# What your design actually earns you

> On a fixed-price marketplace there is no pricing strategy to run, which sounds like a loss and mostly isn't. It moves the entire question onto whether people want the specific thing you made.

August 19, 2026 · updated August 26, 2026 · https://justog.club/stories/pricing-your-own-design

Three lines on a card, worked out with a pen. A list price, a percentage, and what that leaves.

That's the whole calculation on a marketplace that sets the price for you, and it's worth doing
once so it stops being a mystery.

## What decides what a design earns?

Two numbers you don't control: the garment's list price and the royalty rate.

Multiply them and you have the per-sale figure. Both live on the product and payout pages rather
than in a designer's hands, which means the arithmetic is fixed the moment you publish — and the
only remaining variable is how many times it happens.

## Does the rate improve with volume?

On a flat royalty, no — and that's worth confirming before building a plan around it.

Some marketplaces tier the rate upward once a design passes a threshold; a flat one pays the same
on the hundredth sale as on the first. Flat is easier to reason about and offers nothing to chase,
which is either a relief or a disappointment depending on what you were hoping for. **Check which
kind you're on before assuming either.**

## Does a discount come out of my share?

It depends on what the royalty is calculated against, and this is the question worth asking first.

A royalty on the **list** price doesn't move when a sale runs — the discount comes out of the
house's margin and the creator's figure is unchanged. A royalty on the **paid** price does move,
which makes every promotion a quiet pay cut. Those are two very different arrangements wearing the
same word, and the difference only shows up on a discounted order.

## What if a garment carries two people's designs, front and back?

Find out which zone the payout is anchored to before assuming it splits.

The common arrangement is that one sale pays one design — whichever occupies the primary zone —
rather than dividing between two. That's a rule rather than a split, so it's worth knowing which
side of it your work sits on before counting a shared garment as two payouts.

## When does the money actually arrive?

Three separate mechanisms decide that, and people usually only ask about one.

There's typically a **hold** after the sale, a **payout schedule**, and a **minimum balance** below
which nothing is sent. A single sale can satisfy none of them. Knowing all three is the difference
between "I sold one, where's my money" and an accurate expectation — and only the third one is
really in your hands, in the sense that more sales clear it sooner.

## So what's the actual lever here?

Not the price. How many people want the specific thing you made.

With the numbers fixed at both ends, demand is the only variable left, and it's the whole game.
[What tends to move it](/stories/what-designs-actually-sell) has nothing to do with
pricing strategy, because there isn't one to run — which is genuinely freeing once you stop
looking for the missing control panel.

## How do I get one made?

Describe the design at [JustOG](/) — the garment, the colour, and whether you want it published
for other people to buy. Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real
garment, and it's made to order and shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the [shop](/shop).

The card has three lines on it, and none of them is yours to move.