Royalty split calculator
Check a split sheet adds up to exactly 100%, on either the 100% or 200% basis, then see what each person is owed to the cent.
| Name | Role | Master % | Publishing % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 100% / 100% | 100% / 100% |
- Fix: Somebody has a share but no name. An unnamed share cannot be registered anywhere.
Split a payment
Two boxes, because they are two different pools of money and nothing here converts between them. How a streaming dollar divides between the recording and the composition depends on the service, the country and your deal — putting a ratio in would be a number invented for your split sheet.
This checks arithmetic, not agreements. A split sheet everybody has signed is what makes it real, and who deserves what is a conversation no calculator can have for you.
Why it matters
Splits fail quietly
A split that does not total 100 does not produce an error anybody sees. The registration is rejected or held, the work sits unmatched, and the royalties accrue against a rights holder nobody has identified. People find out years later, if at all.
The other two ways it goes wrong are just as quiet. A sheet written on the wrong basis pays everybody half. And a payout that rounds each row on its own drifts a cent per cycle until the account no longer balances against the statement it came from.
All three are arithmetic, which means all three are checkable before anyone signs anything. That is the entire purpose of this page.
Questions
The things people ask first
Why are there two percentage columns?
Because there are two copyrights. The master is the recording, and the publishing is the underlying composition. They can be owned by completely different people in completely different proportions, and a sheet that gives one number per person is ambiguous about which one it means.
What is the 200% basis, and which one should I use?
Most performing rights societies split a work as 200%: 100% of the writer share plus 100% of the publisher share. A plain split sheet between collaborators is usually written on 100%. Use whichever the person receiving it expects — handing a 100% sheet to a society that reads 200% halves everybody, and the toggle re-expresses the column rather than making you retype it.
Does it have to total exactly 100?
Yes, and this is the single most common reason a work sits unregistered and uncollected. A society or distributor will not guess at the missing point, and nothing tells you it has stalled — the money simply never arrives.
Three equal writers on $100 is $33.33 each, which is $99.99. Where does the cent go?
To whoever has the largest fraction left over. Rounding each share on its own leaves the total short, which is exactly the bug that makes a payout run fail to reconcile. Here the leftover cents are handed out one at a time, so the rows always add up to the amount you put in.
Is this a split sheet?
No. It checks the arithmetic. What makes a split real is a document everyone has signed, ideally before anyone has a reason to argue about it.
Is anything saved or sent?
No. It runs in your browser, nothing is stored and no account is needed.