Unity Asset Store vs Fab vs CGTrader: 88% vs 70% Cut [2026]

Game developers shopping for 3D models, Blueprints, or VFX packs in October 2026 are picking between three marketplaces that run on very different economics. Epic’s Fab now pays creators 88 cents of every sale dollar. The Unity Asset Store still caps out at 70%. CGTrader just rolled out a tiered payout ladder that can land anywhere between 70% and 80%, depending on a seller’s trailing 365-day performance. Those numbers alone explain why thousands of 3D artists have spent 2026 re-pricing their catalogs and asking which storefront actually pays the bills.

This comparison breaks down Unity Asset Store vs Fab vs CGTrader (with itch.io’s assets section as the flexible outlier) across revenue share, pricing, licensing, AI-content policy, and engine integration. The goal is simple: show exactly where a dollar of asset revenue goes on each platform, and which one fits a given project in 2026.

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Why Game Asset Marketplaces Matter More in 2026

Buying ready-made assets instead of building everything from scratch has become standard practice for small and mid-size studios. A solo Unreal Engine developer can drop a pre-built dungeon kit into a project in an afternoon instead of spending three weeks modeling, texturing, and rigging it. That shift has turned asset marketplaces into real businesses, not hobbyist side projects, which is exactly why revenue-share percentages, licensing terms, and AI-content rules now get scrutinized the way console storefront fees do.

Epic consolidated the old Unreal Engine Marketplace, Quixel Megascans, the Sketchfab Store, and the ArtStation Marketplace into a single storefront called Fab back in 2024, and by 2026 that migration has fully settled in. Unity kept its long-running Asset Store mostly unchanged in structure, while CGTrader, an independent 3D marketplace that never tied itself to one engine, used 2026 to overhaul its payout system and tighten its AI policy. Meanwhile itch.io keeps running its no-rules, seller-sets-everything model for assets sold alongside indie games. Each approach produces a different outcome for the same asset pack, and the differences are large enough to change where a working 3D artist chooses to publish.

Unity Asset Store vs Fab vs CGTrader: Specs at a Glance

Before digging into each policy area, here is how the three major marketplaces (plus itch.io) stack up on the factors that matter most to a creator deciding where to list a game asset in October 2026.

Factor	Unity Asset Store	Fab (Epic)	CGTrader	itch.io assets
Creator revenue share	70%	88%	70%-80% (tier-based)	Seller-set, 0%-100%
Platform cut	30%	12%	20%-30% (tiered)	Seller-set, as low as 0%
Minimum asset price	$4.99	No fixed floor reported	No fixed floor reported	Fully seller-set
License structure	Unity Asset Store EULA (single tier)	Personal and Professional license tiers	Royalty Free, Royalty Free Extended, Editorial	Seller-defined terms
Primary engine fit	Unity 6 and earlier Unity versions	Unreal Engine, cross-engine via Fab Importer	Engine-agnostic (Unity, Unreal, Blender, etc.)	Engine-agnostic
AI-generated asset policy	No unified public policy found in current sources	Mandatory “Created with AI” disclosure since May 2025	Allowed with disclosure; standard listings barred from AI-training use since May 15, 2026	AI-disclosure field exists; no unified policy confirmed
Free asset program	Rotating free asset promotions	Fab Starter Content and recurring free bundles	Free-tier listings available	Entirely seller discretion
Subscription option	No subscription tier	No subscription tier for buyers reported	Subscription plans include access to CGTrader’s AI content-generation tools	No subscription model
Best audience	Unity-only developers wanting plug-and-play packages	Unreal Engine, Fortnite UEFN, and cross-engine 3D buyers	Film, visualization, and engine-agnostic 3D buyers	Indie creators bundling assets with games
2026 reported creator earnings	No public 2026 aggregate figure found	$24M+ paid to creators in 2025, per Epic	Designer payouts up 13% year over year as of August 2026	No aggregate figure published
Payout policy change in 2026	None reported	AI-label policy correction, September 25, 2026	New 26-level payout table launched September 15, 2026	None reported

The spread between Fab’s 88% and Unity Asset Store’s 70% is the single biggest number in this table, and it is the reason so many creators who sell on both platforms have started pushing new releases to Fab first. But revenue share alone does not tell the whole story. Reach, audience intent, and licensing structure change what that percentage is actually worth.

