Many 3d artists, including myself make an extra buck by selling 3d models on sites like turbosquid, so you may already be are aware of the fact that turbosquid keeps 50% of everything you sell. If you also take into consideration the fact that your remaining share is subject to a tax (10% – 30%) for vendors outside US, you realize that you end up with pocket change.
But things seem to go even worse…
Some days ago I received a newsletter from the admin at The3dstudio.com, in which he stated that he had been approached by several members that sell models on both TS and his site. These people told him that members from the turbosquid stuff had tried to convince them to sell their models exclusively on turbosquid, in return for higher royality rate of 60%. The bad news is that they were also told that everybody that chooses not to sell 3d exclusively will have the royalty rate reduced to 40%. (Actually he hasn’t specifically named the site, but it was more than obvious that he was talking about turbosquid)
At this royalty rate, if you sell a 50 dollars product, and if you are subject to a 30% tax of what’s left, you end up with 14 dollars (not to mention the bank transfer or paypal withdrawals commissions).
On the other hand, the3dstudio already offers a 60% royalty and promises to give a much higher percent to anyone who decides to go exclusive with them.
From the buyer’s point of view, I believe that TS will become less interesting, due to the fact that most sellers will raise the prices of their products after this.
Already the difference between the prices of similar products on these 2 sites is noticeable, but if this royalty change isn’t just a rumor I’m sure the difference will become much more than noticeable.
I’ve also heard from top sellers (people with more than 1000 products in their inventory) that if this is true they will remove all their models from turbosquid. So far the only reason why turbosquid is ahead of the3dstudio is because of larger inventory, but I guess this can change as well.
Since TS hasn’t given any official response to this yet, we will all have to wait and see.
What about you? Are you selling items on one of these sites? I’m curios to hear about your experiences.
