Steam vs itch.io vs Epic: Where to Sell Your Indie Game

For a PC indie game, where you sell is nearly as important as what you build, and the three real choices are Steam, itch.io, and the Epic Games Store. Steam has the audience — most PC game sales happen there — and takes 30% with a $100 recoupable fee and a review process. itch.io is open and lets you set its cut as low as 0%, but reaches a fraction of Steam's traffic, so it suits game jams, early builds, and direct community sales. The Epic Games Store takes only 12% and reaches a large audience, but is more curated than Steam. The short version: lead on Steam for reach, use itch.io for flexibility, and weigh Epic if the larger cut matters more to you than peak traffic. None of these is strictly best; each is best for a different situation.

Store	Revenue share (you keep)	Upfront cost	Audience	Curation
Steam	70% (75% / 80% above $10M / $50M)	$100 recoupable fee	Largest by far	Review process
itch.io	~90% (you set itch's cut, 0% minimum)	None	Small, dedicated	None — open upload
Epic Games Store	88%	Submission fee	Large, growing	More curated

The short answer#

• You want the most buyers: lead on Steam. The audience is where PC sales concentrate, and the tools (achievements, cloud saves, workshops, Next Fest) are built to convert wishlists into launches.
• You want maximum flexibility and the kindest cut: use itch.io. No fee, no review, and you choose what itch earns — down to nothing. The cost is reach: itch.io sells to a committed but small audience.
• You want a bigger share of a still-large audience: consider the Epic Games Store. You keep 88%, and the store reaches tens of millions of players, but it is more curated and self-publishing has requirements to meet.

In practice, the most common serious strategy is Steam as the primary store, itch.io as a flexible secondary, with Epic as an option when its terms fit your plan.

Steam: where the audience is#

Steam is the default for a reason. It is where the majority of PC game purchases happen, which means it is also where reviewers, streamers, and wishlisting players already are. Its toolset is the most mature of the three: achievements, cloud saves, the Steam Workshop, family sharing, trading cards, and Steam Next Fest, the recurring demo event that is the single biggest pre-launch wishlist driver on PC.

The cost is 30% of revenue — dropping to 25% above $10 million and 20% above $50 million, applied incrementally — plus a $100 per-product fee that is recoupable after the game earns $1,000. There is also a review process for both the store page and the build, and a mandatory lead time on your Coming Soon page. For most indies that friction is worth it, because no other store can match Steam's visibility. For the full step-by-step, see our Steam Direct walkthrough.

itch.io: the open, flexible option#

itch.io flips the model. Upload is open and self-serve — no review process, no gatekeepers — and the revenue share is set by the developer. The default is 10% to itch, and the minimum is 0%; you always cover payment-processing fees, but the platform cut can be zero. That makes itch.io the natural home for game jams, early-access builds, pay-what-you-want releases, and direct sales to an existing community. It also excels at web games: browser-playable builds are a first-class feature.

The trade-off is audience size. itch.io's traffic is a small fraction of Steam's, and its discovery is weaker, so a game that lives only on itch.io will usually sell less than the same game on Steam. itch.io is best treated as a flexible companion store — somewhere to run a jam, sell a prototype, or give loyal fans a direct, high-revenue purchase — rather than a replacement for Steam's reach.

Epic Games Store: the larger cut#

The Epic Games Store competes on the split: you keep 88%, Epic takes 12%, against Steam's 70/30. Epic also reaches a large, growing audience and regularly gives away free games to pull players in. Self-publishing is now open to developers directly rather than by invitation, so you can submit a game yourself, though there is a submission fee and a review step, and the store is more curated than Steam.

Two programs shape the decision. Epic First Run offers 100% revenue (you keep everything) for the first six months if you launch on Epic and keep the game off other PC stores during that window; after six months the standard 88/12 applies. Now On Epic rewards bringing a game that already launched elsewhere onto Epic. The honest read is that Epic gives a bigger cut of a somewhat smaller audience than Steam — attractive for a confident launch, less so if you need maximum launch-day traffic.

Revenue share, on a $20 sale#

Store	List price	Platform cut	You keep (before tax/returns)
Steam	$20	30% ($6)	$14.00
Epic Games Store	$20	12% ($2.40)	$17.60
itch.io (default 10%)	$20	10% ($2) + processing	~$17.50
itch.io (0% cut)	$20	processing only	~$19.30

The gap looks large per unit, but it has to be weighed against how many units each store sells. Keeping 88% of a thousand sales on Epic can still leave you behind 70% of ten thousand sales on Steam. The split matters most for games with a known, sizable audience; for discovery-driven sales, the size of the audience usually dominates.

