Most platforms take 8-30% of what fans pay artists. WALRUS takes zero. Your $5.99 subscription goes directly to the artist — we don't touch it.
When you subscribe to an artist on WALRUS, you pay $7.98/month. That breaks down into two parts:
$5.99
Goes directly to the artist. No revenue split, no platform cut.
$1.99
A service fee that covers payment processing and keeps WALRUS running. Our servers, our team, our platform, our continued development.
The service fee doesn't come out of the artist's subscription — it's separate. WALRUS takes no percentage of the $5.99.
Payments are processed by Stripe, which charges a standard processing fee of 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction.
Subscriptions are just one way artists earn on WALRUS. Artists can also sell video messages, ticketed events, and more — and they set their own prices on all of it.
For add-ons, artists keep 80% and WALRUS takes 20%. That 20% covers the additional infrastructure, support, and payment processing these features require. It's straightforward, and it's still significantly better than what most platforms offer.
| Revenue Type | Artist Keeps | WALRUS Takes |
|---|---|---|
| Subscriptions | 100% ($5.99) | $0 platform cut (fan pays $1.99 service fee) |
| Video Messages | 80% | 20% |
| Ticketed Events | 80% | 20% |
| Other Add-Ons | 80% | 20% |
Artists control the pricing on every add-on. A $25 video message means $20 in the artist's pocket. A $50 event ticket means $40. No hidden fees, no surprise deductions.
The music industry has spent decades taking from artists. Labels take 80%. Streaming platforms pay fractions of a penny. Even the "artist-friendly" platforms take 20-30% before the artist sees a dollar.
We think that's backwards.
Artists create the thing people are paying for. The music. The content. The connection. Without artists, there is no platform. So why should the platform eat their earnings?
We built WALRUS around a simple belief: if a fan pays to access an artist's work, the platform shouldn't take a cut. Subscriptions prove that belief — WALRUS takes zero. And even on add-ons where we take a share to cover costs, artists still keep the vast majority of what they earn.
Two ways:
On subscriptions
Fans pay a $1.99 service fee. WALRUS takes no cut of the artist's $5.99.
On add-ons
We take a 20% platform fee. This covers the additional infrastructure these features need — video delivery, event management, payment processing, and customer support.
What we never do is hide fees, inflate processing costs, or take a cut that artists don't know about. The split is the split. It's on this page. No surprises.
| Platform | Fan Pays | Artist Gets | Platform Takes |
|---|---|---|---|
| WALRUS subs | $7.98/mo | $5.99 | $0 platform cut |
| WALRUS add-ons | Artist sets price | 80% | 20% |
| Patreon | Creator sets price | 88-92% | 8-12% + processing |
| Spotify | Free / $10.99 pool | $0.003-$0.005/stream | Almost everything |
| Apple Music | $10.99/mo pool | Fractions of a cent | Almost everything |
| YouTube | Ad-supported | 55% of ad revenue | 45% |
| Cameo | Creator sets price | 75% | 25% |
WALRUS is the only platform that takes zero cut from subscription revenue. And even on add-ons, our 80/20 split beats most competitors.
We didn't build WALRUS to take a piece of what artists earn. We built it to get out of the way.
Artists make the work. Fans value the work. The money moves directly between them. We just built the room where it happens — and we charge a small fee at the door, not a percentage of everything inside.
On add-ons, we take a fair share to keep the platform growing. On subscriptions, we take nothing. That's the deal. That's always the deal.
Zero platform cut on subscriptions. That's WALRUS.