Inside Roblox's $1.5 Billion Creator Economy: Who Gets Paid, and How Much

In the summer of 2025, a game made by a 16-year-old in a matter of days became the most-played thing on the planet. Grow a Garden, a relaxed Roblox game about planting, harvesting and trading crops, reached 21.6 million players at the same time in late June, according to Roblox. That beat Fortnite's previous record of 15.2 million.

That moment captured the dream of the Roblox economy: anyone can build a game, and a hit can pay like a blockbuster. The numbers are real. Roblox creators earned more than $1.5 billion through its Developer Exchange program in 2025. In 2026, Roblox raised what it pays for spending by adult players by 42%. But the same numbers also show how unequal the economy is, and its most recent quarter brought the first year-on-year fall in daily players in Roblox's history.

How the money moves

Roblox has its own currency, Robux, which players buy with real money. They spend Robux inside games, called experiences, on things such as game passes, items, upgrades and private servers. A share of that spending goes to the game's creator as earned Robux.

Creators who meet the requirements can then swap earned Robux for real money through DevEx, the Developer Exchange, which Roblox launched in 2013. The exchange rate matters a lot. In September 2025, at its annual developer conference, Roblox raised the DevEx rate so creators earn 8.5% more when cashing out.

Then, on April 30, 2026, it went further for one group: from June 8, spending by US players aged 18 and over, verified through age checks, in eligible games converts at a 42% higher DevEx rate. Eligible spending includes game passes, subscriptions, selected items and private servers, in games that use Roblox's more realistic R15 avatars.

The top and the middle

Roblox is unusually open about the shape of its creator economy. In the 12 months to June 30, 2025:

• Creators earned more than $1 billion through DevEx.
• More than 29,000 creators were in the DevEx program, out of millions earning Robux.
• The median DevEx creator received $1,440.
• The average top-1,000 developer earned almost $1 million, 2.9 times more than in 2020.

Put simply, a few thousand studios earn real salaries or more, and most creators earn pocket money. That is not unique to Roblox. App stores, YouTube and Steam all have the same shape. But because many Roblox creators are young, the gap between the dream and the median is a big part of the story.

Top creators increasingly look like companies. Grow a Garden was acquired from its teenage creator by Splitting Point, a studio founded by New Zealander Janzen Madsen. Other successful teams run marketing, analytics and live operations the way mobile game studios do.

Roblox is also opening up famous brands to creators. Through its License Manager, creators can build games around licensed properties and share revenue with the rights holders. In 2025 Mattel announced brands such as Polly Pocket and Matchbox for the catalogue, Kodansha added the anime series Blue Lock and That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, and Lionsgate added horror films such as The Strangers and Blair Witch. For independent creators, it is a way to work with big names without a big-studio deal.

Chasing grown-up players

Why pay more for adult spending? Because Roblox's audience is getting older, and adults spend more. In the first quarter of 2026, Roblox said its US audience aged 18 to 34 was growing more than 50% a year and spent more than 50% more per user than players under 18.

The 42% bonus is designed to push creators towards games that appeal to that audience: more realistic avatars, more ambitious genres, and the kind of production values found in mainstream games. Roblox also launched a Standout Games section on its home page for games that meet its "novel games" criteria, and said more than 8,000 creators had applied to its incubator and Jumpstart programs.

There is a safety reason too. Roblox requires age checks to unlock adult-oriented features and chat, so linking payouts to verified adult spending encourages both creators and players to complete them. We look at that side in our story on Roblox's age checks.

A slower 2026

The creator economy depends on the health of the platform, and Roblox's third quarter of 2026 was mixed. Revenue rose 16% to $1.57 billion, but bookings, the money players actually spent in the quarter, fell 12% to $1.70 billion, against what Roblox called "extraordinary growth in 2025." Daily active users fell 9% to 138 million, the first year-on-year decline in the company's history, though they rose 12% on the previous quarter.

For creators, the key number is DevEx: Roblox paid $403 million in DevEx fees in the quarter, down 6% on a year earlier. Even in a weaker quarter, that is well over a billion dollars a year flowing to creators. Roblox expects bookings to fall 10% to 15% in the fourth quarter.

There were encouraging signs for creators inside the same report. Daily players aged over 18, the audience the new DevEx bonus targets, grew 18% year on year, and Roblox said retention was at its highest level since 2021. It also said more than 80% of its top 100 experiences now use its AI creation tools, a sign of how quickly the biggest studios on the platform are changing the way they build.

By the numbers

• $1.5 billion+: paid to creators through DevEx in 2025
• $1,440: median DevEx payout in the 12 months to June 2025
• 29,000+: creators in the DevEx program
• 42%: higher DevEx rate for verified US adult spending, from June 8, 2026
• $403 million: DevEx fees paid in Q3 2026, down 6%
• 21.6 million: Grow a Garden's peak concurrent players, June 2025

Roblox vs Fortnite

Roblox's closest rival for creators is Epic's Fortnite. Epic says it has paid more than $1 billion to creators since launching Unreal Editor for Fortnite in 2023, and since January 2026 it has let creators sell items inside their own islands. Epic has even claimed Fortnite creators will earn more from item sales than Roblox creators. The difference is in the audience: most Roblox playtime is in creator-made games, while Fortnite's own battle royale mode still takes a large share. Read more in our Fortnite creator economy story.

What to watch

Three things will shape Roblox's creator economy in 2027. First, whether daily players return to growth after the age-check changes and a tough comparison with 2025. Second, whether the 42% adult bonus actually produces the more ambitious games Roblox wants. Third, whether a new viral hit, the next Grow a Garden, arrives to remind everyone why so many people build on Roblox.

WGC's take: Roblox has built the most successful creator economy in games, and its transparency about median earnings is welcome. The healthiest way to read the numbers is the honest one: Roblox is a fantastic place to learn game-making and a realistic place to build a business, but for most creators it is a hobby that pays, not a job.