WEBTOON says it’s paid comic creators $27 million since 2020

For the first time, South Korean webcomics platform/publisher WEBTOON has revealed exactly how much it’s paying creators: more than $1 million a month, collectively.

The company—which says it has more than 82 million monthly active users—said it has paid out $27+ million to English-language creators since the start of 2020, which works out to a little over $1 million each month. It didn’t say how many creators that $1+ million is split between.

These earnings come from ad revenue splitting (creators get 50% of revenue from ads run on their comics, according to WEBTOON), on-platform purchases (like an onsite currency called Coins to access webcomic updates sooner than other readers), creator rewards (which pays them “$100-$1,000 based on the performance of their series”), and WEBTOON Originals contracts, where a creator may make their webcomic exclusive to WEBTOON and then go on to sign deals for things like Netflix adaptations.

(Our header image is from the 2020 Netflix adaptation of Sweet Home

, a WEBTOON webcomic written by Kim Carnby and illustrated by Hwang Young-chan.)

WEBTOON says it also plans to introduce a tip jar feature sometime this year that’ll “[expand] the ways for fans to reward creators directly on WEBTOON.”

It’s worth noting the above earnings are for English-language comics only. WEBTOON says its top-earning South Korean creator singlehandedly made $9 million in 2021, adding that these earnings “demonstrate the size for massive market growth in English-language markets.”

WEBTOON launched in South Korea in 2004. It didn’t start courting English-language comics until 2014.

“WEBTOON creators are some of the most talented, creative, and captivating in the history of comics,” Ken Kim, CEO of WEBTOON Americas, said in a statement. “In a time when comics have never been more popular, we’re incredibly proud of the growing Creator Economy and ecosystem we’ve built to celebrate and support WEBTOON creators.”