Payout Rate Update - Effective September 15, 2026

CGTrader - back in the day, they used to message every creator, promising 100% royalties for 3 months and then 80% on a permanent basis. I ignored their platform for a long time because I was an exclusive seller on another American website. But I never respected CGTrader because they’ve always engaged in price dumping through aggressive, unjustified discounts on an ongoing basis. I honestly feel like they were the ones who unleashed this whole discount nonsense onto the CG world. But why? 3D assets don't have an expiration date. Even in grocery stores where food actually spoils, discounts reach 50% at most, but on CGTrader it's 70% - that's insanity! I assume this was done just to destroy their American competitor... And by the way, yes: one thing I truly respect about their American rival, no matter how bad they might be otherwise, is that they got rid of the discount system...

And so in 2018, I left the Guild and started uploading models to CGTrader. For 3 months I was getting 100% royalties, which then settled at 80%... But a year ago, they abruptly slashed my royalties! And this year - another minus 5%. To say I'm outraged is an understatement... CGTrader is a company that respects no one, and they are ultimately to blame for devaluing 3D! On top of that, the subscription model is sheer murder and a slap in the face to 3D creators.

And another thing I want to say: despite all this, I see that many artists are willing to sell their models for pennies through subscription plans themselves. Looking at this and seeing it happen, what made you think they wouldn't rob you blind? As far as I'm concerned, 3D has become a complete disgrace!

They seem desperate with how frequently they keep changing things. It feels like they’re trying to squeeze every last penny out of the market before AI takes over and puts them out of business.

We should set up our own plattform which only will pay the running costs by a very small amount of percentage paid by sellers and clients from the prices... Ideas how we could start this? Anybody has experience with these kind of things?

Yes, everyone should send a reply to the email, and say directly what you think ! spam there mail box to say our disagreement !!

Bye bye Cgtrader....

Seems like they've hidden the thread. I do not see it in General Discussion any more.

I have been selling 3d models since the days of the PRINT only Viewpoint catalogue, before they started online, in the '90s They also lowered royalties over & over until they went bust. Then Turbosquid. Fine at the start, like here, then they started getting greedy. I was at the top tier, and all of a sudden the best I could hope for was 40%, or 60% if I sold my soul to them completely. My guess is that CGT will reduce the rates down another 5% next year, at which point they will probably go out of business or sell up to TS or someone who pays even less. They aren't a massive company, and looking at their offices, on a small trading estate, in Vilnius, probably never will be.

It's simple. Once AI features are rolled out in a marketplace, the company will start charging more of the customers, and reducing seller profit, to make them pay for the new sloppification features. You'd think the opposite would happen but no.
It's the final brick wall we all had to face as creators sooner or later. It's just mentally tiring having to deal with one bad announcement after the other after the other. I mean enough is enough.

I am wondering what will we get next year? Another cut or something bigger? This trend doesn't look good

Right. This is actually it. I have as of right now taken down my models from this platform.

I can't believe you're actually doing this!!!

NOT ok CGTrader!

So here we are on the same road as Turbosquid. I signed up for this site on a PROMISE of good royalties many years ago. You are now just the same as them, ripping off people left and right, first it was charging people to get paid - an absolute SCANDAL in itself. Then I was almost at 78% before your last round of royalty cuts, which dropped me to 69%, which with a good deal of effort, I raised back to 71%, and NOW! you do it all over again. back down even lower than last time, with absolutely ZERO chance of getting back. It really isn't worth the effort any more. I hope you have fun with all the ripped off game models and AI slop. No I do not expect Anyone at CGT tro respond, read or even care about this. They never have before. If this gets any worse, we may as well all just go and sell exclusively at TS.

Excatly one year ago, they already cutted the payout rate. After years, I was getting around 75% and I droped down to 68%...
Now it's just a joke ! This plateform wants to die faster and bring us with her !
I think a majority of sellers have seen there sells reducing drastically for last months, they’re just accelerating to crash into the wall.

Also, one important note. In post it states that "Sales thresholds for each level are not changing." when in reality they are.

Current:
1 $0 60%
2 $50 61%
3 $150 62%
4 $300 63%
5 $450 64%
6 $700 65%
7 $1,000 66%
8 $1,300 67%
9 $1,700 68%
10 $2,200 69%
11 $2,800 70%
12 $3,500 71%
13 $4,500 72%
14 $6,000 73%
15 $8,000 74%
16 $11,000 75%
17 $15,000 76%
18 $19,000 77%
19 $24,000 78%
20 $30,000 79%
21 $38,000 80%
22 $50,000 81%
23 $70,000 82%
24 $100,000 83%
25 $200,000 84%
26 $300,000 85%

New:
1 $0 55%
2 $50 56%
3 $150 57%
4 $300 58%
5 $450 59%
6 $700 60%
7 $1,000 61%
8 $1,300 62%
9 $1,700 63%
10 $2,200 64%
11 $2,800 65%
12 $3,500 66%
13 $4,500 67%
14 $6,000 68%
15 $8,000 69%
16 $11,000 70%
17 $15,000 71%
18 $19,000 72%
19 $24,000 73%
20 $30,000 74%
21 $38,000 75%
22 $50,000 76%
23 $70,000 77%
24 $100,000 78%
25 $200,000 79%
26 $300,000 80%

Is there a competition for the worst company that I am not aware of ? It sounds like we might be winning!

