The money question: why Intentr gives creators 85%

The math doesn't add up on most platforms

Here's the brutal truth: if you're a creator on a typical platform, you're running the worst business deal imaginable. The platform takes 30%, or 50%, or sometimes more. Then ads get cut out by ad blockers. Then the algorithm decides whether to show your work. Then you get paid per impression, which means you need millions of views just to cover coffee.

I watched creators I respected burn out because the incentives were completely backwards. They spent hours making something genuine. The platform's job was to distribute it fairly. Instead, the platform's job was to make itself money, and the creator's compensation was whatever was left over.

When we started Intentr, we asked a simple question: what if we reversed that? What if the creator wasn't an afterthought in the business model, but the foundation?

The reason we chose 85%

85% isn't a marketing number. We didn't round it for effect. It came from working backwards: what does a creator actually need to make a living, and what do we actually need to keep the lights on?

We pay for servers, for payment processing, for support, for security updates. That costs money. But it doesn't cost 50% of every subscription. It costs maybe 10 to 15%. The rest is what we kept for the business. Anything else felt like we were doing the same thing every other platform does: extracting value from the creator's work.

The moment we settled on 85%, something shifted in how we thought about who Intentr was for. It meant we were building for creators who wanted a fair deal. It meant we were building for audiences who wanted to fund creators directly, not fund a bloated platform. It meant every subscription actually went somewhere meaningful.

The creator dashboard tells the real story

When we built the Pro Creator tier, we didn't just throw in "analytics" and call it done. We built a revenue dashboard that shows creators exactly where their money came from. Which channels drove subscriptions. Which pieces of content built loyalty. How many people set an intention to watch their work.

That matters because it's the opposite of dark. On algorithm-driven platforms, creators are flying blind. They post something, and they never really know if it worked or why. On Intentr, you know. You can see that 14 people subscribed because they follow your channel. You can see that your three-part documentary series built more long-term subscribers than your quick takes, even though the quick takes got more sessions.

One creator told us this changed how she thought about her work. She stopped chasing views and started building an audience. The dashboard showed her what actually stuck.

Revenue share only works if the platform is honest about intent

Here's something we don't say lightly: you can't have a fair revenue model on an algorithm-driven platform. The math breaks down instantly.

If we used an algorithm to decide what you saw, we'd have to optimize it somehow. And the easiest way to optimize is to keep you scrolling. The longer you stay, the more ads we can show, the more data we collect. But that directly contradicts paying creators fairly, because the algorithm wouldn't show a creator's work based on merit or quality. It would show what keeps you scrolling the longest.

So Intentr doesn't have an algorithm. You follow creators you actually want to watch. When you start a session, you see their content, nothing else. That means every subscription directly funds the creators you chose. There's no middle layer. No invisible hand boosting some creators and burying others.

The 85% only makes sense if the system is transparent. That's why we built it this way.

The audience we wanted to build for

Halfway through development, we realised we weren't just building a revenue model. We were building for a specific kind of person: someone who was tired of platforms that pretend to be neutral while extracting value everywhere.

These are people who want to support creators directly. Who don't mind paying because they understand where the money goes. Who are sick of ads, sick of algorithms, sick of the dopamine treadmill. They're not a tiny fringe. We've found them across YouTube, Patreon, Substack, independent blogs. They exist. They're ready. They just needed a place that made sense.

And for creators, it's the same thing. We're not trying to be a platform for everyone. We're building for creators who want a genuinely engaged audience, not millions of casual scrollers. Who prefer 1,000 paying subscribers to 1 million followers they'll never speak to. Who think an 85% revenue share is so obviously fair that it shouldn't even need explaining.

What happens next

We're still early. Not every creator needs Intentr, and that's fine. Some creators thrive on algorithm-driven platforms. Some prefer ad-supported models. Some like the community features we deliberately left out.

What we're watching is whether the people who are tired of those systems actually show up. Whether creators will move their work somewhere the money flows directly. Whether audiences will spend a bit of money each month to fund people they actually chose to follow.

The revenue share only proves itself in real behaviour, not in a blog post. That's why we built it this way and then got out of the way.