Royalty rates offered by various font retailers

satya

Hello!

I'm conducting some research on the royalty rates offered by various font retailers and I need your help to complete the list below. Although I know the % offered by some of the popular distributors (as ITF fonts are available there), I don't have information about the rest. I'd appreciate if someone (who are offering their fonts from these channels) could help me complete this list.

• MyFonts: 50%
• Fontshop: 50%
• Fonts.com: 50%
• Linotype: 50%
• Fontspring: 70%
• Fontstand: 50%
• Creative Market:70%
  
• Adobe Typekit:
  
• Type Network: 
• You Work For Them:
• FontHaus: 
  
• Village: 
  
• Font Bros: 
  
• Hype For Type: 
  
• Phil's Fonts: 
• Type.co.uk: 
  

If I've missed any retailer, please let me know. 

Thank you! 
Satya

Ray Larabie

Fonthaus: 50%
Hype For Type: 50%
Font Bros: 65%
Type.co.uk: 50%

Adobe Typekit: A mix of flat annual subscription and a percentage of overage fees. You can't compare side-by-side with the others.

AzizMostafa AzizAli

https://www.indiantypefoundry.com/

AzizMostafa AzizAli

http://maryamsoft.com/FontShop/

Unique and dynamic right to left fonts that can be explored by clicking on their images.

Paulo Goode

YWFT are 50% too.

satya

Thank you, @Ray Larabie

Adobe Typekit: A mix of flat annual subscription and a percentage of overage fees. You can't compare side-by-side with the others. 

I was actually curious about Typekit because it's hard to calculate royalties from a subscription. So if no one use (or buy) your fonts through Typekit, you don't get paid at all? 

satya

AzizMostafa said:

http://maryamsoft.com/FontShop/

Unique and dynamic right to left fonts that can be explored by clicking on their images.

Hi @Az@AzizMostafa,
do you know who runs http://maryamsoft.com? I can't search because it's all in Arabic. 

AzizMostafa AzizAli

Hi Satya,
To see who is who and what is what, please right click on http://maryamsoft.com/ to translate into English.

Ray Larabie

So if no one use (or buy) your fonts through Typekit, you don't get paid at all? 

It's a fixed annual rate for each font (paid out annually) whether or not the font is used. If a font is used on a site that goes beyond a subscriber's allotted pageviews (overage), that user is charged extra and I get some of that. Overage payments are paid out quarterly.

satya

Ray Larabie said:

So if no one use (or buy) your fonts through Typekit, you don't get paid at all? 

It's a fixed annual rate for each font (paid out annually) whether or not the font is used. If a font is used on a site that goes beyond a subscriber's allotted pageviews (overage), that user is charged extra and I get some of that. Overage payments are paid out quarterly.

Unless it’s confidential, do you mind sharing how much is that for each font/family annually? Also, do they have a fixed rate for everyone or it’s negotiable? I tried to look this info on their website but couldn’t find anything. But it looks like it’s quite complex.

I wrote them back in 2014 to include ITF fonts but they never responded to my email. 

JoyceKetterer

I'm not sure if I misunderstand @Ray Larabie  or if he and we have a different deal with Adobe.  We were one of the first foundries to sign on and I don't know if the deal we have is the same for new foundries (which is honestly what matters for this list).  Perhaps @Matthew Rechs is at liberty provide more information and maybe even give real numbers.  

Abobe has three different font related services and each is priced differently.  For us, none are a flat rate.  

1. Typekit web hosting ( Pricing is by tiers of page views and the foundry receives a pre agreed amount based on page views.  I can't remember if we get a guarantee at the start of each contract year for this one.  Web pays us so little I don't pay close attention it it.  In this case the end user is charged overage if there is any and we do get our share of that)
2. Marketplace (sales of licenses for 1 CPU only.  The price is set by the foundry which receives a traditional percentage.  licensor is the foundry but it is a special license that is written with the service in mind)
3. Sync (adobe customers don't pay for this directly.  It is part of their cloud account.  Foundries are paid based on the number of end user accounts that include the fonts to their "sync" each month. We have a pre agreed guarantee amount that applies to all of our fonts (popular and unpopular alike).  It's an amount per style that we get for every style in the system paid annually at the start of each contract year.  If an individual style exceeds that amount we are paid for overage based on the same schedule of sync to cents that was used to determine the guarentee)

satya

Thank for sharing these details @JoyceKetterer! This is quite insightful. 

Stephen Coles

You could bundle MyFonts, Fontshop, Fonts.com, and Linotype because signing a distribution contract with Monotype automatically includes all four sites (at the same rate).

Ray Larabie

Unless it’s confidential.

It is. I signed on months before Typekit launched so it's likely not the same as what they offer everyone.

André G. Isaak

3. Sync (adobe customers don't pay for this directly.  It is part of their cloud account.  Foundries are paid based on the number of end user accounts that include the fonts to their "sync" each month.

As an end user I’ve always been a bit curious about this. If I use a particular font (e.g.) four times in a month, does it matter from your revenue standpoint whether I sync the font once and leave it synced all month vs. if I sync and unsync it four times?

satya

Stephen Coles said:

You could bundle MyFonts, Fontshop, Fonts.com, and Linotype because signing a distribution contract with Monotype automatically includes all four sites (at the same rate).

