Author Revenue Share

This page summarises the rules for ad and premium revenue sharing — the parts that affect you as an author. Section numbers on this page mirror the cross-references you'll see elsewhere in the app (e.g. "§ 8 of the Author Revenue Share policy" in your story insights), so every link points to a real section here.

Last updated: May 2026. Material changes are announced 30 days in advance by email (see § 18).

§ 1 — The 55 / 45 split

For every euro of net revenue attributable to a story, you receive 55 %. The remaining 45 % is retained by OutaStory to fund hosting, AI pipelines, payment processing, legal, taxes, and platform operations.

Net revenue means: what OutaStory actually receives from the ad network, or after Stripe fees, refunds, and taxes are deducted, from a Premium subscription. We do not split gross billed amounts because the platform never sees that money.

§ 2 — Eligibility

As soon as your first story is published, earnings start accruing. There is no minimum revenue or audience threshold to be counted in.

Per story you can disable ads via the AdsEnabled setting — you forfeit ad revenue for that story but stay in the Premium pool (§ 8).

§ 3 — Where your earnings appear

/profile/earnings shows your running and locked balance. The insights page of an individual story (/stories/{Slug}/insights) shows the ad share for that story. Premium subscription revenue does not appear per story because it's pooled across your entire catalogue — see § 8.

§ 4 — Ad revenue per story

Ad revenue is attributed per story because an impression cleanly maps to one story. Your share equals reported impressions × your 55 % rate, minus impressions our sanity check filters out (see § 16).

§ 5 — Estimated vs locked

The amounts on /profile/earnings appear in two columns: estimated for the current month, locked for closed months. Estimated values can still change because the ad network finalises its numbers only at the start of the following month.

§ 6 — Payout

• Threshold: at least €25 of locked balance.
• Schedule: the 5th business day of the following month.
• Currency: EUR via Stripe Connect Express to your bank account on file.
• Statement: monthly PDF by email; annual tax summary at year end (§ 12).

Author-initiated early payouts are not supported in v1. If a payout fails (bank rejection, missing KYC, sanctions hit), your balance stays intact and we retry on the next scheduled date once the underlying cause is resolved.

Before the first payout we collect the data legally required to pay you out via Stripe Connect Express (name, address, date of birth, tax ID or VAT number, bank details). Until you complete that, your balance accrues safely and does not expire.

§ 7 — Reconciliation & locking

Every month, ad revenue is reconciled against the ad-network's reports. The reconciled value is locked — after that, it does not change (§ 7.3), even if the ad network later disputes its own report against OutaStory: that risk is absorbed by the platform.

§ 7.3 — Locked figures don't drift

Once a month is locked, your 55 % share for that month is final. It only changes in response to refunds or chargebacks from that period (§ 11). Locked figures appear in your monthly statement and on your earnings page.

If our running estimate diverges by more than 5 % from the reconciled figure, the case is queued for separate review — you'll see a banner on the earnings page if any of your stories are affected.

§ 8 — Premium revenue is pooled, not per story

Premium subscription revenue is pooled across your full catalogue, because subscribers read without limit — a single impression cleanly maps to one story; a Premium reading session does not.

The split reflects what subscribers actually consumed in a given month — weighted by reading minutes with a bonus for completions. If nobody read your stories that month, you do not receive a Premium share; the money stays with the platform and is not redistributed to other authors.

That is why a single story's insights page only shows your ad share for that story. Your Premium share appears pooled at /profile/earnings.

§ 9 — Currency & FX

Payouts are in euros. Earnings reported in other currencies (e.g. USD network reports) are converted at the ECB's daily reference rate for the booking date. The exchange rate used per booking is recorded in the audit log, which can be inspected during a dispute (§ 17).

§ 10 — Closing your account

When you close your account, your published stories stay live and continue earning — unless you opt out. Continuing earnings flow into your payout balance until they reach the payout threshold (§ 6) and the regular cycle wires the final amount.

To withdraw one or all of your stories at closure time, unpublish the story before closing or contact us afterwards — withdrawing stops further earnings for the affected stories.

§ 11 — Negative balance & clawback

If a Premium subscription is refunded or charged back within 60 days of the original charge, your share of that charge is clawed back. In practice, future earnings pay down the negative balance before any further payout resumes. You will never owe out of pocket.

Stripe chargeback fees are absorbed entirely by the platform — they are never passed on to you.

§ 12 — Tax & reporting

OutaStory earnings are taxable income on your side. We cannot provide individual tax advice.

If you are resident in Germany, the Mitwirkungspflicht under PStTG applies. We file cross-border earnings via DAC7 with the relevant authority once the statutory thresholds are crossed, and provide an annual tax summary at year end.

§ 13 — VAT in detail

§ 13.1 — Default path: small-business rule

Most authors leave the VAT-ID field in their Stripe Connect profile blank — we then treat your payout as non-business (consumer) revenue by default. Your statements omit VAT in that case.

§ 13.2 — Reverse charge under § 13b UStG

If you operate as a business and hold a valid EU VAT ID, enter it in your Stripe Connect profile. We then issue a credit note ("Gutschrift") at every monthly close with the legend "reverse charge under § 13b UStG". The address that § 14 UStG requires on credit notes is captured from your payout profile.

§ 14 — Statement format

The monthly statement carries, per story (if ads are enabled), your ad share, your share of the Premium pool, any corrective entries from earlier months (§ 11), and the resulting payout amount. We retain these statements as PDFs for at least 10 years (§ 147 AO).

§ 15 — Ledger integrity

We maintain a complete, append-only audit log of every revenue-relevant event: impressions, Premium allocations, corrections, clawbacks, and payouts. During a dispute (§ 17) you can request a breakdown.

§ 16 — Impression sanity checks

To stop fabricated or duplicate impressions from diluting your 55 % share, every reported impression is run through a basic sanity check (e.g. realistic dwell time, plausible payment values, no repeated duplicates from identical sessions).

§ 16.3 — Flagged impressions

An impression that fails this check is excluded from your calculation. If many impressions on a story are flagged and you believe that's wrong, you can dispute it like any other statement difference — see § 17.

§ 17 — Disputes

§ 17.3 — How to file a dispute

You have 90 days from receipt of a monthly statement to dispute it. Email revenue@outastory.com with the affected statement and a short explanation. We review the case against the audit log (§ 15) and respond within 14 days with a reproducible breakdown.

Governing law is the law of the Federal Republic of Germany; out-of-court resolution under § 36 VSBG is available.

§ 18 — Changes to this policy

Material changes to the revenue split (§ 1), the payout threshold (§ 6), or the settlement frequency are announced by email at least 30 days in advance. You may close your account inside that window without further obligation — already-accrued earnings are paid out on the next regular payout date (§ 6).

Clarifications, typo fixes, and changes that only affect the platform side (e.g. new payment processors) are not considered material.

§ 19 — Governing law

This policy is governed by the law of the Federal Republic of Germany. The venue for commercial disputes is Hamburg, to the extent permitted by statute.