The split, on every sale
Our full fee schedule, published as promised ahead of the September 1 beta — itemized on every sale, visible in real time. (For how it compares to other platforms, medium by medium, see what creators keep, dollar by dollar →)
- Card processing — 2.9% + $0.30. Passed through at cost.
- Platform fee — 10%. The only part IndieStarlight keeps: hosting, delivery, provenance protection, attribution, and payouts. Nothing is sold back to you separately.
- Ecosystem marketing fund — 10%. Ring-fenced. Not ours. See below.
- Curator commission — 25% floor, on curator-attributed sales only, rising to a 40% cap for featured placements (+5 points) and for championing new creators (+10 points under $1,000 in lifetime network sales, +5 points to $10,000). Every point above the floor is paid from the fund, not from the creator's share.
- The creator keeps everything that remains — roughly 71–75% on organic sales, 46–50% when a curator brought the buyer, plus a share of the annual fund return.
The new-creator boost locks in — permanently
The +10/+5 point boost for championing a new creator isn't just for that one sale: the moment a curator's storefront earns it for a given creator, it locks in for that curator on that creator's work, for good — even after the creator outgrows the tier that earned it. Find someone early, and your commission on their work stays boosted for as long as you keep selling it. It only ever locks in a higher rate, never a lower one, and applies only to the new-creator boost — a featured-placement boost (+5) is still a live, per-sale fact about that specific placement.
The ecosystem fund — your marketing budget, not our revenue
Ten percent of every sale funds the discovery boosts, provides the ongoing funding for the network's discovery contests and their prizes — credited into a winner's IndieStarlight wallet once staff finalize each contest after voting closes, season after season, supplemented by influencer and sponsor contributions — and buys network-wide marketing. None of it flows to the company: whatever the fund doesn't spend in a year is returned to creators pro rata to their sales, with 20% held back to seed the next year, and its accounting is published annually.
Wallet credit today; cash payouts are coming
Every dollar you earn is credited to your IndieStarlight wallet in real time and is yours — visible, itemized, and spendable on the network today. Cash disbursement out of that wallet (bank transfer or similar) isn't live yet while we build out payout infrastructure and the identity/tax verification it requires; we're targeting payouts within 7 days of a withdrawal request once it ships. See the Pilot Participation Agreement for the current commitment.
A musician sells a $9.99 album. Card processing takes $0.59, the platform fee is $1.00, and $1.00 goes to the ecosystem fund. Found directly, $7.40 lands in her wallet the moment payment clears; through a curator, the curator earns $2.50 and $4.90 lands in her wallet — for a buyer she'd never have reached — plus her year-end share of whatever the fund didn't spend.
Live numbers, honestly labeled
We will be adjusting these percentages live, throughout the beta and beyond, based on results and feedback from the network. Two commitments hold through every adjustment: at least 30 days' notice before any change, and full itemization on every sale — visible as it happens, not in an opaque monthly statement — so you always see exactly what changed and when.