You're right about the latter three but I think they still consider MyFonts a separate entity within their organization. They also have separate agreements for MyFonts and the rest three. 

Monotype (Fonts.com, Fontshop, Linotype) pays only 25% royalties for web-fonts and 10% for OEM. But on MyFonts everything is 50%. 

satya

Ray Larabie said:

Unless it’s confidential.

No worries. 

It is. I signed on months before Typekit launched so it's likely not the same as what they offer everyone.

MyFonts used to offer up-to 85% royalties at some point but now it's flat 50% for everyone, including the ones who joined them before the acquisition. 

JoyceKetterer

Btw, some may remember that in a previous thread I said that we are almost to the point with our Adobe income that I could imagine it being a reasonable sole income stream.  The amount we make from Adobe is still a little shy of what a one person shop would want to make to justify being nowhere else  - but give them a few years. 

Additionally, we are still seeing a lot of direct sales that are referred from Adobe.  This is one of three things: 1. an end client who's graphic designer found us through the Sync services and it won a pitch but the end client doesn't have Adobe licensing 2.  large companies that can get better bulk pricing for the font from us 3.  customers who use the Adobe access for all desktop use but need app embedding or (for technical reasons) to self host on web.  

So, even if Adobe was providing us with a sufficient income to consider dropping direct sales the state of the technology is still such that we'd be leaving too much money on the table if we did so.  I'm watching this closely because I think that in the next ten years we will reach a point where the old guard like us can still justify keeping our shopping carts open but new foundries are better off not.  

I don't mean to imply the foundry model should cease.  Just that direct sales of retail fonts may stop making sense (custom fonts being a different thing) as use moves more and more to the cloud.  A foundry would still have a curatorial identity, still promote its fonts through advertising and micro sites - but the distribution channels would be elsewhere.  

JoyceKetterer

André G. Isaak said:

As an end user I’ve always been a bit curious about this. If I use a particular font (e.g.) four times in a month, does it matter from your revenue standpoint whether I sync the font once and leave it synced all month vs. if I sync and unsync it four times?

I just saw your question.  I really don't know the answer to this question because, as I understand it, the system is built with the assumption that end users will add a font to sync and leave it there indefinitely.  Most users do have a limit to the number of fonts they can add but it's always pretty high and there's no more incentive to remove a font from your sync then there is to delete emails in gmail.  

If your scenario is resulting in us getting paid four times it's a loop hole that Adobe isn't going to care about because that end user behavior is uncommon.

Stuart Sandler

@satya Font Bros pays 65% royalties on all sales regardless if it's OEM, Desktop, Web, etc.

David Vereschagin

satya said:

MyFonts used to offer up-to 85% royalties at some point but now it's flat 50% for everyone, including the ones who joined them before the acquisition. 

I still get my original royalty rate on desktop fonts with MyFonts from when I signed on in 2000, even though I signed up with Monotype a few years ago.

Dave Rowland

David Vereschagin said:

I still get my original royalty rate on desktop fonts with MyFonts from when I signed on in 2000, even though I signed up with Monotype a few years ago.

You get more than 50%? If that's true I don't think MyFonts would like you broadcasting it. When my royalty rate dropped I was told they could no longer "grandfather" old rates. I assumed this was the same for all foundries. If not, then there are going to be a lot of us who have lost thousands of $ because of the royalty change, but I imagine if there are still foundries on old deals they're not likely to let on.

Ray Larabie

I still get my original royalty rate on desktop fonts with MyFonts from when I signed on in 2000, even though I signed up with Monotype a few years ago.

satya

I still get my original royalty rate on desktop fonts with MyFonts from when I signed on in 2000, even though I signed up with Monotype a few years ago. 

@David Vereschagin, would you allow me to distribute our fonts under your foundry on MyFonts? When you receive royalty payments, you can keep 10% of it and pay me the rest,  

Dave Crossland

https://venturebeat.com/2018/07/12/fortnite-creator-epic-gives-unreal-asset-creators-a-raise-and-backpay/

Interesting what happens when there is more competition in a marketplace.....

Matthew Rechs

Sorry I missed this thread, but Joyce has done such a nice job of explaining our model, there's not much more left for me to say. Thanks Joyce! If we got any of this stuff right, it's partially because of all your help over the years.

I'd prefer not to spill out more details publicly, since they are subject to change. I'll just say that we intend for our terms to be the most favorable to designers among retailers. If you'd like more information, you can write foundries@typekit.com.

As Joyce illustrates, we're getting pretty good at licensing type to individual customers at a massive scale. However, we don't offer volume, custom, embedding, or other licenses -- nothing beyond the desktop + web license that a typical individual Creative Cloud user is likely to need. Addressing the most common needs of our individual users is our focus.

Adobe wins when our users discover the power that great type has to transform their work using our tools. It makes them successful, which makes us successful -- more than we could ever be from taking your type and marking it up. 

Hopefully this puts us in a position to be the best partner possible to the industry. We might not always get that 100% exactly perfect, and we have certainly had some trouble keeping up with our extraordinary growth, but we are trying like heck. 

--Matthew