	Marketing Royalty Fee*
Accessories	40%
Baby & Kids	40%
Clothing & Shoes	35%
Crafts & Party Supplies	40%
Electronics	40%
Home & Living	40%
Invitations & Stationery	50%
Office & School	45%
Sports, Toys & Games	45%
Wall Art & Décor	40%
Weddings	50%

So basically, we are paying these marketing royalty fees on all of our sales even if we market it. Is that correct? If so this might be the worst change for sellers I have ever seen a platform make in history then. They upped the possibility of royalties being 5-15% more depending on the products, but tried to hide the fact that they plan to take 40% of your sales regardless. Then to ensure you didn't up your prices for customers to get fairly compensated, they slapped an ADDITIONAL fee on any royalty over 15% ? 🤔💔

This change has the possibility to be good for a handful of wedding invitation sellers who are able to self promote daily, but I can't think of too many other people it would benefit. 

I actually love Zazzle so much. Before I was a seller here, I used to come here to use the "create my own product" and design gifts for grandma or friends. They have so many great products.  But I don't think we should be paying for their marketing. Yes, it's getting more competitive. Yes, it's getting more expensive. But then they budget that into their companies personal finance goals and either take the cut or raise the base price of the products. You don't take it from your sellers. On top of that, you are deducting your marketing each year!!! So it's not like it's even a cost you have to *fully* eat yourself anyways 😔 I LOVE the competitions but I really hope to not see any $20,000 giveaways if you guys are so strapped for marketing cash. 

I have been working Zazzle like a full time job the past 2 months trying to get all of my graduation listings upgraded images, planning the graduation posts and completing the collections with missing pieces. I have printed corrugated signs with QR codes matching the school colors of the richest cities in my state and placed them around the schools 😅 I am taking graduation embarrassingly seriously and I am just really scared all of this hard work will end in heartbreak when every sale that comes in, I am praying you don't take 40-50%.

[baobunz]

There is an option to unenroll from the Zazzle Ambassador Program. Would that mean we would go back to earining the same percentages before this confusion?

[osea]

I'm happy to understand the new program works better: designer/creator is recognized as designer/creator, ambassador/promoter as ambassador/promoter from the link structure. But I will wait a little to opt out from the ambassador program, when the confusion will end.

[Arthi]

"What I understand about the new marketing fee is: if someone buys 100 invitations with my design and I earn a 9% royalty, I would normally make $9. However, since the sale came through a third-party referral and not directly from me, a 50% marketing fee is applied. This means half of my earnings ($4.50) goes to the third-party platform, and I end up receiving only $4.50 instead of the full $9. So literally my earnings will be half hereafter since most of my earnings are 3rd party referrals. 

[Mistica]

Are we auto enrolled in Ambassador?

[Arthi]

The marketing fee applies to all regardless of whether you enroll or not in the ambassador program. That's what I understood 

[rileyandzoe]

It just makes absolutely no sense for designers to earn less money on a self-referred digital invitation sale than on a non-referred sale. Why should I spend extra time promoting?? This whole update is so depressing.

[nadil2]

The Marketing Fee chart is the main element. Zazzle will deduct between 35% % and 50% ( depending on which department your product is being sold belongs to) of the calculated royalties as a Marketing Fee for each sale. It does not matter if it was referred by self-referral, a third person, or Zazzle. I have not seen such high marketing fee percentages. Zazzle should review these percentages based on the Creator's responses to the program.

[osea]

I've had a better overview of the program and it seems very good. Will maybe look at it again. It's better to understand it fully before take actions.

[Mistica]

Actions speak louder than words. Just watch your own sales numbers etc and you can then decide.

[osea]

@Mistica I know. I know also is better do good actions only... The perfection remain far anyway...

[BN_Stationery]

Is this saying if we have a self referred sale we don’t get a royalty? Why is it being deducted 

[rileyandzoe]

I think the issue with the digital self-referrals is that you end up with 50% of the total (royalty + referral) but that actually comes out to LESS than a 92% royalty (or whatever similar % you may have). Which really sucks that you get screwed for promoting, when you'd otherwise get the full 92% royalty on a non-referred sale.

I understand the marketing fee on third party referrals - I don't like it, but I can understand the logic. For self-referrals, it makes no sense!

[Scrapmaker]

I've read enough. This is ridiculous and not worth it. The seller does all the work to bring someone in to the platform, then they get charged for it...and it seems exorbitantly so?! Most unethical!

What a waste of my time, as it was, with all the hoops that you have to go through just to set up your storefronts in the first place. Now, I couldn't be more unhappy and disappointed in any of my entrepreneurial decisions than I am about my setting up shops here, of all places.

I'm outta here. Closing my shops and moving on.

