How you earn
Each subscriber has one membership. Stripe supplies its price and billing currency. For every paid billing period, we save the money actually received after payment-processing fees, excluding any collected tax. This is the amount available to share — the “pie”. Discounts reduce the actual payment and therefore reduce the pie.
We calculate each publisher’s share first, then deduct the 30% platform fee from that share. The remaining 70% is the publisher’s earnings. Transfers do not deduct that fee again.
A monthly payment, step by step
Suppose the subscription costs $10 USD, no tax applies, and Stripe’s actual processing fee for that payment is $0.60. These fee figures are examples, not a quoted Stripe rate.
| Step | Amount |
|---|---|
| Subscriber pays | $10.00 |
| Stripe processing fee | −$0.60 |
| Amount saved for sharing | $9.40 |
If that billing period exactly covers the calendar month, and the subscriber visits three website publishers:
| Publisher | Share of attention | Share before platform fee | Platform fee (30%) | Publisher earnings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Your site | 50% | $4.70 | $1.41 | $3.29 |
| A news site | 30% | $2.82 | $0.85 | $1.97 |
| A blog | 20% | $1.88 | $0.56 | $1.32 |
| Total | 100% | $9.40 | $2.82 | $6.58 |
If the customer pays $12 including $2 of tax, and the actual processing fee is $0.65, the sharing amount is $12 − $2 − $0.65 = $9.35. Tax is not publisher revenue. A discounted $5 payment with a $0.45 processing fee funds $4.55, regardless of the regular catalogue price.
Billing periods and calendar months
Earnings are calculated by calendar month. A payment funds its actual billing period; we spread its received amount by the time that period overlaps each month.
For example, a $9.40 received payment covering January 16 to February 16 covers 31 days: 16 in January and 15 in February. Its contribution before the platform fee is $9.40 × 16/31 for January and $9.40 × 15/31 for February. Each month uses that month’s recorded attention to divide its contribution among publishers. The 30% is deducted after those shares are calculated.
Public checkout currently offers monthly billing only. If annual billing is enabled in the future, it follows the same rule. A hypothetical $100 annual payment with a $3 processing fee provides $97 for the entire year, not $97 every month. For a 365-day period starting January 1, January receives $97 × 31/365 before the platform fee. Any annual discount is already reflected in the amount paid.
Calculations retain fractions during allocation and round each publisher/source earnings total to cents. Rounding and remaining-pool edge cases are tracked separately; displayed examples may differ by a cent from aggregated earnings.
Website and creator integrations
Website publishers and creators can offer different experiences:
- Website integrations let publishers remove ads on their own sites for subscribers.
- Creator integrations identify content on platforms the creator does not control, such as video or streaming platforms. The creator may not be able to remove the platform's ads.
The Creator share slider lets subscribers choose how much funding goes directly to creators. It ranges from 0% to 100%, with 50% as the default, and applies across all creator content they visit.
We first divide subscription funding between participating website publishers and creators according to the subscriber's measured time. The slider then adjusts the amount assigned to creators:
- 100%: creators keep the full amount assigned from that time.
- 50%: creators keep half of that amount.
- 0%: creators receive no direct funding from that subscriber's visits.
Website allocations are not reduced by this slider. Money redirected from creators goes to the non-excluded website publishers the subscriber visited, in proportion to their website time. If there are none, it goes to the shared pool. Creators can also receive shared-pool money, even when the slider is set to 0%.
For example, equal time on one website and one creator starts with 50% of the funding assigned to each. With the slider at 50%, the creator keeps 25% of the funding and the website receives 75%, before the platform fee. The slider sets the percentage of each creator's assigned amount they keep; it does not set a fixed percentage of the subscriber's entire payment or a fixed payment per minute.
Subscribers can exclude a publisher from direct usage allocations. Currently, that exclusion does not remove an otherwise eligible publisher from the Unattributed Revenue Pool. Allocation settings are read when the month is calculated, rather than saved separately for each visit.
When nobody was visited
Some subscribers don't open any publisher content in a given month. Their month's funded amount doesn't disappear — it goes into the Unattributed Revenue Pool and is shared among all eligible publishers.
The pool is split per eligible publisher account, not per site, so running many sites doesn't win you a bigger slice. It also receives money left unallocated after subscriber preferences are applied. There is no guaranteed pool payment: it depends on remaining funds and rounding.
Getting paid
- Observed and active integrations earn. They also qualify your publisher account for the shared pool. An inactive integration earns nothing until verified; confirmation only changes observed to active.
- Removal stops new earnings. Previously earned amounts remain payable. Removed or banned integrations need explicit admin restoration before they can earn again.
- Transfers are processed monthly through Stripe Express. Complete payout onboarding and keep the connected account eligible to receive transfers. A transfer credits your Stripe balance; it is not confirmation that money reached your bank. Connected accounts currently use a manual bank-payout schedule, and Zero Ad Network does not initiate bank withdrawals. Contact support if you need help accessing transferred funds.
- The minimum transfer balance is $30. Below that, your balance carries forward. Payout onboarding becomes available once you reach the threshold; provide your publisher contact email and country, then complete Stripe's requirements. Crossing the threshold alone does not complete onboarding or guarantee an immediate transfer.
Closing your account
Closing your account permanently forfeits all earnings not yet transferred to your Stripe account, including balances below the payout minimum and pending or failed payouts. That money stays with the platform. Wait until your final transfer is complete before closing if you want to receive those earnings.
Money already transferred to your Stripe account remains yours, even if it has not reached your bank yet. Removing an individual integration does not forfeit previously earned amounts; closing your account does.