Engagement payouts proportionally distribute a percentage of the net revenue from Fortnite’s Item Shop and most real-money purchases to all island publishers on a monthly basis. Payouts are based on what players enjoy in Fortnite, and account for island popularity, engagement, attracting new players, and other measurements described below.
We will continue to update the metrics that calculate engagement payouts to account for the current state of tools in both Fortnite’s developer ecosystem and our roadmap.
Epic’s existing Support-A-Creator (SAC) program is separate from the Engagement Payout program.
The calculation of your island’s engagement will be determined for the calendar month, which means from the first of the month to the end. Payouts occur 30 days after the end of the calendar month.
Engagement payouts are available to developers 18 years of age and older.
Program Requirements
To be eligible for engagement payouts, you must meet one of the following criteria.
Make a purchase through Epic Payments
Qualifying purchases include real money purchases made in the last 365 days on:
Fortnite on PC
Any real-money purchase made through Epic Payments in the last 365 days qualifies. Gift card balance and Epic Account balance purchases do not qualify.
Spend and redeem $20 in Fortnite.
Spend and redeem at least $20 in Fortnite in the last 365 days on any platform.
Purchases in game and on Fortnite.com qualify.
You or the legal entity’s representative must be at least 18 years old.
You must abide by the Fortnite Developer Rules.
If you meet the requirements above, you can enroll in the Engagement Payout program and contribute to the Fortnite ecosystem.
When you’re accepted into the program, you’ll see new engagement and payout data in the Monetization Payout tab of Creator Portal where you track your payouts.
How It Works: The Engagement Pool
Fortnite developers enrolled in the Engagement Payout program receive payouts based on player engagement in their islands. Forty percent of the eligible net revenue from Fortnite’s Item Shop and related real-money purchases is placed into an Engagement Pool, which is distributed among developers' and Epic's islands based on the Engagement Payout Formula.
This net revenue is the value of all eligible V-Bucks spending and real money purchases, adjusted for applicable taxes and third-party fees that are deducted by Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox, and other sellers of Fortnite before they transfer funds to Epic. Where Epic processes payments directly (such as on Windows and certain mobile devices), only third-party payment processing fees (such as credit card processing and PayPal fees) are deducted.
Once that amount has been determined, we reserve 60% of it to fund Epic’s ongoing operations and Fortnite ecosystem development. These expenditures include:
Core ecosystem software and service development
Shared game art
Cosmetic creation, merchandising, and third-party IP licensing fees
IT, hosting, and liveops infrastructure
Player acquisition, marketing, and distribution
Customer support
Content moderation
Affiliate Support-A-Creator payments
In addition to 40% of eligible net revenue, 50% of sponsorship revenue generated by Sponsored Row campaigns will go into the engagement payout pool, boosting the pool size for all developers. From the launch of this feature through the end of 2026, this rate will be 100%.
How It Works: Engagement Payout Formula
The goal of engagement payouts is to compensate island developers for the value they bring to Fortnite through engagement, as measured by island engagement metrics from Fortnite players who have made a real money purchase on their accounts. This includes all Fortnite players who have ever purchased V-Bucks Packs or retail V-Bucks gift cards, completed real money transactions like Starter Packs or Quest Packs, subscribed to Fortnite Crew, or purchased Save the World.
Engagement from these players is measured in the following metrics, which make up the Engagement Payout Formula:
Active Playtime | Active time players spend on your island. |
Island Retention | Players returning to your island on subsequent days after playing it. |
Playtime Surrounding Item Shop V-Bucks Spend | Active time within a week (before and after) a player spent V-Bucks in the Item Shop. |
User Acquisition Rewards: New Players | When a player comes to Fortnite for the very first time to play your island, you receive 75% of that player’s contributions to the Engagement Pool for the next six months. These contributions are the value of that player’s V-Bucks spending in the Item Shop. |
User Acquisition Rewards: Returning Players | When a player who has not played Fortnite in over six months returns to play your island, you receive 75% of that player’s contributions to the Engagement Pool for the next six months. These contributions are the value of that player’s V-Bucks spending in the Item Shop. |
Attribution for new and lapsed players is determined as follows:
In-game search and direct links: Players who reach their first island by searching for it or via direct link are fully attributed to that island.
First-day playtime: Players who reach their first island via Discover (not search or direct links) will have their engagement pool contributions divided among the islands they play on their first day, based on the percentage of time played per island.
Currently, attribution through links is supported for new players on PC, and for returning players on PC and mobile. Attribution through links is not supported for players in the European Union. Attribution from other methods is supported on all platforms and regions.
For information on the analytics and metrics for engagement payouts and other forms of monetization, see Account Level Monetization.