Revenue Share and Payouts: Who Actually Keeps the Money

The Unity Asset Store’s split has stayed fixed at 70% to the publisher and 30% to Unity, with no publishing fee layered on top, according to Unity’s current asset store guidance documented by Generalist Programmer’s 2026 selling guide. That flat structure is simple to plan around: a $20 asset nets a publisher $14 no matter how many units move or how long the listing has been live.

Fab flips that math. Creators keep 88% of every sale, with Epic retaining 12%, as detailed in a seller’s 12-month retrospective on selling through Fab. On that same $20 asset, a Fab seller walks away with $17.60, nearly 26% more than the Unity Asset Store payout on an identical price point. That retrospective also reports that Epic paid out more than $24 million to Fab creators across 2025, and that promotional events drove up to 50% of a typical month’s revenue for active sellers, with flash sales contributing another 25% on top of that.

CGTrader took a completely different route. On September 15, 2026, the marketplace replaced its older flat-rate structure with a tiered payout table that pays sellers anywhere from 70% up to 80%, based on their sales performance over the trailing 365 days, according to coverage cited by DevLoot’s asset marketplace fee comparison. That means a brand-new CGTrader seller starts near the bottom of that range, and has to build a sales history before climbing toward the 80% tier that rivals Fab’s payout. It rewards consistency and catalog depth over single hits, which suits full-time 3D freelancers more than someone uploading a single pack and hoping it sells.

itch.io remains the wild card. Sellers set their own revenue share slider, and can legally set it to 0%, keeping every dollar before payment-processing fees, per the guidance in Sneznyj 3D’s guide to selling 3D game assets. That flexibility is attractive, but it comes at the cost of discovery: itch.io was built as a game-distribution site first, so asset packs compete for attention with every other listing on the platform rather than sitting inside a dedicated asset storefront.

Pricing Models Compared

Pricing structure is where the four platforms diverge almost as much as they do on revenue share. The table below lays out what a buyer and a seller each need to know about how prices actually work on each storefront.

Marketplace	Price floor	License tiers offered	Subscription for buyers	Free content program
Unity Asset Store	$4.99 minimum for paid listings	Single Unity Asset Store EULA	None	Rotating free asset promotions
Fab	No universal floor documented in current sources	Personal license and Professional license	None reported	Fab Starter Content plus recurring free bundles
CGTrader	No universal floor documented in current sources	Royalty Free, Royalty Free Extended, Editorial Use	Yes, subscription plans bundle access to CGTrader’s AI content tools	Free-tier listings available alongside paid ones
itch.io assets	Fully seller-controlled, including $0	Seller-defined per listing	None	Entirely at seller discretion

Fab’s dual-license system matters more than it looks on paper. A Personal license generally covers hobbyists and small, non-commercial projects, while a Professional license is required once a project crosses into commercial release, which means studios budgeting for asset purchases need to check which license tier a given Fab listing actually requires before assuming the sticker price is the final cost.

CGTrader’s three-tier license structure (Royalty Free, Royalty Free Extended, and Editorial Use) works similarly but is aimed more at the broader 3D industry: film, advertising, and visualization buyers who need rights that go beyond a single game project. That is part of why CGTrader’s buyer base skews wider than Fab’s or Unity’s, both of which are built primarily for people already working inside a specific game engine.

AI-Generated Asset Policies: The Fastest-Moving Part of This Comparison

No part of the asset marketplace landscape changed faster in 2025 and 2026 than AI-content policy, and the three platforms landed in noticeably different places.

Fab made a “Created with AI” disclosure mandatory back in May 2025, and that requirement now covers not just fully AI-generated assets but hybrid workflows, including AI-assisted texturing, AI upscaling, and procedural variation tools. Buyers browsing Fab can filter AI-labeled products out of search results entirely, and Epic has stated that listings which skip the required disclosure can be removed from the storefront. On September 25, 2026, Fab issued a policy correction clarifying that prompt-only generated assets are allowed on the platform as long as they carry the mandatory AI label, reversing an earlier, less precise claim that such assets were banned outright.

CGTrader went further on restriction. Its AI Terms of Service confirm that standard CGTrader listings have been barred from AI-training licensing since May 15, 2026, unless a separate, specific arrangement is in place. That same policy area produced one of the more interesting data points of 2026: CGTrader reported in July that AI-generated models made up roughly one in six uploads to the platform, but accounted for only about one in every 90 dollars of sales. In plain terms, AI-made assets are flooding the upload queue but are not converting into revenue at anywhere near the same rate as traditionally made content, at least on CGTrader’s marketplace.

