Sell Custom Fanfiction Commissions From Your Bio

Fanfiction writers can sell custom fic commissions by pricing a scoped custom request — a set word count, fandom, and pairing for a set price and turnaround — and taking payment upfront through a bio link instead of negotiating in DMs. The follower pays first, submits the prompt, and the writer delivers the finished fic by the agreed deadline. Custom Work lets you offer clearly scoped commissions and services: you set the price, the scope and the delivery time, and followers submit a brief and pay before you start.

No monthly fee, you only pay a small platform fee when you get paid. 8% platform fee when a follower pays for work, 5% platform fee on tips and goals. Card processing is separate. pricing

Fandom is enormous and mostly free. Archive of Our Own reports hosting 18,350,000 works across more than 82,530 fandoms for 11,540,000 registered users, all readable at no cost (Archive of Our Own home page). The Organization for Transformative Works' 2024 Annual Report records 2,139,910 AO3 works created and 34 billion AO3 page views during 2024 (OTW, 2024 Annual Report). Encyclopaedia Britannica names Archive of Our Own, FanFiction.net, and Wattpad as the dedicated websites where reader fiction is typically posted. Inside that volume, a smaller group of writers already gets asked to write something nobody else can: a specific character pairing, an alternate ending, a birthday one-shot for a friend. That is a request worth pricing, even though the archives themselves are not built to charge for it — the same shift from free requests to a priced listing that poets making the move to custom poem commissions go through.

What counts as a fanfiction commission?

A fanfiction commission is a piece of fic written to one buyer's specific prompt — a named fandom, a pairing, a word-count range, and sometimes a required scene or trope — in exchange for a price agreed before the writing starts. A commission is a one-time purchase for a defined fic, not free archive posting, a membership, or a tip with nothing to deliver. A custom fic commission is not one finished story offered to every reader: each order is written around that buyer’s prompt — the fandom, characters, rating, and word-count tier they chose.

On Brillay, a fic commission fits a custom request: the follower submits the prompt (fandom, characters, rating, word-count tier, any must-includes or must-avoids) when they pay, and the writer delivers the finished piece — a written note plus files if useful — inside the delivery time the writer chose. The same custom request structure covers other bespoke text-and-craft requests too, such as a calligrapher pricing custom lettering commissions. You choose when you will deliver the fic, from 1 hour to 5 days (how it works).

How much should a custom fic commission cost?

A custom fic commission is usually priced in flat word-count tiers rather than by the hour: roughly $10 for a drabble under 500 words, $15 for a 1,000-word scene, $35 for a 3,000-word one-shot, and $60 for a 5,000-word one-shot. Those tiers work out to about half a cent to three cents per word.

Those four tier prices come from Brillay's own fanfiction pricing guide, where they are published as suggested starting points for a new listing rather than measured fandom-wide averages.

We could not find a trade body, survey, or archive that publishes rate data for fanfiction commissions specifically: a September 2026 check of the Editorial Freelancers Association rate chart, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association's rate pages, and the Archive of Our Own turned up no fanwork-commission rate category on any of them. The Editorial Freelancers Association describes its own chart as representing "median rate ranges for editorial services," and its ghostwriting categories run from "Ghostwriting: Short Story" to "Ghostwriting: Fiction, full-length" with no fanwork entry. The nearest professional benchmark expressed as a single published figure is the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association's qualifying rate for professional short-fiction markets, set at eight cents per word since September 1, 2019 (SFWA, "SFWA Minimum Pro Rate Now in Effect"). At the SFWA rate of eight cents per word, a 3,000-word story would pay $240—nearly seven times this page's editorial $35 starting example for a 3,000-word fandom one-shot. Paid writing income is thin outside fandom too: the Authors Guild's 2023 Author Income Survey reported a median income of $10,000 a year from books for full-time authors. A fic writer charging $35 for a one-shot is therefore not undercutting some lucrative market — the paid market for original fiction is itself modest, which is an argument for pricing commission work deliberately rather than apologetically.

The rule that matters more than the number: price by a word-count band, not an open-ended promise. "1,000–1,500 words, one pairing, one prompt" is a listing a buyer can evaluate before paying. "I'll write you something" is not.

Three pricing models are in common use, and each suits a different kind of request:

The table below is an editorial example, not a measured market benchmark. The tier prices and delivery time windows are Brillay's suggested starting points for a new listing; only the take-home column is arithmetic, calculated from Brillay's published 8% platform fee on paid work (tips and goals carry 5%) and Stripe's published US card rate.

