Meta has announced that it will charge creators a 47.5% commission fee on purchases made in “Metaverse”. This is the same company that ran a campaign against Apple for its 30% commission rate on App Store purchases.
The company has announced that it will start testing the ability to sell virtual items and experiences with select Horizon creators. This is similar to how Roblox works with creators. Purchases in Horizon Worlds will be available to people 18+ in the United States and Canada, the only places where the “metaverse” is currently available.
Meta to charge an astounding commission rate to creators
For creators in the United States, Meta has also announced a Horizon Worlds Creator Bonus program. This will help creators earn bonuses every month as long as they progress towards certain goals.
What Meta did not announce in its official post, but through CNBC is that Meta’s cut on each sale will be 47.5%, which is much higher than the 30% that companies like Google and Apple charge developers. Meta’s breakdown for the commission is that a “hardware platform fee”‘ of 30% and Horizon Worlds fee of 17.5% are included in the total.
Of course, this has bothered the creator community and they are understandably unhappy with the commission rate.
Just because you changed your name to Meta doesn’t mean you understand the value of Web3.
47.5% Creator Fees👀
I hate you Facebook.
— TradingFemale.nft (@TradingFemale) April 13, 2022
As CNBD notes, other NFT marketplaces charge 2% of 2.5% commission fees. Surprisingly, Meta thinks that they are completely justified and said that their rate is “pretty competitive” in the market.
Vivek Sharma, Meta’s VP of Horizon, told The Verge:
“We think it’s a pretty competitive rate in the market. We believe in the other platforms being able to have their share.”
Surprisingly, Meta is the same company that had called out Apple’s 30% commission rate not so long ago and ran a campaign against it. Back in November, CEO Mark Zuckerberg had said that they are creating a tool to help creators avoid Apple’s commission rate and earn more money.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently announced a number of updates for its “Subscriptions” tool which will circumvent Apple’s App Store guidelines in an effort to “help creators make more money, earn a sustainable living and have more control over the businesses they build on Facebook.”
There has been a backlash so far to this announcement. It will be interesting to see if Meta makes any changes based on this and whether the company will stop complaining about Apple’s 30% commission rate after this.
