Monetization Tools

These tools let your work support you: a tip jar visitors can drop something into, purchase buttons, paid access gates, and in-world shops. Each one is a ready-made, working payment setup you place in your scene and restyle like any Unity UI. Everything here is optional. Nothing about publishing requires monetization, and when you do use these tools, payments go directly to your own PayPal account with 95% of every transaction staying with you.

🎯 Where to find them

Open the Creator Dashboard from the U3D menu → Creator Dashboard, click the Project Tools tab, then the Monetization category. See Project Tools for how the tab works.

PayPal Setup

All monetization tools need one thing before they turn on: the PayPal email where your money should go. Until it's added, the tools in this category appear grayed out, and the category shows you the way there. To enable them:

Go to the Setup tab

The Monetization category includes a Go to Setup Tab button when PayPal isn't connected yet, or click the Setup tab directly.

Add your PayPal email

Enter the email address of your PayPal account. It has to match the account exactly, since it's where payments are sent. See Creator Dashboard & Setup for the full Setup tab walkthrough.

Come back to Monetization

The category re-checks your PayPal status when you return, shows the connected email at the top, and every tool becomes available.

💡 No PayPal account yet?

Any PayPal account works, personal or business, and you can add or change the email later from the Setup tab. Publishing itself never requires PayPal, so this step can wait until you actually want a tip jar or shop in your world.

How the Split Works

You keep 95%, automatically, on every payment

When a visitor pays through any of these tools, the payment splits at the moment it happens: 95% goes straight to your PayPal account, and 5% covers the platform's hosting and infrastructure costs. There's no payout schedule to wait on and no balance held anywhere, because the money never passes through a middleman account. You receive PayPal's own payment notifications directly, the same as any other payment to your account.

Every tool in this category uses the same payment component under the hood, so once you understand one, you understand them all. Select a placed tool and you'll find its item name, description, and price on the payment component in the Inspector, ready to change to whatever you're offering.

Community Support

🫙

Add Tip Jar

Creates a tip panel in your world where visitors choose an amount and send it, with the same 95/5 split as everything else. The panel arrives working: an amount field (starting at $5.00, accepting $1.00 to $100.00), a Send Tip button, and a status line that confirms the payment went through.

🎨 Make it yours:

The panel is standard Unity UI on a worldspace canvas, so you can restyle it, resize it, or attach it to your own tip jar model. The suggested amount and range are editable on the payment component in the Inspector.

Tips are the simplest way to let visitors support what you make, and they work in your published Unreality3D experiences today. Place one near the exit, next to your best build, or wherever a happy visitor might be standing.

In-Scene Commerce

Beyond tips, five tools sell specific things inside a scene. Each creates a complete, working storefront piece with the payment component attached, and each is standard Unity UI you can restyle to match your world:

🛒

Add Purchase Button

A single-item purchase at a fixed price. Set the item name, description, and price on the payment component. Good for selling one clear thing: a download, a commission slot, a supporter perk.

🚪

Add Scene Gate

A paid entry gate. Visitors see a full-screen access panel, and a successful payment opens the gate and lets them through. Use it to put a whole scene or area behind admission.

🏪

Add Shop Object

A shop that lives in your 3D world with multiple items for sale, each with its own name and price. The in-world version of a market stall.

🎟️

Add Event Gate

Timed access for events: paid entry that's tied to an event window. Built for live shows, limited openings, and ticketed gatherings.

🖥️

Add Screen Shop

The same multi-item shop as Shop Object, presented as a screen overlay instead of an in-world object. Better when you want a full storefront interface rather than a stall the player walks up to.

⚠️ These five need hosting other than GitHub Pages

Publishing through Unreality3D puts your build on GitHub Pages, which is meant for non-commercial content. Tips are fine there, and the Tip Jar works in your published Unreality3D experiences today. Selling is a different matter: if you want to use the five commerce tools, build your project and host it somewhere that allows commercial use, such as your own site or a storefront like itch.io. The tools themselves work the same wherever the build runs.

Staying within your host's terms is your call to make, so it's worth reading them before you put a shop in a scene. A commerce-friendly publishing path through Unreality3D is in the works, and this page will say so plainly when it arrives.

Selling Assets on the U3D Market

Selling assets to other creators, like props, environments, and media packs, happens through the U3D Market rather than in-scene tools, and it's fully operational today at the same 95/5 split. The Monetization category includes an Open U3D Market Packager link that jumps you to the packager on the Publish tab, where you bundle assets, export, and upload.

The whole flow, from packaging in Unity to managing your listing and what buyers receive, is covered in Selling on the U3D Market.

Monetization Tools