Unity Asset Store and itch.io both lag behind on public clarity here. Current sources do not show a single, unified, publicly documented Unity policy specifically governing AI-generated asset submissions as of October 2026, and itch.io’s AI-disclosure field exists on listings but without a comprehensive published policy to match it. For a creator weighing where to list AI-assisted work, Fab and CGTrader currently offer the clearest rules to follow, even though those rules point in different directions: Fab permits disclosed AI content broadly, while CGTrader has specifically cut off AI-training licensing on standard listings.

Licensing and Royalty Terms Explained

Licensing terms decide what a buyer is actually allowed to do with a purchased asset, and this is where the three platforms genuinely diverge in structure rather than just percentages.

• Unity Asset Store: operates under a single EULA tier applied broadly across the store, which keeps licensing simple but offers less flexibility for buyers who need custom commercial terms.
• Fab: splits buyers into Personal and Professional license categories, which lets Epic price hobbyist and commercial use differently on the same asset listing.
• CGTrader: runs three license types (Royalty Free, Royalty Free Extended, and Editorial Use), giving buyers in film, advertising, and visualization more granular rights than a typical game-only marketplace needs to offer.
• itch.io: leaves licensing terms almost entirely up to the individual seller, which means buyers have to read each listing’s terms carefully rather than relying on a platform-wide standard.

CGTrader’s subscriber terms carry a specific wrinkle worth flagging: subscription-tier downloads fall under a “Royalty Free License, No AI” category, meaning a buyer who downloads an asset as part of a CGTrader subscription plan is not automatically authorized to use that asset to train AI models, even though CGTrader’s own subscription separately bundles access to its AI content-generation service. Studios doing any AI-related production work need to read that distinction carefully before assuming a subscription download comes with blanket rights.

Engine Integration: Unreal Engine, Unity 6, and Cross-Engine Workflows

Fab is built around Epic’s own tooling, with the clearest integration path running through Unreal Engine and Fortnite’s UEFN creator tools, plus a Fab Importer plugin that extends support toward other engines for teams who do not work exclusively in Unreal. The Unity Asset Store, unsurprisingly, is tuned specifically for Unity projects, and remains the most direct path for a Unity-only team that wants an asset to drop into a project with minimal setup. CGTrader sits outside both ecosystems by design, selling raw 3D files (FBX, OBJ, and similar formats) that get imported manually into whichever engine or pipeline a buyer is using, whether that is Unity, Unreal, Blender, or a film-production pipeline that has nothing to do with games at all.

That structural difference is the real reason a one-size-fits-all recommendation does not work for this comparison. A team fully committed to Unreal Engine gets the smoothest workflow on Fab. A Unity-only shop gets the smoothest workflow on the Unity Asset Store. A freelance 3D artist serving clients across multiple engines and industries is often better served by CGTrader’s engine-agnostic catalog, even with its tiered payout curve.

Payout Logistics: How and When Sellers Actually Get Paid

Revenue share is the headline number, but payout logistics decide how long a seller actually waits to see that money, and this is an area where the three platforms still differ in ways that matter for cash flow. Unity’s structure, documented in Generalist Programmer’s 2026 selling guide, runs on a standard monthly payout cycle tied to Unity’s own publisher dashboard, with earnings reconciled against the fixed 70/30 split before each payment goes out. There is no tiered waiting period to worry about on Unity Asset Store: the percentage is the same on day one as it is after a thousand sales.

Fab’s payout rhythm is complicated slightly by its promotional calendar. Because flash sales and featured events can account for roughly 75% of a typical active seller’s monthly revenue combined, according to the StraySpark seller retrospective, income on Fab tends to arrive in bursts tied to Epic’s promotional schedule rather than as a flat, predictable monthly trickle. A seller who ignores Fab’s promotional calendar and simply lists a product passively will likely see noticeably less revenue than one who times submissions and pricing around Epic’s sale windows.

CGTrader’s new 26-level system adds a different kind of planning requirement. Because the applicable payout tier is recalculated against a trailing 365-day sales window, a seller’s rate can shift between quarters even without changing a single listing, simply because older high-performing months roll out of the lookback window. That rolling calculation means CGTrader sellers need to actively monitor their own tier status rather than assuming last quarter’s 75% rate still applies this quarter.

