What a Steam game
actually pays you
Put in a price and how many copies you think you'll sell. This works out what reaches your bank after every deduction, subtracts what the game cost you to make, and tells you how many copies you need to sell before you're in the black.
Your release
What Steam takes standard assumptions
Most copies sell during a sale, not at full price.
Steam refunds under ~2 hours played, no questions asked. Short games run higher.
Brazil, India, Turkey and others pay less than the US price.
Valve withholds US tax on royalties paid abroad. A W-8BEN under a tax treaty is what lowers it. Brazil has no comprehensive US income tax treaty.
What the game cost you to make $100 Steam fee only
Engine seats, editor licences, the app you built it in. One-off amounts, not monthly.
Anything bought or commissioned, plus AI generation you paid for.
Marketing, contractors, the capsule image, the trailer.
What you end up with
| Step | Amount |
|---|---|
| Price × copies | $0 |
| Discounting | $0 |
| Regional pricing | $0 |
| Refunds | $0 |
| Valve's share | $0 |
| US withholding tax | $0 |
| Reaches your bank | $0 |
| Steam Direct fee | $0 |
| Tools and software | $0 |
| Art, music and assets | $0 |
| Everything else | $0 |
| Profit | $0 |
How to read this
An estimate built from public platform rules, not a projection of your sales. The three sliders under "what Steam takes" are the assumptions doing the most work. Change them and the answer moves a lot, which is the point of showing them.
Valve's share is 30%, dropping to 25% above $10M and 20% above $50M in lifetime revenue for a title. The tiers are applied here. Payment processing sits inside that share.
Break-even is your costs divided by what you keep per copy. It lands several times higher than most people guess, because you keep far less of the list price than it looks.
Platform terms and tax rules change. Confirm on Steamworks before you plan around any of this.
The cost line is where a tool earns its place
Every number under "what the game cost you" is one you can change before you start. Fliper Studio is how you reach a Steam-ready build without an engine seat, a programmer and an artist on the bill. Launching December, closed beta in October.