Zazzle Ambassador and Creator Royalties and Referrals
In effect April 1, 2025
Roles and Earnings
Creators: Creators earn Royalties from sales of their published Products and Content. Creators may set their Royalty rate anywhere between the Standard Royalty Rate and the Maximum Royalty Rate:
Name Your Royalty Table (for Primary Content):
| Primary Content | Standard Royalty Rate | Maximum Royalty Rate |
| Physical Products | 5% | 50% |
| Zazzle Heart Products | 5% | 5% |
| Digital Products (i.e., Instant Downloads) | 5% | 99% |
Content that is: (i) published by Creators using our Creator tools, and (ii) associated with one or more Product type(s) (e.g., t-shirt, Facebook® banner, digital product, tote bag, etc.), is "Primary Content." Primary Content published by a Creator will not be available as digital Product(s) unless the Creator so chooses.
Marketing Royalty Fee Table (by Department):
Content that is: (i) published by Creators using our Creator tools, and (ii) associated with one or more Product type(s) (e.g., t-shirt, Facebook® banner, digital product, tote bag, etc.), is "Primary Content." Primary Content published by a Creator will not be available as digital Product(s) unless the Creator so chooses.
Ambassadors: Ambassadors can earn Referral Commissions through two types of Referral links:
- Cross-Promotion Links: Ambassadors earn a Referral Commission of fifteen percent (15%) of Net Referral Sales on sales of any Creator’s Product, via Cross-Promotion Links that include their Ambassador ID.
- Self-Promotion Links: Ambassadors can generate Earnings (Royalty + Referral Commission) of thirty-five to fifty percent (35-50%) (varies by Product department) for sales of their own Products, via Self-Promotion Links.
Ambassador Royalty and Referral Commission Percentages
Referral Commissions Table (by Department):
| Product Marketplace Department |
Self-Promotion Link Earnings
|
Cross-Promotion Link Referral Commission Percent of Net Referral Sales (Referral Commission) |
| Accessories | 40% | 15% |
| Baby & Kids | 40% | 15% |
| Clothing & Shoes | 35% | 15% |
| Crafts & Party Supplies | 40% | 15% |
| Electronics | 40% | 15% |
| Home & Living | 40% | 15% |
| Invitations & Stationery | 50% | 15% |
| Office & School | 45% | 15% |
| Sports, Toys & Games | 45% | 15% |
| Wall Art & Décor | 40% | 15% |
| Weddings | 50% | 15% |
* Excess Royalty Fees will be deducted, as applicable.
* If your Royalties earned on a digital Product exceed the Self-Promotion Link Earnings goal for a Product in that relevant Product Marketplace Department (i.e., 35-50% of Net Referral Sales), you will not earn a Referral Commission for that Referred Sale.
Fees
- Marketing Royalty Fee: A Marketing Royalty Fee ranging from thirty-five to fifty percent (35-50%) of Gross Royalties, depending on the Product department. Our goal with the Marketing Royalty Fee is to ensure that your work still reaches a wide audience—especially in an era of increasing advertising costs—while rewarding those who actively drive traffic to Zazzle.
Marketing Royalty Fee Table (by Department):
| Marketplace Department | Marketing Royalty Fee* |
| Accessories | 40% |
| Baby & Kids | 40% |
| Clothing & Shoes | 35% |
| Crafts & Party Supplies | 40% |
| Electronics | 40% |
| Home & Living | 40% |
| Invitations & Stationery | 50% |
| Office & School | 45% |
| Sports, Toys & Games | 45% |
| Wall Art & Décor | 40% |
| Weddings | 50% |
* % of Gross Royalty
- Excess Royalty Fee: An Excess Royalty Fee of five percent (5%) of the Gross Royalty will apply when Your Royalty Rate is set above ten percent (10%), to cover transaction processing costs.
- Secondary Content Royalty Share: When Customers incorporate Secondary Content into their purchased Products, the Primary Content Creator will have their Primary Content Gross Royalty reduced by this amount.
