CGTrader's tier system costs new sellers $400 per $1,000 earned
CGTrader uses a tiered royalty structure. New sellers start at 60% royalty — for every $10 model sold, you receive $6 and CGTrader keeps $4. Only after accumulating significant sales volume do sellers unlock higher tiers (up to 85%). The exact thresholds are opaque and have changed over time.
This penalizes creators the most at the exact moment they can least afford it: when building their audience. At 100 sales/month on a $10 model, a new CGTrader seller earns $600 vs $1,000 on Proofly — a $4,800/year difference before reaching any tier improvement.
Proofly takes 0% from sellers. The platform earns via a small flat fee paid by the buyer. Your listing price is your full income — from sale 1 to sale 10,000. No tiers, no thresholds, no surprises.
HiddenMark — per-buyer tracing CGTrader does not offer
CGTrader has no per-buyer file fingerprinting. Every download is a plain model file — OBJ, FBX, GLB, or ZIP — with no buyer-specific identifier in the geometry. If a buyer shares your model in a "free assets" Discord or a piracy repo, you have no technical way to identify who leaked it. Your only recourse is manual DMCA requests to individual hosts.
Proofly's HiddenMark system embeds a unique steganographic code into the mesh geometry of every paid download — invisible to the eye, imperceptible in renders, and invisible to slicers that strip metadata. Each code is unique to the specific buyer, purchase date, and model version.
HiddenMark
Every Proofly paid download gets a unique watermark embedded in vertex geometry. When a file surfaces on a piracy site, upload it to proofly.store/hiddenmark to identify the source buyer in seconds. No other major 3D marketplace offers equivalent per-buyer forensic tracing.
How HiddenMark worksFounding Creator — what CGTrader cannot offer
Proofly is early-stage. The first 100 creators who publish a model receive Founding Creator status — a permanent badge on their profile and listings, early access to all new features, and priority in platform promotion. Early positioning means organic visibility before the catalog saturates.
CGTrader has 1.3 million models and millions of buyers — scale is real. But that also means new creators are invisible by default, competing without platform support. Timing on Proofly means being discovered first.
Frequently asked questions
What percentage does CGTrader take from new sellers?
CGTrader uses a tiered royalty system. New sellers start at 60% of sale price — meaning CGTrader keeps 40%. Only after reaching a sales threshold do sellers advance to higher tiers (up to 85%). On a $10 model at 100 sales, a new seller earns $600 on CGTrader. On Proofly, the same seller keeps $1,000 — 100% of the listing price, from the very first sale.
Is Proofly a good alternative to CGTrader for selling 3D models?
Yes. Proofly supports all major 3D file formats — STL, OBJ, GLB, 3MF, FBX, STEP, and ZIP packages. Key differences from CGTrader: Proofly charges 0% seller commission (CGTrader takes 40-60% for new sellers), every listing includes a full in-browser WebGL 3D viewer, and HiddenMark embeds a per-buyer watermark in mesh geometry so you can trace any leaked file. You can list on both platforms simultaneously.
How does CGTrader's tier system work?
CGTrader's royalty tiers are based on cumulative sales volume. New sellers start at 60% royalty (CGTrader takes 40%). As you reach sales thresholds, your royalty rate increases toward 80-85%. This means new and small creators are penalized the most — exactly when the commission hurts most. Proofly has no tiers, no thresholds: every seller keeps 100% of every sale price from their first upload.
Does CGTrader protect 3D files from piracy?
CGTrader has no per-buyer file fingerprinting. Every purchased download is a plain file with no buyer-specific identifier. If a buyer shares your model in a Discord server or piracy site, you have no technical way to identify them — only manual DMCA requests. Proofly's HiddenMark system embeds a unique steganographic code into mesh geometry of every paid download, unique to each buyer and purchase. Upload a leaked file to proofly.store/hiddenmark to identify the source within seconds.
Can I sell on CGTrader and Proofly at the same time?
Yes. Neither platform requires exclusivity for standard models. Many creators list on both CGTrader and Proofly simultaneously. The Proofly listing adds 0% commission, an in-browser 3D viewer for buyers, and HiddenMark watermarking — features CGTrader does not provide. You reach both audiences with no additional cost.
Start keeping 100% of every sale
Upload your first model in minutes. No exclusivity — list on both CGTrader and Proofly simultaneously and compare the results yourself.