Zero Revenue Share

The story

The dominant webcomic platforms take a 30 to 50 percent cut of creator earnings and keep the audience relationship. PanelWave inverts the model. Creators pay for authoring, either a free tier, a one-time Work Pass per book, or a subscription, and payments from readers go through the creator's own Stripe account. The platform never sits between a creator and their income.

Why now

The creator economy has made revenue splits a public conversation, and one-time pricing is a deliberate counterpoint to subscription fatigue: a book is a job that ends, so a Work Pass is paid once. Billing goes live in early 2027; the pricing model is published now so creators can plan.

Key facts

• Paywall rules are declared in the open format at work, chapter, panel or extras level; the player delegates access checks to the publisher's own backend.
• The free tier is a complete publication, not a trial: one work, 500 panels, two languages, basic monetization.
• A Work Pass unlocks one additional publication permanently and is licensed independently of any later subscription.
• Coupons, regional multi-currency price points and a content map that shows what each reader sees ship in the CMS.