At the average no-advance cut, a publisher must grow your revenue 47%

Publishers take an average 32.1% of net revenue when they pay no advance and 42.1% when they do, across more than 130 contracts in Voyer Law’s 2026 report on publishing agreements. If your game is already built and you are weighing an offer, here is what those numbers cost in dollars, and what to check before you sign.

Publishers keep about a third without an advance and 42% with one

The newest public benchmark we found comes from Voyer Law, a firm that advises game studios and publishers. Its 2026 Publishing Agreement Market Report analyzes more than 130 agreements dated 2017 to 2026, in three types.

62% came with an advance to fund development. 27% had no advance. 11% were console-only deals, which the report says are typically signed after a game is already out on PC.

The developer kept the most in deals where the publisher paid nothing up front.

1. No advance67.9%
2. Console only66.0%
3. With an advance57.9%

More than 130 agreements dated 2017 to 2026. Report read September 17, 2026.

Source: Voyer Law, 2026 Publishing Agreement Market Report

Advances were large: an average of $602,818 and a median of $270,000. 94.7% of them were recouped, meaning paid back out of the game’s revenue. 80.3% of advance deals also set the split in tranches. The first tranche averaged 24% to the developer, the second 60.3%.

The split applies to net revenue, which each contract defines. If it means what Steam pays after its standard 30% share, a 32.1% cut is 22.5% of the game’s gross Steam revenue, and a 42.1% cut is 29.5%. Valve’s share drops to 25% on a game’s Steam revenue beyond $10 million.

Answers to this question online still repeat the firm’s 2020 study of 30 agreements: 60/40 on average, 71% to the developer without an advance and 55% with one. Others give ranges, such as 30% to 35% for mid-sized publishers, with no source at all.

The 2026 figures sit close to 2020’s, but they are not an independent check. Its agreements go back to 2017, so the two samples may share contracts. Both were compiled by one law firm, not drawn from the whole industry.

At 32.1%, a publisher has to grow your revenue by 47%

A revenue share is paid on everything the game earns under the deal, not only on what the publisher adds. So the useful question about any offer is how much bigger the total has to get before your share of it beats keeping all of it.

For a built game, the no-advance deal is the natural comparison. The 2020 write-up noted those deals are often seen with nearly finished games.

At the average no-advance split you keep 67.9%. That only beats going alone once net revenue reaches 1.47 times what the game would have made without the publisher. The publisher has to add 47%. At the average split with an advance, the bar is 73%, before counting the advance itself.

That bar matters more once a game is out, because a released game has a baseline. In our study of 1,312 indie games on Steam, years two and three added a median 54% of the first year’s reviews. A share of the game’s net revenue covers those sales too.

Every cost the publisher recoups raises the bar again. Say your game would earn $100,000 in net revenue over the deal on its own, and a partner paying no advance will spend $30,000 on marketing that it recoups.

At a 67.9% share you break even at $147,275 if nothing is recouped. If the $30,000 comes out of all revenue first, you break even at $177,275. If it comes out of your share alone, $191,458. That is 47%, 77% or 91% more than the game would have made.

A console-only deal for platforms you couldn’t reach yourself is different. Keeping 66% of revenue you would never have earned is a gain, as long as the deal leaves your PC sales out of the split and you count what it recoups.

Recouping first can pay you more than recouping from your share

The 2020 study advised developers not to accept a full recoup of the advance before revenue share begins. In the 2026 report, 37% of advance deals recouped first. Whether avoiding that helps depends on the alternative, because what matters is whose money repays the advance.

Take the median advance of $270,000 and the average split with an advance, 57.9% to you. Three ways a contract can handle it:

• Recouped first. All net revenue repays the advance, then the split starts. Your first royalty comes after $270,000 in net revenue.
• Recouped from your share. The split starts with the first sale, but only your share repays the advance while the publisher keeps its own. Your first royalty comes after $466,321.
• Not recouped. The advance is yours whatever happens and the split starts at once. The report found this in 5.3% of advance deals.

At $500,000 in net revenue, recouping first leaves you $403,170 in total, advance included. Recouping from your share leaves you $289,500.

1. Advance not recouped$559,500
2. Recouped from all revenue first$403,170
3. Recouped from the developer's share$289,500

The median advance and average developer share in deals with an advance, from Voyer Law's 2026 report. Our arithmetic; no taxes, costs or tranches. Report read September 17, 2026.

Source: Voyer Law, 2026 Publishing Agreement Market Report

Once both are paying royalties, the gap stays at $113,670 however well the game sells. That is the publisher’s 42.1% of the advance, which the second structure moves onto you.

So the advice holds when the alternative pays you from the first sale and the publisher carries the advance. It doesn’t hold when the alternative repays the advance from your share alone. The report doesn’t say how the other 63% of advance deals recoup, so read the clause and run your own numbers.

When a publisher is the wrong move

When the game already sells and the offer can’t show where 47% more revenue comes from. You would be giving up a third of sales you already make in exchange for a plan.

When what’s offered is what Steam already gives you. Each game starts with five update visibility rounds, each on Steam’s front page for up to 30 days or a million impressions. Any discount of 20% or more can notify everyone who wishlisted the game. You can use both without a partner.

When the term outlasts your plans. No-advance deals averaged 4.6 years, deals with an advance 6.98, and 16% of all agreements were perpetual.

A partner is the right move when the work you can’t do is what’s holding the game back: a 1.0, a port, an update you can’t fund, or time you no longer have. Then the question is the price, and the numbers above are how to judge it.

What to ask before you sign

1. What counts as net revenue? Store fees and refunds, or also the publisher’s own costs?
2. What is recouped, from whose share, and with what markup? None of the no-advance deals in the report charged a markup, and 96% of advance deals didn’t.
3. Does the split cover sales the game already makes? If it’s out, ask whether the share applies to all of it or only above what it earns now.
4. How are tranches set? 24% of no-advance deals tranche the split, and their second tranche averaged 64% to the developer, below the 67.9% average for no-advance deals overall.
5. How long does it last, and does it renew? The report says 47% of agreements auto-renewed.
6. Who owns the IP, including if you breach? Developers kept it in every no-advance and console-only deal, and in 93.2% of deals with an advance. In 7% of advance deals, a developer’s breach would hand the IP to the publisher.
7. Can you audit their numbers? 66.7% of no-advance deals included an audit right, against 88.4% with an advance.
8. Is there a sequel clause? About 15% of no-advance deals gave the publisher the right to publish a sequel, not just to negotiate for it.

If your game is already out, most publishers are built for launches, which is a separate problem with a separate answer. Strike Two pays for what comes next on games that are already built, so weigh this post with that in mind. What we’ve committed to publicly is in our FAQ.

How we worked it out

We read Voyer Law’s report on September 17, 2026, and matched every figure here to its chart label on the page, which gives no publication date. The 2020 figures are from Game Developer’s August 2020 write-up of the earlier study.

The arithmetic is ours. The break-even point is your baseline divided by your share, plus any costs recouped from all revenue first. Costs recouped from your share are added to the baseline before dividing. The recoup examples use one split and no other costs.

The averages hide a wide range: with an advance, developer shares ran from 2.5% to 90%. The report doesn’t say how it averages deals whose split changes in tranches. Console-only deals are 11% of the sample, so that average rests on few contracts.

None of this counts taxes, the value of money received sooner, or the risk a publisher takes by paying first.