Discoverability: How Buyers Actually Find an Asset

A generous revenue share is worth very little if nobody finds the listing in the first place, and discoverability is arguably the most underrated difference between these four platforms. Fab’s 2024 consolidation of the Unreal Marketplace, Quixel Megascans, the Sketchfab Store, and the ArtStation Marketplace did more than simplify Epic’s backend: it pooled four separate buyer audiences into one search index. A buyer looking for a specific rock formation texture now searches the same interface as someone looking for a finished Blueprint-based crafting system, which increases cross-category exposure for sellers whose work might otherwise have been siloed in just one of those four legacy stores.

The Unity Asset Store benefits from a comparable, if smaller-scope, advantage: every Unity developer opening the editor sees the Asset Store built directly into the workflow, which keeps discovery tightly coupled to the development process itself rather than requiring a separate browser visit. CGTrader takes the opposite approach by design, optimizing for search traffic from outside the game-development world entirely, including architects, product designers, and film production teams who may never open a game engine but still need a specific 3D model. That broader audience is part of why CGTrader’s buyer demand climbed 17% as of its August 2026 marketplace report, even as its payout structure became more conditional for new sellers. itch.io, by contrast, offers no dedicated 3D-asset discovery surface at all; a listing’s visibility depends almost entirely on the seller’s existing itch.io following or external promotion, which is the single biggest practical trade-off against its appealing 0% minimum revenue share.

Catalog Size and Asset Types

Exact, verified total listing counts for Unity Asset Store, Fab, and CGTrader were not available from current authoritative sources at the time of writing, and this comparison will not invent a number to fill that gap. What is clear from the reporting that does exist is the shape of each catalog: Fab’s consolidation absorbed the former Unreal Marketplace’s game-ready assets, Quixel Megascans’ photogrammetry-based environment scans, the Sketchfab Store’s broad community-uploaded 3D models, and the ArtStation Marketplace’s concept art and Blueprint scripts into a single searchable storefront. That merger is why a Fab search today can surface a photoscanned rock formation, a finished Blueprint-based inventory system, and a stylized character model in the same results list.

The Unity Asset Store’s catalog leans more toward code-driven tools, editor extensions, and ready-made systems (inventory frameworks, dialogue systems, shader packs) alongside 3D models, reflecting Unity’s own developer base. CGTrader, by contrast, skews toward standalone, highly detailed 3D models aimed at visualization, product rendering, and film work as much as games, which is consistent with its broader non-gaming client base.

Marketplace Momentum: The Numbers Behind the Headlines

A few hard data points from 2026 show which direction each platform is actually moving, beyond the headline revenue-share percentages.

• CGTrader reported designer payouts up 13%, buyer demand up 17%, and overall marketplace traffic up 5.5% as of August 12, 2026, according to the platform’s own news updates, suggesting its new tiered payout system has not slowed activity. A separate guide on selling 3D models including AI-made ones corroborates that CGTrader’s AI-upload volume has grown faster than its AI-driven sales.
• Fab creators collectively earned more than $24 million in 2025, per Epic’s reporting cited in the StraySpark seller retrospective, with promotional events and flash sales together accounting for roughly three-quarters of an active seller’s typical monthly revenue.
• CGTrader’s AI-upload share sits near one in six total uploads but converts to only about one in 90 sales dollars, a gap that signals buyers are still paying a premium for human-made or clearly-labeled traditional assets over AI-generated ones, at least for now.

None of these figures are controlled experiments, and they come from different reporting windows and different platforms’ own disclosures, so they should be read as directional signals rather than a strict apples-to-apples benchmark. Still, taken together they point toward the same conclusion: creator-friendly revenue splits and active promotional programs are driving measurable seller and buyer growth, while pure AI-generated content is struggling to find paying demand even as upload volume climbs.

Real-World Examples: Five Scenarios From 2026

Abstract percentages are easier to evaluate against concrete situations. Here are five scenarios that reflect how creators and studios have actually navigated these platforms in 2026.

1. The Solo Unreal Developer Switching From Marketplace to Fab

A solo developer who built a following on the old Unreal Engine Marketplace selling a procedural dungeon-generation kit now lists that same product on Fab. At an identical $25 price point, moving from the legacy Unreal Marketplace structure to Fab’s 88% creator share means roughly $3 more in the developer’s pocket per unit sold compared to what the Unity Asset Store’s 70% split would have paid on the same asset, before accounting for any promotional boost from Fab’s event calendar.

