We recently changed the way we process royalties on tour bundles.
We’ve been calculating royalties for bundle purchases on the full value of each tour in the bundle, not the discounted bundle price paid by the user. This wasn’t a major issue because bundle sales were small, but since the end of last year – when we made them available for purchase in the apps – sales have increased by 500%. That means we were paying out more than we should’ve been based on what we actually earned from those sales.
On Wednesday, we adjusted this to include the bundle discount on both prior sales and future sales. In most cases, this will mean a reduction of royalties from bundle sales of roughly 15%, which is the typical discount percentage on a bundle.
If you have tours that are part of any bundles, you’ll see this change reflected on the sales report on your dashboard. Look for unusual rounding on prices – like $10.11 ($11.99 minus 15%), for example. Unless you sell a significant number of tours through bundles, you might not even notice the adjustment, and this is likely to only be noteworthy for a handful of publishers.
The key thing to remember is that bundles encourage users to purchase multiple tours instead of just one. Even with the corrected royalty calculation, you’re still earning more from a listener who buys a 3-tour bundle than you would from that same listener buying just a single tour.
Thanks for your understanding, and feel free to reach out if you have any questions!