itch.io or Steam for your indie game?

01What each store takes

• Steam: 30% of revenue, 25% beyond $10 million and 20% beyond $50 million per game, plus a $100 fee per game recouped after $1,000 of revenue (how much Steam takes).
• itch.io: "open revenue sharing": the developer chooses itch.io's share, from 0% to 100%, with 10% by default.

02What each store brings

Steam

• Wishlists that email every wishlister at launch and on discounts of 20% or more.
• Steam Next Fest, themed fests and seasonal sales, which most indie games rely on for wishlists.
• Recommendation surfaces personalized for each player, and by far the larger audience of buyers on PC.

itch.io

• Game jams and an audience curious about small, experimental and free games.
• Pay-what-you-want pricing, bundles and early builds with little friction.
• Fewer buyers: itch.io rarely carries a commercial launch on its own.

03How developers use both

• Prototype and jam versions on itch.io: test whether your hook catches people before you commit to a Steam page.
• The commercial game on Steam, with its page up early to collect wishlists (when to put your game on Steam).
• A free demo on Steam, not only on itch.io: only a Steam demo notifies your wishlisters and joins Next Fest (when to release your demo).
• Point itch.io players to Steam: a wishlist button link with its own UTM tag shows what that audience brings (Steam UTM links).

04Watch out for one thing

Selling your game early on itch.io doesn't block a Steam release, but every buyer there is one who won't buy on Steam at launch, where sales also feed Steam's recommendations. If your goal is a strong Steam launch, keep the paid itch.io version for early builds or supporters, and send most new players to your Steam page.

05Where your players come from

Whatever the store, measure it: each link its own tag, each source compared in wishlists. NextWishlist reads your Steam wishlists and tracking links every night and shows which source, itch.io included, brought players.

06Use jams to test your hook

A jam version on itch.io is a cheap test before you commit months to an idea. What to look at:

• Ratings and comments: do players mention the same thing you think is your hook?
• Plays compared with other entries of the same jam and genre.
• Whether people ask for more: "I'd buy a full version" is the signal you want.

If the idea holds, open a Steam page early and point the jam's players to it with a tracked link (when to put your game on Steam).

itch.io or Steam for your indie game?: quick answers

Sources

Valve's rules can change: the official Steamworks page always wins. Practitioner benchmarks are surveys of developers, given as ranges.

• itch.io, “Introducing open revenue sharing” (2015, read Oct 28, 2026)
• Valve, “New Revenue Share Tiers and other updates to the Steam Distribution Agreement” (November 30, 2018)
• Valve, Steam Direct fee (Steamworks) (read Oct 28, 2026)
• Valve, Wishlists (Steamworks) (read Oct 28, 2026)
• Valve, Demos (Steamworks) (read Oct 28, 2026)
• Valve, Steam Next Fest rules (Steamworks) (read Oct 1, 2026)
• Valve, UTM analytics (Steamworks) (read Oct 28, 2026)