Creator platforms are strange about their own economics. The fee is stated, usually in a footer, and then the subject closes. What the fee pays for, what it actually costs to move the money, and what happens on a one-dollar contribution are treated as internal matters.
We think that is backwards. A writer deciding where to put their world is making a decision about a business they cannot see, and the honest response is to show them the business.
So: **CanonBoard takes 15 percent of every contribution and you keep 85 percent.** One number, at every amount, with card processing paid out of our share rather than yours. Here is the entire arithmetic behind that, including the parts that are unflattering to us.
One deduction, and nothing else
There is exactly one subtraction between what a reader pays and what reaches you: **our 15 percent.**
No processing fee. No listing fee. No charge for opening a Board. No withdrawal fee. No monthly minimum. No plan requirement — the terms are identical on the free tier and on Pro.
- **$1 contribution** → **85¢ to you.**
- **$5 contribution** → **$4.25 to you.**
- **$10 contribution** → **$8.50 to you.**
- **$25 contribution** → **$21.25 to you.**
- **$100 contribution** → **$85.00 to you.**
The proportion never changes with the size of the contribution. That is the entire point of the design, and it is a recent one — until the end of July it was not true.
We changed this in July, and it is worth saying why
For nine days in July, CanonBoard charged 10 percent and passed card processing through to the creator at cost. The reasoning was sound: processing genuinely varies — an international card or a currency conversion can cost several times what a domestic one does — and a platform that absorbs it has to price for the most expensive transaction it might receive. Passing it through meant your deduction reflected your transaction rather than an average.
It was fair and it was unexplainable. Because card processing includes a fixed 30 cents regardless of amount, the creator's effective share swung from **57 percent on a one-dollar contribution to 87 percent on a hundred-dollar one.** There was no number we could put on a page. Every honest answer to "what do I actually get?" needed three clauses and an estimate, and the true figure was not knowable until after the payment cleared.
A fee you cannot state is a fee people distrust, and they are right to. Precision that nobody can hold in their head is not transparency; it is just complexity with a good excuse.
So we bundled it. **The flat rate is better for you on every contribution below $14.29 and better for us on every contribution above it** — we absorb the cost on small ones and earn it back on large ones. Nobody's accrued balance was recalculated: earnings already in your account were left exactly as they were recorded.
The part that is bad for us: small contributions
Under the old model the fixed 30 cents landed on the creator. Under this one it lands on us, and on small contributions it costs us more than we charge.
- **$1 contribution** → we charge 15¢, processing costs us ~33¢. **We lose about 18¢.**
- **$2 contribution** → we charge 30¢, processing ~36¢. **We lose about 6¢.**
- **$3 contribution** → we charge 45¢, processing ~39¢. We make about 6¢.
- **$10 contribution** → we charge $1.50, processing ~59¢. We make about 91¢.
- **$100 contribution** → we charge $15, processing ~$3.20. We make about $11.80.
**We break even at around $2.50.** Below that, every contribution to your Board costs us money.
We have kept the one-dollar option anyway, and we think you should too. The first contribution somebody makes is rarely about the money; it is the moment a reader decides they are a supporter rather than an observer, and a low threshold is what makes that decision easy. The people who start at a dollar are disproportionately the people who are still there a year later. Removing the option would tidy our unit economics and cost you the conversion, which is the wrong trade for both of us.
If you would rather steer contributions higher, most Boards find that simply suggesting an amount does most of the work.
What the 15 percent actually pays for
In rough order of cost: card processing, the infrastructure that runs the Boards, and the human time to settle payouts and handle the disputes, refunds, and edge cases that any system moving money generates.
Payouts are settled manually — a person reviews the request and sends the money. That is slower than an automated rail and it is a deliberate trade. The automated alternative requires every creator to complete payment-processor onboarding before they can earn anything: identity verification, business details, and a supported-country requirement that excludes a substantial number of writers outright. For a creator whose first payout is twenty-five dollars, being able to earn at all matters more than receiving it the same afternoon.
The honest summary is that audience funding is not, on its own, a large business for us at current volume. The subscription business pays for the company today. The funding layer exists because it is the thing we think should exist, and because a platform whose revenue rises with its creators' revenue is pointed in the right direction.
Why 15 and not 10, or 25
Fifteen is what ten becomes once processing is inside it. On a typical contribution the card networks take between three and six percent all in, so a bundled rate that leaves the same margin as a 10 percent fee plus pass-through lands within a point or two of fifteen. It is arithmetic rather than positioning.
Below about 12 percent, a bundled rate stops covering the cost of running the thing at realistic volumes, which means it is being funded by something else — usually investors, and usually temporarily. Fees that exist because a runway exists tend to be revised, and creators discover the revision after they have built an audience they cannot easily move.
Above about 20 percent, the fee starts changing behaviour. People route around it, ask their audience to pay them directly, and the platform becomes a shop window for a transaction happening elsewhere. A fee that people work to avoid is too high, regardless of what a spreadsheet says.
Fifteen is the number that covers the work without being worth avoiding. It is not a clever number. It is the boring one that survives contact with the arithmetic.
What we will and will not do with this
Stating a fee is easy. What is worth committing to is the behaviour around it.
- **The rate applies to everyone.** There is no plan that buys a better split. Funding works identically on the free tier and on Pro — see the pricing page, where the same figures are stated.
- **Fifteen percent means fifteen percent.** There is no second line item and no circumstance in which processing is added on top. If that ever changed it would be a change to the headline rate, made in the open, rather than a quiet reintroduction of a deduction most people would never check.
- **A change to the rate is never retroactive.** When we moved from the old model, earnings already recorded were left untouched. That is the rule, not a one-off courtesy.
- **Your audience is not held hostage.** Your world is exportable and the relationship with your readers is yours. We think that matters more than the fee, and a platform confident in its product does not need lock-in.
If any of the above turns out to be untrue in practice, we would like to hear about it before your readers do. The complete funding mechanics are on the funding guide, and the payout plumbing is in creator payouts, fees, and getting paid.
Frequently asked questions
- What percentage does CanonBoard take from creator funding?
- A flat 15 percent of the contribution — the creator keeps 85 percent. That is the only deduction: card processing is paid by CanonBoard out of its share, and there is no listing fee, no charge to open a Board, no withdrawal fee, and no plan requirement. A ten-dollar contribution reaches the creator as $8.50, and a one-dollar contribution as 85 cents.
- Does CanonBoard charge a separate payment processing fee?
- No. Card processing comes out of CanonBoard's 15 percent, not out of the creator's share. There is no second line item and the creator's percentage is identical at every contribution size. Until 31 July 2026 processing was passed through to the creator at cost, which made the effective share vary from 57 percent to 87 percent depending on the amount; it was replaced with the flat rate for exactly that reason.
- Do small contributions keep a smaller percentage?
- No — 85 percent is 85 percent at every amount. Small contributions are the ones that cost CanonBoard money: card processing includes a fixed charge of about 30 cents regardless of size, so a one-dollar contribution costs roughly 33 cents to process while the platform fee on it is 15 cents. CanonBoard breaks even at around $2.50 and treats the shortfall below that as the cost of keeping a one-dollar option open.
- Was the fee change applied retroactively?
- No. Earnings already recorded in a creator's balance were left exactly as they were, and no historical row was recalculated. The change applied to contributions received after 31 July 2026 only. The same rule was followed for the earlier change in July, so a creator's balance is always the sum of what each contribution was worth under the terms in force when it arrived.
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