Here is the arithmetic behind the take-home column. Brillay states that "creator earnings = reader payment − platform fee − processing fee," with an 8% platform fee on paid work like a fic commission and processing deducted separately. Stripe's published US rate is 2.9% + $0.30 per successful domestic card charge, plus 1.5% for international cards (Stripe pricing). So a $60 long one-shot leaves $53.16: $60 minus a $4.80 platform fee minus $2.04 in card processing. A $35 one-shot leaves about $30.88 ($2.80 platform fee, $1.32 processing), and a $10 drabble leaves $8.61 ($0.80 platform fee, $0.59 processing). A deeper breakdown of per-word versus tiered pricing lives in our guide on how much to charge for a fanfiction commission.

What should a commission listing actually say?

A commission listing should specify the fandoms the writer covers, the word-count tier and its price, what the buyer must submit at purchase, and what is excluded — all before any money changes hands.

At minimum, define which fandoms and pairings you write, the word-count tier and fixed price, what the prompt must include, what is excluded, and your delivery time. Custom Work has one delivery, so price and scope the finished fic clearly before the follower pays. If a prompt a reader sends falls outside the listing — wrong fandom, double the word count, content you excluded — Brillay's documentation is explicit that a creator can refuse it: "You're always in control of what you take on". A decline means the reader does not end up paying, rather than obliging the writer to produce a fic they never agreed to.

Should I take open commissions or fandom-specific ones?

Fandom-specific commissions — one fandom, clearly listed pairings — are easier to scope, price consistently, and deliver on time than open "any fandom" commissions, which invite prompts outside what the writer actually knows or wants to write. Start narrow, price one fandom well, and widen the listing only when real demand asks for it.

An open call sounds more generous, but an open call also means fielding prompts for canons you haven't read or pairings you'd rather not touch — after a reader has already paid. A listing scoped to fandoms you already post about lets a reader decide whether the commission fits before they pay. Add a second listing for another fandom later rather than promising to write anything for anyone up front.

Do platform rules affect where I can sell fic commissions?

Yes. Archive of Our Own, FanFiction.net, and Wattpad — the three dedicated reader fiction sites named by Encyclopaedia Britannica — each restrict commercial use in their published terms, so a paid fic commission must be sold and paid for off-archive, typically through a payment link in the writer's bio rather than on the archive page.

The three policies are each quoted from the platform's own documentation: Archive of Our Own describes itself on its home page as "a non-profit, non-commercial archive for transformative fanworks"; FanFiction.net's Terms of Service state, "You agree not to use the Service for any commercial use, without the prior written authorization of FanFiction.Net" (FanFiction.net Terms of Service); and Wattpad's Terms of Service state, "Don't make any commercial use of Wattpad" (Wattpad Terms of Service). Britannica presents those three as the sites where reader fiction is typically posted, not as a ranked list of the largest archives, and smaller or fandom-specific archives set their own rules that should be checked individually. The audiences behind those rules are large: Wattpad's own company newsroom describes the platform as "home to a community of more than 90 million people who spend over 23 billion minutes a month engaged in original stories", and Wattpad's terms still bar an individual writer from making commercial use of that audience on the platform itself.

The Organization for Transformative Works, which runs AO3, spells out what that means for money changing hands:

"If there is money changing hands, then it likely violates AO3's TOS. AO3 is a non-commercial space." — Organization for Transformative Works, TOS Spotlight: Commercial Promotion, published June 28, 2025 (transformativeworks.org)

Wattpad states the same restriction in the second person:

"Wattpad is for your personal and non-commercial use only." — Wattpad, Terms of Service (policies.wattpad.com)

Those archive terms are why the payment step for a fic commission usually happens somewhere other than the archive: a separate link where the reader pays, submits the prompt, and gets the finished fic back. Under the cited OTW guidance, you may post the finished fic to AO3, but keep payment links and paid-commission promotion off the AO3 page; check the current policy before posting. The Organization for Transformative Works states that AO3's non-commercialization rule covers "Profile pages," "Usernames, pseuds, and pseud descriptions," works "including all tags, beginning or end notes, chapter notes, summaries, and titles," series, bookmarks, and comments, and that banned activity includes "advertising content or services involving an exchange of money, such as buying merchandise, collecting donations, offering paid commissions, or selling published works" (OTW). The same OTW post draws the line on the word itself: it permits "usage of the word 'commission' as long as there is no indication that a monetary transaction was involved in the creation of the work or that you are available to create other paid commissions," so "This is a commission for X" is acceptable while "Commission for my Gold Tier Patron" is not. OTW adds that a bare "Check out my Linktree" is allowed, but "Check out my Linktree to learn how you can support me" is not when it clearly refers to monetary support. In practice: sell and get paid on your own page, keep every payment reference off the archive, and post the delivered fic without mentioning the transaction. None of this is legal advice on reader fiction and copyright — writers in a litigious fandom or taking payment for real-person fiction should research that separately. The request and the payment happen on the page itself, with the follower checking out as a guest — nobody drops out in the hop between the link and the checkout.

