How many wishlists do you need?

Steam's 30% cut applies to adjusted gross revenue — after VAT, refunds and regional pricing. Most indie developers actually keep about 45–60% of their US list price (before any launch discount). This calculator shows the realistic math.

Base price (USD)Net revenue goal for launch week (USD)Launch-week conversion (%)Benchmark: ~15% median for games under $10, ~10% above $10 (GameDiscoverCo, games with 25k+ wishlists, 2024–2025). Varies 10x between games.Launch discount (%)Valve caps launch discounts at 40%, for 7 to 14 days.

Advanced assumptions

Regional pricing (%)VAT / taxes (%)Refunds (%)

Wishlists needed at launch

32,610

to sell about 3,261 copies in launch week.

List price	$14.99
After launch discount	$13.49
After regional pricing	$11.06
After VAT / taxes	$9.74
After refunds	$8.76
After Steam's 30% → you keep	$6.13

You keep 41% of the list price per copy.

Estimates, not guarantees. Assumptions are averages; your real numbers depend on your audience's countries and refund rate. Steam's cut drops to 25% after $10M and 20% after $50M.