Paid Subscriptions: Now in Open Beta!
From awe-inspiring avatars to mesmerizing worlds, the ingenuity of our creators — streamers, roleplayers, musicians, dancers, and more — has always been the heartbeat of VRChat. But what if this creativity could fuel not just passion, but livelihoods too?
With Paid Subscriptions, that’s no longer a “what-if.”
Over the last few years, we’ve talked about introducing something we’ve called the “Creator Economy,” and we’re finally ready to reveal what the first step of that effort is going to look like: Paid Subscriptions!
As it stands now, creators within VRChat have to jump through a series of complicated, frustrating hoops if they want to make money from their creations. For creators, this means having to set up a veritable Rube Goldberg machine, often requiring multiple external platforms and a lot of jank. For supporters, it means having to sign up for those same platforms… and then hope that the creator you’re trying to support set everything up correctly.
The end result is a mess. So we’ve built something better.
Introducing Paid Subscriptions: The First Phase of VRChat’s Creator Economy
Paid Subscriptions allow everyone in VRChat to directly support the creators they love with dramatically less friction. At the same time, Paid Subscriptions also empower creators to build far more interesting creations with their supporters in mind.
Creators can now easily create VIP rooms in their instances that only their subscribers can access. Or maybe they could have a special car or jet that is only available if you’re a supporter. Or maybe supporters get a special icon above their head in their instances. Or, for event runners, priority or exclusive access to your events!
How Do Paid Subscriptions Work?
All VRChat players can now purchase VRChat Credits with real-life money.
You can spend these on certain perks that creators set via Groups. Generally, you’ll go to a creator’s Group page, click the “Store” button, and then be presented with a list of things you can purchase.
These individual perks are known as Paid Subscriptions! You can purchase one for a certain amount of time: say a month, three months, a year. These are currently not recurring – but will be in the future!
Paid Subscriptions work directly with Udon, allowing creators an almost unlimited amount of freedom to build perks for their supporters.
What’s the Revenue Split?
From the start, our goal has been to maximize benefits for our creators. Here's the breakdown:
50 percent goes directly to creators. 30 percent goes to the platform (Steam, Meta, Google, etc), and the remaining 20% goes to VRChat and our partners.
(As a note, these numbers are approximate!)
How Do I Get Access?
First, open beta starts today – you can go check it out now! Initially, buying options are open to everyone, but selling is limited.
This will be the case when Paid Subscriptions come out of open beta, too. Don't worry – we'll be gradually expanding access over time! We're taking it step by step to ensure everything runs smoothly, but soon, everyone can join in as a seller.
As a heads up, we’re expecting the open beta to last about two weeks!
What’s the Future Look Like?
Paid Subscriptions are just the beginning. They're our first step in a long-term plan to revolutionize how creators are supported. As we stated at the beginning of this post, VRChat has a ton of creators! We’ve got a lot of exciting plans for how best to support all of them, although we aren’t quite ready to share more just yet.
We will be sharing more on January 18th, however – you can expect a Developer Update to be released then where we’ll discuss some of the cool things coming next for the Creator Economy!
A Thanks to Our Community
We're beyond excited to see the creative wonders you'll unleash with these new tools. Stay tuned for more updates, and as always, thank you for loving VRChat as much as we do.
We’ll see you next time!
For press or media inquiries, please contact press@vrchat.com
We’re hiring! Check out open positions on our site