Secondary Content
NOTE: As of August 7th, 2025, Secondary Content, part of Zazzle’s design tools, has been retired to make space for a new and improved design experience.
Secondary Content includes digital Content without direct product association (e.g., photography, illustrations created with software like Adobe® Illustrator® or Photoshop®) (“Images”) or simple forms of Content (e.g., Text Pairings, Decorated Text, Shapes, Lines, Icons, Stickers, Simple Vector Art, Background Images, or Background Patterns) (“Elements”). When Customers incorporate Secondary Content into Products, Royalty distribution will occur as follows:
- Primary Content + Images: The Primary Content Creator receives seventy-five percent (75%) of the Royalty, while the Secondary Content Creator(s) of the Images equally share the remaining twenty-five percent (25%).
- Primary Content + Elements: The Primary Content Creator receives fifty (50) times more of the Royalty than the Secondary Content Element Creators, with the Element Creators collectively capped at receiving ten percent (10%) of the Royalty.
- Primary Content + Images + Elements: The Primary Content Creator will receive no less than seventy-five percent (75%) of the Royalty. The remaining twenty-five percent (25%) of the Royalty will be split between the Secondary Content Image and Element Creators at a ratio of twenty-five to one (25:1), until the Element Creators reach their ten percent (10%) cap.
Example Calculation (for Secondary Content):
| Purchased Product scenarios | Primary Content Creator receives | Secondary Content Image Creator(s) receives | Secondary Content Element Creator(s) receives |
| Primary Content + 1 Image | 75% of the Royalty | 25% of the Royalty | |
| Primary Content + 3 Images | 75% of the Royalty | An equal share of a 25% Royalty pool (i.e., 8.33%) | |
| Primary Content + 1 Element | 98.04% of the Royalty | 1.96% of the Royalty | |
| Primary Content + 2 Elements | 96.15% of the Royalty | 1.92% of the Royalty | |
| Primary Content + 6 Elements | 90% of the Royalty | An equal share of a 10% Royalty pool (i.e., 1.67%) | |
| Primary Content + 3 Images + 6 Elements | 75% of the Royalty | An equal share of a 23.15% Royalty pool (i.e., 7.72%) | An equal share of a 1.85% Royalty pool (i.e., 0.31%) |
Every transaction is subject to rounding. User-uploaded images, elements, or other Content do not affect Royalty calculations.
Zazzle Royalty-Free content:
Zazzle provides Royalty-Free, public domain content in the Design Tools to help support Creators’ creativity and design process. Creators can use this content in designs without it affecting Royalties. Even if a Customer adds this content to a design that includes a Creator's original work, the Creator’s Royalty will remain the same.
Zazzle content Not Labeled as Royalty-Free:
Zazzle also offers content in the design tools that isn’t marked as “Royalty Free.” This content is available for Customers to use in their own designs, but Creators cannot use it to create and post Public Products (i.e., Products for sale). Currently, if a Customer adds this content to a design that includes a Creator's original work, Royalties will not be affected. However, this may change in the future as we continue to evaluate how this content is used.
Ambassador Program Details
- Members can opt-in through their Account
- Referral tracking attribution lasts forty-five (45) days, with a rolling fourteen-day (14-day) lockout period.
- Ambassadors and Creators must adhere to the terms of the User Agreement and Ambassador Program Agreement.
Transactions and Payments
- Earnings become payable upon reaching Payment Thresholds: one hundred U.S. dollars ($100) for checks, fifty U.S. dollars ($50) for PayPal.
- Payments will be processed within forty-five (45) days following each month's end.
- A Non-Contributing Account Fee applies monthly to Accounts inactive for fifteen (15) months, until the Account resumes activity.
Updates and Compliance
- Users must comply with Zazzle’s marketing, promotional, and intellectual property policies. Non-compliance may lead to account suspension, removal of Content, or withholding of earnings.
- Zazzle may change its various rates from time-to-time, and this page will be updated to reflect such changes.