I have just received the email about the planed Payout Rate Update and I need to express my honest disagreement on this. Comparing the fees on cgtrader against other plattforms like FAB which is and will be one of the biggest competitors it is a bad decision not only in terms of the artists but also in terms of the business. I will have to think twice in future if uploading assets on cgtrader is something worth still.

Making money from customers? No.
Making money from sellers? Yes.

Honestly... I was astounded when first payout layers had changed and I stopped uploading models for awhile. It took me some time to regain trust into this site and upload more models again, but this? Again? It's ridiculous.. seriously.. maybe look at total warned per whole time rather than 12 months? Once you were the site that was advertised as a most friendly to sellers, now with 55%... you might be in the bottom..

I have a small portfolio i dont sell much but atleast something. Iam currently on 62% which is still nothing super iam still getting scallped by this website so the few money that i make is getting reduced by 38% but now i will drop too 55% I will make nothing... Iam seriously thinking making my prices higher and moving to another site and building portfolio there.

NAIL IN THE COFFIN! This is the opposite of incentive for me. The equivalent models I post on Cults 3D get more views in a day than months on CGTrader. And that shop is relatively new.
In the last twelve months my sales on CGTrader have declined by 1/3 inspite of me adding up to 20 new models. With this new change I imagine another significant decline in revenue. There's just no point anymore. I'll be uploading elsewhere from now on. BTW I tested the AI modelling here. It truly sucks. Tripo is way better.

To retain my current payout rate, I would need to generate more than four times my current sales volume—with absolutely nothing in return. This is nothing short of theft. Is this even legal?

I’ve always felt like CGTrader’s payout system was a rip-off, especially for smaller sellers. Now they’re cutting the payout by another 5% at every single level.

I don’t even sell that much, so this probably won’t make a huge difference to me financially. What really pisses me off is the bullshit wording of the email.

Instead of just saying “we’re taking a bigger cut and you’re getting less,” they try to dress it up like some kind of improvement for sellers.

“Your rate increases as you sell more.”

Yeah, no shit. It already did that before. That has absolutely nothing to do with the actual change. The actual change is that every seller gets a worse payout rate than before.

Then they write that they’re “focused on growing the marketplace” so our models can “keep earning more over time.”

What a load of corporate PR nonsense. There is zero guarantee that any individual seller will get more sales because of this. The only guaranteed result is that CGTrader keeps a bigger share of every sale.

If you want to raise your fees, then just say so. Stop trying to sell a payout cut as if you’re doing sellers a favor. That kind of wording feels like you think your sellers are idiots.

Anyway, I’m deleting the few models I still have on CGTrader. I’m done with this platform.

If this is already the second time we have a cut on our royalties , does that mean there Will be a third time?

Don't forget to deduct another ~ 3% for payment processing fee.
Sooner this site dies the better.

This is not how you thank the loyal fans who stuck around and made your site into what it *was*. You're killing your platform slowly and as a result, losing your valuable skilled 3D creators. Whoever is at the top making these decisions needs to piss off.

There's absolutely no communication between you & this community, and sudden changes like this one is a major middle finger to slap us with. Worst part is you guys don't even care what we have to say.

See how long that'll last if you keep this up, you're gonna regret not listening to your community.

The fun fact Is that 300.000 earnings are 80% , the same as 1 year ago. This hasn't bene changed , but who earns 300.000 per year? How many artists?

This is an absolute disgrace. You are acting like vultures, taking an ever-larger share of the proceeds from designers’ hard work while creating nothing yourselves. These extortionate commission rates are simply outrageous. You should be ashamed.

The sales thresholds for each level remain unchanged. - Yes, you have simply reduced the artist's revenue share by 5% at every level.

Is this even legal? You literally decreased everyone's share not that long ago.

You killed the market with AI, boost system and the subscription system, and now want to recoup the losses from our pockets.
I'm raising my prices (for the second time) effective September 15th to match the new rates, I'd rather see my products rot on shelves than sold for pennies.

CG Trader has been doing nothing but worsen the conditions for its publishers for the last year. You have clogged your site with AI garbage and now customers are leaving your site, and you are trying to recover the income by taking it away from existing sellers.

I won’t be releasing any new models on CGTrader after this change. With the new payout rates, it’s simply not worth it anymore.

What is this supposed to mean? "Sales thresholds for each level are not changing"...

My payout rate was worhnd 72-75%, now it will be around 68-69%.
How will this help me earn more?

what the hell i farmed the reputation system all these years for

Does CGTrader support actually exist?
You keep telling sellers to contact support if they have questions, but I contacted support over a week ago and still haven’t received any response.

So how exactly are sellers supposed to resolve account-specific issues if support simply doesn’t reply?

I will go down from 73 % to 67 - 66 % !