unity revenue calculator
calculate how much unity's previously proposed yearly cut is
Made by me :)
this calculator is based on my interpretation of unity's initial announcement, and also assumes you've already met the minimum revenue and install thresholds.
Unity: plan pricing and packaging updates - September 12th, 2023
after about 2 weeks of non-stop outrage and lackluster clarifications from Unity, they changed their upcoming policies and addressed most of the immediate user concerns.
Unity: An open letter to our community - September 22nd, 2023
plan price per year: $0.00
(plan price not included below)
unity plans above "Personal" give a discount for more installs in a single month
less spread = unity takes a lower cut
yearly result
gross income: $1,000,000.00
unity's cut: 0.00%
unity fee: $0.00
left over for you: $1,000,000.00
installs: 1,000,000
Jan
installs: 83,333.333
$16,666.67
(83,333.333 x $0.2)
Feb
installs: 83,333.333
$16,666.67
(83,333.333 x $0.2)
Mar
installs: 83,333.333
$16,666.67
(83,333.333 x $0.2)
Apr
installs: 83,333.333
$16,666.67
(83,333.333 x $0.2)
May
installs: 83,333.333
$16,666.67
(83,333.333 x $0.2)
Jun
installs: 83,333.333
$16,666.67
(83,333.333 x $0.2)
Jul
installs: 83,333.333
$16,666.67
(83,333.333 x $0.2)
Aug
installs: 83,333.333
$16,666.67
(83,333.333 x $0.2)
Sep
installs: 83,333.333
$16,666.67
(83,333.333 x $0.2)
Oct
installs: 83,333.333
$16,666.67
(83,333.333 x $0.2)
Nov
installs: 83,333.333
$16,666.67
(83,333.333 x $0.2)
Dec
installs: 83,333.333
$16,666.67
(83,333.333 x $0.2)
background info
On September 12th, 2023, Unity announced that they'd be adjusting their pricing structures for any existing or future projects developed with the unity engine starting on January 1st, 2023.
The announcement can be found on Unity's blog post, and includes the following graphic depicting the new pricing structure which is in addition to the existing yearly license developers have to pay.
This caused an immediate stir in the game developer community, not only was this new policy being introduced with no option for existing projects to opt out of future updates to keep the old structure, it also introduces a fee which is not based on the revenue of the game, but instead a vague "runtime fee", also refered to as "installs" in the blog post.
The immediately understood implications by the gaming community from the early versions of the wording Unity put out, was that this means a project could quickly run up a fee which far exceeds its revenue, or even allow end users to abuse the system by repeatedly installing games by developers they dislike to run up a bill. Unity also isn't involved in the install process beyond writting the software that compiles the installer, so there are no operating costs associated with end users installs to unity, making this feel like an extremely arbitrary and unfair metric.
Unity has since made statements implying that their definition of an "install" may imply something other than a literal install, and that they'll be taking numbers from platforms rather than using any "phone home" telemetry in the engine itself. They have not fully clarified at the time of writting, so it's unclear what the full implications are.
On September 22nd, 2023, Unity released a follow up blog post properly addressing user concerns, walking back the more egregious parts of the original announcement.
The pricing structure simplification was practically unavoidable, but developer trust has still been shaken by the initial announcement and amount of time it took for Unity to properly follow up.
Unity has a history of ToS changes which have angered developers, previously they had a public git repository on GitHub where they listed the ToS, and changes to it were easily viewable so that developers could ship their game with the ToS version which was in effect when they launched their game. This was removed some time ago to much criticism and anger of the community, and only recently restored on September 22nd, 2023.