How much money does a Unity Asset Developer make?

Making money on the Asset Store is a tricky business. Especially newcomers are sometimes shocked by how little money ends up in their pockets. This is a breakdown of where the money goes.

How much money will be left to you as a developer actually depends on where you live, where you pay your taxes, and what kind of insurance you (are obligated to) have. To illustrate this we will go through two scenarios, the high-tax- and the low-tax case.

Whether or not you can make a living off of the money you get highly depends on where you live. This is something to discuss another time. Let's focus only on what you can earn.

The high-tax scenario

For the sake of simplicity, we assume your product costs $100 including any taxes. This makes calculations easy and gives us all the results in percentages.

The following scenario is not bad per se, it is the one that yields the least net income after all deductions.

Here are the assumptions this calculation is based on:

• The developer lives in Europe in a high-tax area (27% obligatory social insurance, 15% income tax after deductions)
• VAT is 20%
• Expenses: 20%
  • These vary a lot. Here we assume a work-from-home indie dev who is not spending much. These cover software licenses, rent for your office (if you have one), internet fees, accounting, ... . Usually the costs of production are very low in software (if you don't count labor costs).
• The payout currency is EUR

Using these numbers we get this calculation:

Of the $120 your customers spend on your asset about $34 will land in your pocket.

Currency Conversion*: This includes any banking fees (payout fees by Unity). As far as we know, Unity does calculate your revenue in USD only and then converts it to your payout currency. The conversion rate is fixed at certain intervals (once every quarter for example). In this scenario, we assume the worst case which means you lose additional money due to conversion. In the past, it also happened that it worked the other way around and developers benefitted from a strong USD compared to EUR.

Expenses*: The range of expenses can vary a lot. The 20% taken here is probably at the low end.

Social Insurance*: This can vary a lot. In some countries it is obligatory to have social insurance, in others, it may not be. Anyways, it is always a good idea to have at least some minimal insurance. The number chosen here is probably at the high end. Most times social insurance costs can be deducted from your income before paying taxes.

Income Tax*: Taxes vary wildly depending on where you live and how you are incorporated.

The low-tax scenario

This scenario is the one that yields the most net income after all deductions.

Here are the assumptions this calculation is based on:

• The developer lives in a tax haven (10% social insurance, 0% income tax after deductions)
• VAT is 0%
• Expenses: 20%
  • We assume the same as in the previous example.
• The payout currency is USD

Using these numbers we get this calculation:

Of the $120 your customers spend on your asset about $50 will land in your pocket.

Interesting articles for you:

Asset recommendations:

I hope you liked the article. Here are some of my assets. If you buy one of them then the money earned will also go to this project. Thank you.