2. A Mobile Studio Shopping the Unity Asset Store’s $4.99 Floor

A small mobile game studio building exclusively in Unity 6 needs a UI icon pack and a basic dialogue system. Both land at or near the Unity Asset Store’s $4.99 price floor, and because the studio is Unity-only, there is no cross-engine conversion step required, no Fab Importer plugin, and no need to evaluate CGTrader’s film-oriented license tiers. For a pure Unity shop buying inexpensive utility assets, the Unity Asset Store remains the most frictionless option.

3. A Freelance 3D Artist Climbing CGTrader’s 26-Tier Ladder

A full-time freelance 3D artist who sells architectural visualization models alongside game-ready assets starts on CGTrader’s new payout table near the 55% tier after the September 2026 change. Over several months of consistent sales, their trailing 365-day performance pushes them up the 26-level ladder toward the 70% to 80% range, illustrating why CGTrader rewards sustained, diversified sellers more than someone publishing a single asset pack.

4. A Studio Caught by CGTrader’s May 2026 AI-Training Restriction

A machine-learning team that previously licensed standard CGTrader 3D models to help train a generative asset tool finds, after May 15, 2026, that standard listings no longer carry rights for AI-training use. The team now has to seek out a separate licensing arrangement with CGTrader or individual sellers directly, a real operational change triggered by a policy update rather than a pricing shift.

5. An Indie Creator Choosing itch.io for a Bundled Asset Pack

An indie creator selling a pixel-art tileset alongside their own demo game lists the asset pack on itch.io and sets the platform’s revenue-share slider to 0%, keeping the full sale price minus payment processing. The trade-off: the pack is only discoverable to people already browsing the creator’s itch.io page or searching itch.io directly, rather than sitting in a dedicated, searchable 3D-asset storefront the way it would on Fab or CGTrader.

Calculating What You Actually Keep

The simplest way to compare offers across these platforms is to run the same sale price through each payout formula. The snippet below is a plain pseudocode version of that calculation, useful for quickly sanity-checking a listing price before publishing the same asset across multiple storefronts.

function netPayout(price, platform, sellerTier) {
  const shares = {
    unity: 0.70,
    fab: 0.88,
    cgtrader: cgtraderTierShare(sellerTier), // ranges 0.55 to 0.80 across 26 levels
    itchio: sellerTier.customShare // seller-defined, 0.0 to 1.0
  };
  return price * shares[platform];
}

// Example: a $20 asset across three platforms
netPayout(20, "unity", null);     // => $14.00
netPayout(20, "fab", null);       // => $17.60
netPayout(20, "cgtrader", 12);    // => value depends on tier, e.g. $13.00 at 65%

This is a simplification. It ignores payment-processing fees, currency conversion, chargebacks, and any promotional discounting a platform applies at checkout, all of which reduce the final number further. But it is a useful first pass for deciding where a given asset is worth listing first.

Use Case Recommendations

There is no single winner across every scenario. Here is how to match a project to the right marketplace.

• Building exclusively in Unreal Engine or UEFN: Fab is the clearest choice, both for its 88% creator share as a seller and its direct Unreal Importer integration as a buyer.
• Building exclusively in Unity 6: the Unity Asset Store remains the path of least friction, especially for utility assets near the $4.99 price floor that do not need cross-engine portability.
• Selling to film, visualization, or multi-engine clients: CGTrader’s engine-agnostic catalog and three-tier licensing (Royalty Free, Extended, Editorial) fit non-game buyers better than either Unity’s or Epic’s storefronts.
• Full-time freelance 3D artists with a steady output: CGTrader’s 26-level payout ladder rewards consistent sellers who can climb toward the 80% tier, which can eventually rival Fab’s flat 88% once volume and history build up.
• Indie developers bundling assets with their own games: itch.io’s seller-controlled revenue share is worth using specifically when a creator already has an itch.io audience and does not need a standalone asset storefront’s discovery traffic.
• Teams doing AI-assisted content work: check platform-specific AI policy before publishing or licensing. Fab requires disclosure but allows AI-assisted work broadly; CGTrader has cut off AI-training rights on standard listings since May 2026.

