How Payments Work on Playbook

There are a lot of different components that make up your revenue stream on Playbook. If numbers, percentages, and money confuse you a little bit, we’ve taken the time to break it all down. Here’s everything you need to know about money when it comes to Playbook and earning revenue.

Playbook Subscriptions

There are two types of subscriptions a consumer can purchase with Playbook:

  • $14.99/month

  • $99.99/year

Before a consumer purchases a subscription, they have the option to explore a trial period:

  • 7-day free trial: If downloaded through your sales landing page (best option!) or App Store or Google Play

Your sales page is the unique link Playbook gives every creator to promote his or her app. If a subscriber signs up through your link, you earn their revenue for life (more on this later).

After the respective trial period is complete the consumer either:

  • Cancels their subscription OR

  • Is automatically converted to a monthly or annual payment (whichever they signed up for when initiating the trial)

Where Subscriptions Are Sold (& Percentage Cuts That Affect Revenue)

Playbook subscriptions are downloaded in two places:

  1. Through sales page (Stripe): Users sign up directly for your channel using your sales page and activate a free trial.
    - Stripe takes 3% to 5% total after the trial, when the user converts to a monthly or annual plan.
  2. From the App Store or Google Play
    - Apple or Google take a 30% cut after the 7-day free trial.

Direct Subscribers vs. Organic Subscribers

In order to know where your revenue is coming from, you need to know about the two types of subscribers on the Playbook platform:

  1. Direct Subscribers: These are YOUR customers. They used your sales page to subscribe so their subscription money is yours for the life of their subscription.

    Note: Even if they look at and interact with other creators’ content on the app, because they were brought in through your sales page, their revenue is yours (This is why it’s SO important to promote your sales page!).
  2. Organic Subscribers: These are consumers Playbook brings in without creators’ help (aka organically). Consumers find and download Playbook on their own through the App Store, Google Play, or Playbook’s direct Stripe link. When they start using the app, they are not tied to a specific creator and are exploring their options.

    Note: If an organic subscriber frequents your channel, you actually get a portion of their subscription. The term for this is engagement revenue. Remember this: we’ll come back to it later.

How Much You Get Paid (& When)

Let’s do some math. There are several different scenarios — stay with us, it’ll all make sense when we’re done.

Before you get paid, fees get taken out of the gross revenue:

  • 30% if downloaded from App Store or Google Play

  • 3%-5% if downloaded from sales page (via Stripe)

After that, you’re left with net revenue for either monthly or annual subscriptions. Playbook takes a 20% cut of the net revenue, meaning you get more money in your pocket.

If someone purchased a monthly subscription to your channel via the App Store or Google Play:

  • $14.99 x 30% = $4.50 (to Apple/Google)

  • $10.49 x 20% = $2.10 (to Playbook)

  • You make $8.39/month. That’s 56% of the earnings in your pocket.

If someone purchased a monthly subscription to your channel via your sales page (using a 5% fee for “worst case scenario,” but it could be less):

  • $14.99 x 5% = $0.75 (to Stripe)

  • $14.24 x 20% = $2.85 (to Playbook)

  • You make $11.39/month. That’s 76% of the earnings in your pocket.

If someone purchased an annual subscription to your channel via the App Store or Google Play:

  • $99.99 x 30% = $29.99 (to Apple/Google)

  • $69.99 x 20% = $13.99 (to Playbook)

  • You make $55.99/year. That’s 56% of the earnings in your pocket.

If someone purchased an annual subscription to your channel via your sales page (using a 5% fee for “worst case scenario,” but it could be less):

  • $99.99 x 5% = $4.99 (to Stripe)

  • $94.99 x 20% = $18.99 (to Playbook)

  • You make $75.99/year. That’s 76% of the earnings in your pocket.

Making Money Off of Organic Subscribers

As a quick refresh, organic subscribers are ones who download Playbook organically and are not tied to any creator. Since their money didn’t go toward anyone’s sales page, it all goes into something we call an “engagement pool” which gets divided proportionally at the end of each month depending on which creators they interact with.

If they interact with your channel for all (or part) of a month, you’ll receive all (or part) of the money from the engagement pool — this is called “engagement revenue.”

When You Get Paid

You receive payments by the 16th of every month for the previous month.

For example, when you receive a payment on May 14-16, that’s your revenue from the entire month of April. You can track your current and projected earnings in the “Analytics” tab on the creator app.

When a subscriber signs up for a monthly subscription (regardless of the day they sign up) you get the full month's revenue in your next payment date. For annual subscriptions, you get paid out per month. So if you make $75.99 on an annual subscription you get $6.33 per month.

One More Thing About Fees

We already explained processing fees (the percentage Apple/Google/Stripe takes) and Playbook’s fees. There’s one more minor fee to note — payout fees.

In order for Stripe to send you money every month, they charge the following payout fees:

  • $2.25 flat fee

  • 0.25% of your monthly earnings

It’s a small fee, but one that is unfortunately necessary in order to get your money deposited into your bank account.

How to Make the Most Money Every Month

Use your sales page! It is vitally important to push your sales page for people to sign up for Playbook instead of telling people to download the app from the App Store or Google Play.

When people use your direct link (and pay through Stripe) we are able to bypass Apple and Google fees — which means more money in your pocket. These are your direct subscribers (remember we talked about them earlier?) and that means they’re your customer for life.

For more insights, learn how to use the analytics tab and track your progress in the Playbook creator app.

I’m Not Located in the U.S. How Do I Get Paid?

If you are a creator that lives outside the U.S. we have to use a different platform to pay you. If you are international and are wondering how to set up your payments, please contact us at creatorsupport@playbookapp.io.