[Mistica]

I had about a dozen niche domain names on auto renew.
I had some of the sites ready for the next step.
I just canceled the auto renew on those domains. I will have a dozen domains I won't have to pay for every year. I do have one site that was very close to completion.
Not so sure it is worth the time to button it up.
It could have been worse. I could have completed those sites after hours and hours of intense labor...and recurring expenses. Looking for the silver lining...I guess I dodged a few bullets.
Wishing all of you well as you move on to your next chapters. 

[LindaS1]

When will we get more details on the Linkover History tab?

Currently it just has clicks/day with no details as to where they came from.

With these changes that are largely UNfavorable for designers, there should be full accountability as to where the links are coming from and going to.

[osea]

How I can submit the form by another email no associated with my google account? 

[osea]

I already submitted, but with google account email, and like other times someone can reply saying the email is not the one associated with the Zazzle account.

There's nor glicth, neither violations from my end.

[Mistica]

I have an old site with Zazzle products (mine). Will the link that is on my site with rf still earn me a referral? It was 15%.
What is it today? I saw conflicting opinions lately and maybe now that the dust might have settled I would like to know what my efforts with that site might earn.

[tnestico]

I honestly do not complete understand if we will actually get penalized for self-promoting or not. This is a screenshot of what I was reading from Zazzle today: we would be the Hustler if we promote and there's only a 75cents royalty fee with a royalty rate of 15%... no marketing fee shown here...is this misleading? Thank you for explaining it to me. 🙂 

[Deb]

---

The Marketing Royalty Fee applies whenever a sale is referred, whether by you, another Ambassador, or Zazzle. This structure helps our systems run smoothly across all types of Referrals

Im sorry but this just has to be the lamest answers of all time .. so what I am hearing is the marketing fee is charged to us for zazzle to list it the same as a third party because its easier? This entire earnings structure is so convoluted, I doubt anyone could actually  figure it out properly .. whats the point? And why are there different penalties .. uh I mean royalty fees for different departments ? What is the reason? 

[SORS]

Zazzle says "The Marketing Royalty Fee applies whenever a sale is referred, whether by you, another Ambassador, or Zazzle. This structure helps our systems run smoothly across all types of Referrals"

Are you kidding me? What does that even mean? 

A customer clicked on my CLEAN link and it shows up as a "self" referral on my royalty page, but on my referral page, a  there is NOTHING showing up as a referral.   And the best Zazzle can do is have their customer service team tell me I will have to wait for it to show up because it is still pending.  Seriously?  Please have some transparency here Zazzle.  

[Infinitostyle]

It's clear that creators and designers are not a priority for this marketplace. Personally, I feel very dissatisfied with the new royalty system. I understand that those who drive traffic and generate sales deserve a commission — that's part of the business. However, there should be a mechanism that doesn’t cut designers’ earnings by 50%. Also, I believe we have every right to know who these third parties are that are supposedly converting traffic into sales. In my particular case, I’d also like to know who the people are — or where the comments are — from those who are actually happy with this new system. Because honestly, I haven’t seen anyone in this forum who is satisfied with these changes.

[YesItsRoy]

I asked this question of support and never received an answer.  Regarding this from the FAQ:

Q: What happens if I use my Referral link in a paid ad?
A: You cannot use Zazzle's brand or trademarks to generate Referral Commissions via paid
search ads or display network advertisements. Doing so violates the Ambassador Program terms
and may result in withheld Referral Commissions or removal from the program.

The answer is nonresponsive.  A Referral ID doesn't identify the ad or link as a Zazzle branded product or mean that we are also promoting Zazzle's brand or trademarks in an ad.  We may, however, use a Zazzle link which, of course, has the word "zazzle" in it.

Does that answer intend that we simply aren't permitted to utilize paid ads to generate traffic if we direct link to our Product Pages because the word "zazzle" is in our links?   Or are we not permitted to add our Referral ID to paid links, and for what reason (again, RF ID doesn't betray branding)?  

[kashmier]

Is there an option to opt out of this program?  It is becoming too much trying to figure out marketing while also trying to keep up designing in multiple shops.  You wrote above  "Creators are the heart and soul of our platform, "  In that case  you need to allow the creators to opt out of this. I have been with Zazzle for more than 15 years and this is by far the most confusing thing that has happened. Aside from when we were able to do our own code for each store. When CSS came out I figured out the technical area of the work was not for me. Thinking about it, that was hands down the most confusing but being much younger it was easier to learn and work into the wee hours. 

[avid_x]

I just unenrolled from the Ambassador Program. I clicked on the tab (between My Account and Earnings). At the bottom of the page, the last option, was a check box to Unenroll. 

I got this page after

[kashmier]

avid_x did your earnings go back to the normal settings?  It seems like with the program you only get 10% no matter what you use as mark-up. It is really depressing to only get 10% on all my items no matter what. 

[SandyMDesigns]

I am assuming that if you unenroll from the Ambassador Program (which I didn't notice before it was brought up by  avid_x )

Zazzle will still be taking an extra 35% to 50% out for their 3rd party fee. For me, it is like buying a lottery ticket if I get a referral.