Audience and discoverability#

This is the part of the comparison that is easy to underweight and hard to recover from. Steam's audience is the largest by a wide margin, and its recommendation engine, wishlist system, and events like Next Fest are designed to surface new games to players who did not know they wanted them. itch.io's audience is loyal but small, and discovery is largely manual and community-driven. Epic's audience is large and growing, with strong engagement from its free-game program, but it stocks fewer titles, so being listed is itself a discovery advantage.

For a game that needs to find its players rather than sell to an existing fanbase, Steam's discoverability is the strongest single factor in the decision — often outweighing the revenue-share difference.

Can you be on all three?#

Yes, with one program to watch. itch.io has no exclusivity, so you can always list there. Steam has no general exclusivity either, so a Steam release does not block other stores. The only constraint is Epic First Run, which exchanges six months of PC exclusivity for 100% revenue during that window. Outside of Epic First Run, releasing on Steam, itch.io, and Epic at the same time is allowed and common — many developers ship on Steam and itch.io together from day one, and add Epic when the terms suit them.

How to decide#

Your situation	Lead with
First commercial release, needs discovery	Steam — the audience and tools are unmatched
Game jam, prototype, or pay-what-you-want	itch.io — open, flexible, near-zero cut
Existing fanbase, confident launch, want the cut	Epic (consider Epic First Run)
Want maximum reach and a flexible companion	Steam + itch.io together
Small, solo, and unsure the game will sell	itch.io first, Steam when it is ready

The decision is rarely all-or-nothing. A typical mature plan is Steam as the primary store, itch.io as the flexible companion, and Epic when its terms align with a specific launch.

Common mistakes#

Mistake	What goes wrong	What to do instead
Treating itch.io as a Steam replacement	Great cut, but a fraction of the sales	Use itch.io alongside Steam, not instead of it
Choosing a store only on revenue share	88% of few sales loses to 70% of many	Weight audience size as heavily as the split
Ignoring Epic First Run's exclusivity	Locked out of Steam for six months	Only take it if the cut beats the lost Steam traffic
Skipping Steam's lead time	Launches to no visibility even on the biggest store	Publish the Coming Soon page and build wishlists
One store only, on principle	Leaves reachable buyers and revenue on the table	Ship on Steam and itch.io together when you can
Forgetting tax withholding	30% US withholding where a treaty would cut it	File the W-8BEN as a non-US developer on each store

How Egmatic fits#

Because Egmatic exports a desktop build for Windows, macOS, and Linux from a single 2D project, the choice of store does not change what you build. You prepare one project and ship the resulting build to Steam, itch.io, or Epic — whichever fits your strategy — and the same project also reaches mobile, with platform-specific work handled at the engine layer rather than in your game logic. The store decision becomes a business decision, not a re-platforming effort. For the wider picture of reaching desktop and mobile together, see our multiplatform export guide.

Conclusion#

Steam, itch.io, and Epic each solve a different problem. Steam solves discovery and reach, at the price of a 30% cut and a review process. itch.io solves flexibility and revenue share, at the price of audience size. Epic solves the revenue split, at the price of curation and somewhat smaller traffic than Steam. For most indie developers the strongest plan is Steam as the primary store, itch.io as a flexible companion, and Epic when its terms fit a specific launch — and because the build you ship is the same across all of them, the store decision is something you can revisit per release, not per project.

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Sources#

1. Steam's standard 70/30 revenue share, with 75/25 above $10 million and 80/20 above $50 million on incremental revenue — Steamworks Documentation: Pricing
2. The Steam Direct $100 per-product fee is recoupable after $1,000 in adjusted gross revenue — Steamworks Documentation: Steam Direct
3. itch.io's revenue share is chosen by the developer, default 10%, minimum 0% — itch.io: Pricing
4. itch.io has no review process and supports pay-what-you-want and browser-playable builds — itch.io: Creators
5. The Epic Games Store takes 12%, leaving developers 88% — Epic Games Store: Royalties
6. Epic Games Store self-publishing is open to developers with a submission fee and a review process — Epic Games Store: Getting Started
7. Epic First Run gives 100% revenue for six months of PC exclusivity, after which 88/12 applies — Epic Games Store: Epic First Run
8. Steam Next Fest is Valve's recurring demo and livestream event that drives pre-launch wishlists — Steam Next Fest