Royalty Calculator

About this calculator

A royalty is a payment made to the owner of an asset — intellectual property, a patent, a piece of music, a book, a franchise, or a natural resource — for the right to use it, calculated as a percentage of the revenue or sales it generates. The core formula is simple: Royalty = Sales × Royalty Rate, but the rate itself is negotiated between the asset owner and the licensee and can vary widely depending on the industry, exclusivity, and bargaining power involved.

Authors, musicians, inventors, franchisors, and mineral-rights holders all rely on royalty calculations to know what they're owed as sales come in, and licensees use the same math to forecast their costs. This calculator takes a sales figure and a royalty rate and returns the royalty amount owed.