Roblox is phasing in a revenue-share fee on paid "ad integrations" — branded placements registered inside third-party Roblox experiences — and two of Roblox's own official pages currently give different answers for when that fee starts charging. Its Advertising Integrations Terms, effective May 1, 2026, states creators agree to pay the revenue share "beginning September 30, 2026," a date that, as of this writing, has already passed. Its separate Create documentation for ad integrations states the fee applies only to campaigns that begin on or after January 1, 2027. If you're running or budgeting a Roblox ad integration right now, the only reliable fix is to check both pages directly before you lock a number — neither press coverage nor this post can tell you which date Roblox is actually enforcing today.
What exactly is a Roblox "ad integration" — and is it the same as a creator shoutout?
An "ad integration" is a specific, structured product: a brand's assets placed inside a third-party Roblox experience (a game), registered with Roblox and subject to its moderation — not a creator simply mentioning your product on their own channel. Roblox announced an overhaul of its advertising policies on its developer forum in late March 2026, introducing registration and labeling requirements for every paid brand integration. Those tools launched April 15, 2026, and adoption became mandatory from May 4, 2026: creators must register a paid integration with Roblox and have its assets pass moderation before the campaign goes live. That registration step is also the easiest way to tell which category your deal falls into, which matters for the next section.
When does the revenue share actually start — why do Roblox's own pages disagree?
Here's the conflict in Roblox's own words. Its Help Center "Advertising Integrations Terms" page, effective May 1, 2026, states the creator agrees to pay Roblox a revenue share "beginning September 30, 2026" — calculated on a cost-per-mille basis, with current pricing to be provided before the first charge. Its separate Create documentation (the ad-integrations page under create.roblox.com/docs) says instead: "Starting January 1, 2027, ad integration campaigns will be subject to a revenue share based on qualified visits," applying only to campaigns that begin on or after that date. Trade coverage — PocketGamer.biz, Netinfluencer, Kidscreen, GamesBeat and Outlook India's Respawn among them — has consistently repeated the January 2027 date, following Roblox's March 2026 developer-forum announcement and a later pricing reveal. We could not resolve which page reflects Roblox's current, enforced policy from the sources available, and the discrepancy may simply mean one page hasn't been updated to match the other. That's exactly why this is worth checking yourself rather than trusting either date secondhand.
Once it applies, how is the fee actually calculated?
Per the Create documentation, the billable unit is a "qualified visit" — a session in which a user engages with one or more of the campaign's branded assets. Multiple engagements inside one session count once; a return visit in a new session counts again. For the first 28 days of a campaign, qualified visits are billed at tiered rates; after that window, every qualified visit for the rest of the campaign is billed at a flat $0.10 cost-per-thousand-visits (CPTV), up to a maximum campaign duration of 12 months. Trade press reporting on Roblox's pricing reveal (PocketGamer.biz) describes that first-28-day tier as geography-based — roughly $1.50 CPM for US visits, $0.75 for the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Nordic countries, $0.20 for Western Europe, Japan and South Korea, and $0.05 for the rest of the world, with campaign forecasts built from a game's performance over the 56 days before the deal is signed. Those specific tiered figures come from secondary reporting, not from the documentation excerpt we could confirm directly, so treat them as a starting point to verify against Roblox's live rate card, not a quoted contract term. The terms page also reportedly lets Roblox adjust charges for fraud, chargebacks and refunds, and says unpaid, undisputed balances more than 90 days old may be deducted from the creator's Robux — worth knowing if your contract has the experience creator fronting the fee rather than your brand paying it directly.
Example: say a 90-day, US-targeted ad integration draws 500,000 qualified visits in its first 28 days and 1,200,000 more over the remaining 62 days. At a hypothetical $1.50 CPTV for that first window and the documented $0.10 CPTV flat rate afterward, that's roughly $750 plus $120 — about $870 in revenue share. This is a hypothetical calculation to show scale, not a quoted rate.
What's explicitly excluded from this fee?
Two carve-outs matter for brand marketers. Per the Create documentation, the revenue share doesn't apply to brands labeling their own assets as ads inside experiences they themselves own. It also explicitly excludes "partnership elements outside the integration itself, such as influencer arrangements" — meaning a standard creator sponsorship, where you pay a Roblox creator to feature or talk about your brand without routing the placement through Roblox's own ad-integration registration flow, is a different category than what this fee targets. Don't assume every dollar you spend with a Roblox creator is subject to this revenue share; ask which specific mechanism your deal actually uses.
What should you check before your next Roblox campaign?
- Check Roblox's live Advertising Integrations Terms page and its Create documentation yourself, on the day you're budgeting. Don't rely on a March 2026 announcement, a press article, or this post to tell you which start date currently applies.
- Confirm whether your placement is a registered "ad integration" subject to this fee, or a creator-negotiated sponsorship outside that system. Get the answer in writing from your creator or Roblox media-buying partner.
- If it is a registered ad integration, get the current CPTV/CPM rate card directly from Roblox before locking campaign budget. Don't assume the regional tiers reported in trade press are still accurate or complete.
- If your contract has the experience creator absorbing the revenue share rather than your brand, confirm that explicitly. Also confirm how an unpaid or disputed balance would be handled, given Roblox's reported ability to deduct from a creator's Robux.
- For a campaign that could run across whichever date turns out to be the real one, build in a reconfirmation point rather than locking a single all-in rate for the full run.
- Treat "ad integration" and "influencer arrangement" as a real contractual distinction, not interchangeable terms. Ask which one your deal actually is, and have it specified in the agreement.
Whichever date turns out to be the one Roblox actually enforces, the question that decides whether a Roblox placement was worth its cost hasn't changed: did it move real sales. Get started to check that answer in real sales numbers before your next deal, not after.
