Selling in the Metaverse will cost developers 47.5% as 'Meta Toll', dwarfing 30% 'Apple Tax'

Meta is aggressively exploring monetization options for its Metaverse, but developers and content creators might be shortchanged on all sales. The owner of Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and now New Horizons Metaverse, is reportedly planning on charging content creators as much as 47.5 percent on each virtual sale.

Meta just expanded Horizon Worlds' monetization with saleable virtual items and creator bonuses. While the sale price of virtual items is common knowledge, it wasn’t clear how much Meta was planning on charging as commission from content creators and developers who wanted to hawk their virtual wares in the purely digital world. While deploying the monetization platform, Meta wrote:

As part of our ongoing commitment to support creators, we’re beginning to test several new tools that will enable creators to experiment with different ways to monetize what they’re building in Horizon Worlds. [Someone might] for example, make and sell attachable accessories for a fashion world or offer paid access to a new part of a world.

Meta hasn’t published documentation on its fee structure. However, a spokesperson for the social media giant confirmed the details to The Register in an email, which reads:

Creators will earn revenue from purchases people make in their worlds, subject to any relevant hardware platform fee, and a Horizon Platform fee which is 25 percent of the remainder. For example, if a creator sells an item for $1.00, then the Meta Quest Store fee would be $0.30 and the Horizon Platform fee would be $0.17, leaving $0.53 for the Creator before any applicable taxes.

Products, services, or content, available in the metaverse, will have to go through the Meta Quest Store, and then hit the virtual-reality service Horizon Worlds. Hence, in terms of percentages, these numbers translate to a 30% commission as the Meta Quest hardware platform fee and 25% as the Horizon Worlds fee after deducting the platform fee. This leaves the developers with approximately 52.5% of the revenue, while they end up losing 47.5% of their revenue as commission.

It is important to note that Meta hasn’t yet confirmed or denied these figures. However, if accurate, the “Meta Toll” would surpass the 30% “Apple Tax” by a huge margin. Back in 2020, it was Facebook that vociferously opposed Apple’s iOS App Tracking Transparency (ATT), claiming it would “harm small businesses”. It seems Meta is doing exactly what it protested against but in an even more hurtful manner.

Source: The Register

Selling in the Metaverse will cost developers 47.5% as 'Meta Toll', dwarfing 30% 'Apple Tax'