Best CGTrader Alternative in 2026 — Keep 100% of Every Sale

CGTrader commission: 40% on day one, years to reach 15%

CGTrader operates a tiered royalty system where your payout percentage increases as you accumulate lifetime sales. When you create a new account, you start at a 60% payout — meaning CGTrader keeps 40 cents of every dollar your models earn. The only way to increase your payout is to sell more.

The math is stark for new and mid-level creators. Selling a $20 model on CGTrader in the starter tier earns you $12. On Proofly it earns you $20. Across 100 sales, that's the difference between $1,200 and $2,000 — from the exact same model, the same buyers, the same effort.

CGTrader's exclusivity clause for premium products

CGTrader offers a separate "Exclusive" program for certain asset categories. Listing models as exclusive to CGTrader can increase your payout — but it means you cannot sell that model on any other platform simultaneously. If you later decide to move, you must remove it from CGTrader first.

Proofly never requires exclusivity. You can list the same model on Proofly and any other platform at the same time. Your catalog is your own — Proofly never locks you in.

3D viewer: CGTrader vs Proofly

CGTrader has a built-in 3D preview for many listings. However, the quality of the preview depends heavily on the original export: some formats render cleanly, others show material-stripping or geometry artifacts. Coverage is inconsistent — not every listing has an interactive preview, and some fall back to static renders.

CGTrader's viewer also does not show mesh quality information that matters to buyers deciding whether to purchase: polygon count, watertight status, bounding box dimensions, or per-format compatibility notes.

Proofly renders the actual file buyers will download, in-browser, with no plugin:

• ✓Solid / Wireframe / Clay / X-Ray / Normals modes — buyers inspect mesh topology before purchasing
• ✓Polygon count badge — shown live in the viewer corner for every model
• ✓Watertight check — “✓ Watertight” or “⚠ Non-watertight” badge so print buyers know before buying
• ✓Bounding box dimensions — switchable mm / cm / in; real scale, not just a render
• ✓2-point distance measure tool — click A→B on the mesh to measure any distance interactively
• ✓Animation playback — GLB and FBX animations play with speed control and timeline scrubber
• ✓Explode view — separates multi-part assemblies so buyers see every component

Piracy protection: what CGTrader doesn't do and what Proofly does

CGTrader delivers plain, unprotected files to every buyer. Once a model is downloaded, the file is byte-for-byte identical regardless of which buyer downloaded it. If a buyer reshares the file in a Discord server, Telegram group, or piracy forum, there is no mechanism on CGTrader to identify who the source was. You know your model was leaked; you don't know by whom.

This is the structural problem with every major 3D marketplace today — CGTrader, TurboSquid, MyMiniFactory, Cults3D, and others all have the same gap. A 3D mesh file format (STL, OBJ, GLB) has no native container for invisible persistent buyer identity.

Proofly solves this with HiddenMark™, a steganographic watermarking system that works at the mesh geometry level:

1. 1When a buyer completes a purchase and downloads a file, Proofly embeds a unique per-transaction fingerprint into vertex position offsets in the mesh geometry — invisibly, below the threshold of visual perception
2. 2The fingerprint survives re-export, re-slicing, and common mesh operations — it's in the geometry, not in file metadata
3. 3If a file leaks, upload it to proofly.store/hiddenmark — HiddenMark reads the embedded fingerprint and returns the exact purchase record: buyer, model, transaction date

No creator action required — watermarks are embedded automatically at download time, invisibly, on every sale. HiddenMark is unique to Proofly. No other 3D marketplace currently offers per-buyer mesh-level fingerprinting.

Creator analytics: what you can actually act on

CGTrader provides basic listing statistics: view counts, download counts, and an overall sales total. It does not show you why a model gets views but no purchases, where your buyers come from geographically, which traffic source drives the most conversions, or whether your cover image is performing well.

Proofly's analytics dashboard is built around answering the question every creator actually has: “How do I increase sales without uploading more models?”

• ✓Conversion funnel — views → detail page opens → purchases, with drop-off % at each step per model
• ✓Traffic sources — organic search, direct, social, referral — broken out per model, not just platform-wide
• ✓Buyer geography — country breakdown with flags so you can see which markets buy your specific style
• ✓A/B thumbnail testing — upload two cover images; the dashboard shows live click-through rate for each
• ✓Actionable signals — “this model has 600 views but 0 purchases — try lowering price or improving the cover” surfaced automatically
• ✓Boost ROI — if you pay to boost a model in search results, the dashboard shows: views during boost, conversions, revenue generated, ROI
• ✓Category trend — “your category grew 18% this month” or “Game Assets is trending up — now is the time to upload”

File format support and buyer markets

CGTrader is strong in the game and visualization asset space — 3D Max, Maya, Blender source files, FBX, OBJ, and CAD formats are all common on the platform. Its buyer base skews toward game studios, architects, and visualization professionals.

Proofly serves both 3D printing and game/visualization markets, accepting and previewing a wide format set:

If your primary output is GLB / FBX game assets or STL print files, Proofly fully previews these formats. If you sell Blender or 3ds Max source files as your main product, you can still upload them to Proofly — buyers get the file, no preview — while the format preview on GLB exports works well as a visual demonstration alongside the source package.

CGTrader vs Proofly: full feature comparison

Who benefits most from switching from CGTrader

Proofly is the strongest CGTrader alternative for creators in three situations:

How to list on Proofly alongside CGTrader

Because neither platform requires exclusivity, you don't have to remove anything from CGTrader. You can cross-list immediately:

1. 1Export your source files — GLB, FBX, STL, OBJ, or a ZIP with multiple formats from Blender, ZBrush, Fusion 360, or wherever you work.
2. 2Create a Proofly account at proofly.store/register — takes 60 seconds.
3. 3Upload your models — drag-drop STL, GLB, or a ZIP. AI auto-generates description and tags from the mesh and filename; you review and adjust. The in-browser 3D viewer auto-generates a preview from the actual file.
4. 4Set your price — same price you use on CGTrader is a reasonable starting point. You can use the AI price suggestion to see what comparable Proofly models sell for.
5. 5Connect Stripe in dashboard settings for payouts — required to receive payments; Stripe Connect setup takes 5–10 minutes.

Your CGTrader listings stay active. Every sale on Proofly now goes entirely to you instead of losing 15–40% to the platform tier system.

Frequently asked questions