How do I turn DM fic requests into a paid listing?

Repeated free "will you write X for me?" messages are the signal to publish a priced listing instead of answering each request individually. Pick the fic request that arrives most often, write down its scope and word count, price it against a tier, and post it as a standing offer that readers buy without any negotiation in a private message.

What Brillay does is give a writer one link to point people to instead of replying privately: a reader who asks in comments or messages gets redirected to the writer's page, pays, and sends the prompt there. The steps for spotting and pricing a repeat request are covered in our guide to turning repeated reader questions into a paid offer, which applies just as well to "write me a fic" as it does to any other recurring ask.

What else can a fic-writer's page include besides commissions?

A fic writer's page can carry more than one offer: Tips for supporters who want to say thanks, Goals with a funding progress bar, and Personalized Videos for followers who want a birthday video instead of a story. Keep the commission itself scoped to one clear deliverable rather than folding every option into one confusing listing.

• Tips: Tips let followers send a one-time thank-you, with nothing for you to deliver and no membership for them to join.
• Goals: A Goal is one named goal with a progress bar: followers make one-time contributions and every contribution is yours whether or not the goal is reached — no deadline unless you set one, and nothing to ship.
• Personalized Videos: Personalized Videos let a follower pay upfront for one personalized video for themselves or someone they care about: you set the price and the delivery time, then record it on your schedule.

Reading for free is the norm rather than the exception, which is why a tip button is worth having at all: an Authors Guild study published June 9, 2026 found that only 25% of readers had paid for a new copy of a print book or ebook they read in the previous month. A tip widget gives supporters who do want to pay somewhere obvious to do it.

Keep each offer's scope distinct. A follower commissioning a fic should know exactly what word count and fandom they are paying for; a tip or Goal contribution should stay separate from any promise of custom writing. For the wider picture of how writers and BookTok creators monetize beyond commissions, see how writers and BookTok creators can make money.

How do I get a fic-commission page live?

To get a fic-commission page live, set the fandoms and pairings you write, pick a word-count tier and its price, define what the prompt submission must include, and choose a delivery time between 1 and up to 5 days — then publish that as a custom request listing. Payment, prompt intake, and delivery all run through the same page.

There is no monthly fee, application, follower minimum, or sales-history requirement to sell a custom request. Readers can pay without creating an account, and writers in 41 payout countries can connect their bank through Stripe. Fandom reputation rather than a publishing credential is what usually drives demand for a fic commission — an editorial observation, not a measured statistic — and the wider writing profession is dominated by freelance and self-directed work: the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median annual wage of $76,910 for writers and authors as of May 2025. That BLS figure covers the broader writing profession, not fanfiction commissions specifically.

Frequently asked questions

Short answers to the questions fic writers ask most before listing a commission: there is no follower minimum, payment happens away from the archives, flat tiers and per-word rates both work, an out-of-scope prompt can be declined, and Brillay charges 8% when a follower pays for work and 5% on tips and goals.

Do I need to be a big-name fic writer to sell commissions?

No. Custom Work has no follower minimum, application, or sales-history requirement; when you are ready to take payment, you connect your bank through Stripe. Pricing and demand depend on your fandom and audience, not a platform gate.

Is it legal to sell fanfiction commissions?

Archive of Our Own, FanFiction.net, and Wattpad each restrict commercial use in their published terms — FanFiction.net's Terms of Service say, "You agree not to use the Service for any commercial use, without the prior written authorization of FanFiction.Net" — which is why payment for a commission happens off those archives. Platform terms are not the same as copyright law: writers commissioning in a litigious fandom or for real-person fiction should research that separately rather than treat this page as legal advice.

Can I post a commissioned fic on AO3 after I deliver it?

The work itself can be posted, but the payment cannot be referenced anywhere on the page. The Organization for Transformative Works permits "usage of the word 'commission' as long as there is no indication that a monetary transaction was involved in the creation of the work or that you are available to create other paid commissions" (OTW). Keep the payment link, the price, and any "commissions open" language on your own page instead.

Should I price per word or by flat tier?

Either works. A flat tier ($10 drabble, $35 standard one-shot, $60 long one-shot) is simpler to list and compare, while per-word pricing in the $0.005–$0.03 range scales more precisely with length. A full comparison with sample numbers is in that same pricing guide.

What if a prompt is way outside what I write?

Followers pay upfront; you can decline a request. A tightly scoped listing — named fandoms, named pairings, a word-count band — makes an out-of-scope prompt rare in the first place.

What does Brillay charge to sell fic commissions?

Using Stripe's published US rate as an estimate, a $35 commission would leave about $30.88 after Brillay's 8% and estimated card fees; tips and goals carry a 5% fee instead.

Create your free Brillay page and turn the next "will you write this for me?" ask into a priced commission.