Tool 10 — Free, no sign-up

What the deal actually pays you.

Advance, recoupable costs, rev-share before and after recoup. Put the term sheet in, see what lands in the studio account across five outcomes, and compare it against doing it yourself.

The term sheet

Paid to you. Recouped from the publisher’s slice of net revenue.
1.00×
Some deals recoup at 1.2×. That is interest with a friendlier name.
20%
60%
41%
Valve's 30% plus the VAT already inside the sticker price plus refunds. On Steam that is about 41% of gross, not 30%.
Not in the maths. It decides how long the split above applies to you.

Costs the publisher fronts

Recoupable costs join the advance in the pool you pay back before the split improves.

The honest number, not the one where you do it all on social for free.

Tiered share (optional)

After recoup, the developer share steps up once cumulative net revenue passes a threshold.

Net revenue above (USD)Developer share (%)

Revenue scenarios

Gross lifetime revenue on the store, before the platform cut. Edit any of them.

The outcomes

Scenario Gross Platform Net Recoup pool Recouped Publisher take Developer take Dev eff. % Self-publish Difference

Developer share of net Publisher share of net Advance and publisher costs are not in the bars — they are in the table.

How it works, and where it lies

  1. Net revenue = gross − everything the store removes before it splits anything: the platform cut, the VAT already inside the sticker price, and refunds. On Steam that is roughly 41% of gross, not 30% — 0.88 × 0.96 × 0.70 ≈ 0.59 reaches the split. Setting this to 30% overstates every figure below by about 18%.
  2. Recoup pool = (advance + recoupable costs) × the recoup multiple.
  3. Until the pool clears, you take the before-recoup share of net and the publisher’s remainder pays the pool down. So the net revenue needed to recoup is pool ÷ (1 − your before-recoup share).
  4. After that, you take the after-recoup share, stepped up by any tiers you added.
  5. Developer take = advance + your revenue share. Publisher take = their share of net − the advance − every cost they funded, recoupable or not.
  6. Months to recoup assume 40% of lifetime gross arrives in the first three months and the rest decays about 10% a month.
  7. Self-publish = the whole net minus the marketing you would have paid yourself. It ignores the cash-flow problem of not having an advance, which is usually the entire reason people sign.

This is arithmetic, not advice. Real term sheets hide the money in cross-collateralisation, sequel and platform rights, approval gates, term length and what counts as a “recoupable cost”. None of that is on this page. Get a lawyer who has read a games deal before, then use this to argue about numbers.