Migration Guide: Moving Assets Between Marketplaces

Creators who already have a catalog on one platform and want to expand to another do not need to start from zero. Here is a practical sequence for porting an existing asset pack across Unity Asset Store, Fab, and CGTrader.

1. Audit your existing license terms first. Confirm whether your original sale agreement on the source platform restricts re-selling the same asset elsewhere, especially for packs built under exclusive marketplace deals.
2. Re-export source files into formats each target platform expects: Unity Asset Store wants a .unitypackage; Fab accepts Unreal-ready formats plus its general Fab Importer formats; CGTrader expects standard interchange formats like FBX and OBJ.
3. Re-check texture resolution and polygon count requirements, since each marketplace publishes its own technical guidelines and rejects submissions that do not meet them.
4. Decide your license tier per platform. On Fab, choose whether the listing needs both Personal and Professional license pricing. On CGTrader, pick between Royalty Free, Royalty Free Extended, and Editorial Use based on your target buyer.
5. Add the required AI-disclosure label if any part of the asset involved generative AI tools, even partially (texturing, upscaling, or procedural variation count under Fab’s current rules).
6. Price consistently or deliberately differentiate. Because Fab pays a flat 88% regardless of volume, while CGTrader’s rate depends on your trailing 365-day tier, identical pricing across platforms will not produce identical take-home revenue.
7. Submit for review. Fab and the Unity Asset Store both run manual or automated review queues before a listing goes live; build in a few days of buffer before a planned launch date.
8. Track performance separately per platform for at least one full sales cycle before deciding to consolidate effort onto a single storefront.
9. Update your portfolio links and any external marketing (ArtStation, social channels) to point to the new listing locations once they are live.
10. Reassess quarterly. CGTrader’s payout changes in September 2026 show that these marketplaces actively revise their economics, so a decision that made sense six months ago may not hold going forward.

Pros and Cons

Unity Asset Store

• Pros: simple, fixed 70/30 split; low $4.99 price floor; deep integration for Unity-only teams; no publishing fees.
• Cons: lowest creator revenue share of the platforms compared here; single license tier offers less pricing flexibility; no unified public AI-content policy found in current sources.

Fab

• Pros: highest flat creator share at 88%; absorbed multiple legacy marketplaces into one searchable catalog; clear, documented AI-disclosure policy; active promotional calendar driving real seller revenue.
• Cons: dual Personal/Professional license system adds a pricing-check step for commercial buyers; strongest fit is Unreal-centric, with cross-engine support dependent on the separate Fab Importer plugin.

CGTrader

• Pros: engine-agnostic catalog serving games, film, and visualization buyers; three distinct license tiers for different commercial needs; reported double-digit growth in payouts and buyer demand through mid-2026.
• Cons: new sellers start lower on the 26-tier payout ladder and must build sales history to reach the top 80% rate; AI-training licensing now restricted on standard listings since May 2026, which narrows use cases for some buyers.

itch.io Assets

• Pros: total seller control over pricing and revenue share, down to 0%; no platform-mandated license structure to navigate.
• Cons: no dedicated asset-discovery storefront, so visibility depends heavily on a creator’s existing itch.io audience; no standardized licensing terms, which pushes due diligence onto buyers.

Customer Support and Dispute Resolution

Buyer and seller disputes (a refund request, a mislabeled license, a missing AI disclosure) are an unavoidable part of running any marketplace, and how each platform handles them affects the real-world cost of doing business there. Epic routes Fab support through its general Epic Games developer support channel, which handles both Fab-specific seller questions and the pre-existing Unreal Engine developer account system, since Fab accounts are tied to a creator’s broader Epic Games developer identity. That shared infrastructure means a seller already registered as an Unreal Engine developer does not need to set up a separate support relationship just to sell on Fab.

Unity runs its Asset Store support through its own publisher portal and the Unity Discussions community forum, where both buyers and sellers can escalate licensing questions or technical rejection notices from the review queue. CGTrader, given its broader non-gaming client base, maintains more detailed public terms and conditions pages (its AI Terms of Service and general Terms and Conditions are both published and versioned) specifically because its buyer base includes commercial clients in film and advertising who require clearer contractual language than a typical game-asset buyer might expect. itch.io, true to its seller-controlled model, leaves dispute resolution almost entirely to the individual creator, with itch.io’s own platform support stepping in only for payment-processing issues rather than content or licensing disagreements between buyer and seller.

Security Considerations When Buying Third-Party Assets

Importing third-party code or Blueprint scripts into a project carries the same baseline security considerations as importing any third-party dependency, and that risk does not disappear just because the file came from a storefront rather than a package registry. Unity Asset Store submissions go through a review process before publication, but reviews are not a substitute for a studio’s own code audit on any package that executes custom logic rather than shipping purely static meshes or textures. Fab’s review process covers content standards and licensing compliance (including the AI-disclosure requirement) but, like Unity’s, is not a formal security certification. CGTrader’s catalog is weighted more heavily toward static 3D geometry rather than executable game logic, which narrows (but does not eliminate) the practical attack surface for a studio importing a model rather than a script-based asset. Studios handling sensitive production pipelines should treat any purchased Blueprint, shader, or plugin the same way they would treat an open-source dependency: read it before shipping it, regardless of which storefront it came from.

The Verdict: Which Game Asset Marketplace Wins in 2026

There is no single marketplace that wins across every category in this comparison, but the data does point toward clear, defensible picks depending on what a creator or studio actually needs. If the top priority is maximizing what a seller keeps per sale and the project lives inside Unreal Engine or UEFN, Fab’s 88% flat share and its post-2024 consolidation of four legacy marketplaces make it the strongest overall pick for 2026. If the project is Unity-only and budget-conscious, the Unity Asset Store’s $4.99 floor and frictionless integration still make sense, even with its lower 70% creator share. If the catalog needs to serve buyers outside gaming entirely, film, product visualization, or general 3D work, CGTrader’s engine-agnostic reach and multi-tier licensing outweigh its lower starting payout rate for sellers willing to build a sales history toward its 80% ceiling.

The AI-policy divergence between Fab and CGTrader is likely to keep widening through the rest of 2026 and into 2027, and any creator working with generative tools should treat that policy gap as seriously as the revenue-share numbers when deciding where to publish. For most working 3D artists and small studios, the realistic answer in October 2026 is not “pick one,” but “list strategically across two or three, priced according to each platform’s actual payout math,” using the net-payout calculation outlined earlier in this comparison to decide where a given asset earns the most before it ever goes live.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Fab the same thing as the old Unreal Engine Marketplace?

Fab replaced the Unreal Engine Marketplace and also absorbed Quixel Megascans, the Sketchfab Store, and the ArtStation Marketplace into one unified storefront, a consolidation Epic carried out starting in 2024 and which has remained the current structure through 2026.

Which platform pays creators the most as a percentage of each sale?

Fab pays the highest flat rate at 88% to creators. CGTrader can reach up to 80% at its top payout tier, but new sellers start lower on its 26-level scale. The Unity Asset Store pays a fixed 70%.

Can I sell AI-generated 3D assets on these marketplaces?

Fab allows AI-generated and AI-assisted assets as long as they carry a mandatory “Created with AI” disclosure label, a policy in place since May 2025 and clarified further in September 2026. CGTrader also allows disclosed AI-generated listings but has barred standard listings from being licensed for AI-training purposes since May 15, 2026. Current sources do not show a single, unified public AI policy for the Unity Asset Store.

Do I need a different license for commercial use on Fab?

Yes. Fab separates listings into Personal and Professional license tiers, and commercial projects typically require the Professional tier, so buyers should confirm which license a listing requires before assuming the displayed price covers commercial release.

What is the minimum price for an asset on the Unity Asset Store?

Paid listings on the Unity Asset Store have a reported $4.99 minimum price, while free listings remain permitted alongside paid ones.

How does CGTrader’s new payout system work?

Since September 15, 2026, CGTrader has used a 26-level payout table that pays sellers between 55% and 80% of a sale, based on their sales performance over the trailing 365 days. Newer or lower-volume sellers sit closer to 55%, while consistent, high-volume sellers can climb toward 80%.

Is itch.io a realistic alternative to Fab, Unity Asset Store, or CGTrader?

It can be, mainly for creators who already have an audience on itch.io or who want full control over pricing and revenue share, down to 0%. It is less effective as a primary storefront for discovery, since itch.io does not run a dedicated, searchable 3D-asset marketplace the way Fab and CGTrader do.

Should I list the same asset on all three major platforms?

Many active sellers do, specifically because the payout math differs enough between Fab, the Unity Asset Store, and CGTrader that cross-listing can increase total revenue, as long as each platform’s licensing and AI-disclosure rules are respected on every listing individually.