Epic to apply new Unreal Engine pricing plan for non-game developers

Fortnite developer Epic Games will charge non-game developers an annual subscription fee of $1,850 to use its Unreal Engine, The Verge reports.

The usual royalties remain for game developers. The changes will take effect with the 5.4 update for Unreal Engine at the end of April.

The changes do not affect game developers, who will continue to pay for access to Epic’s tools in the form of a 5 percent royalty on products that earn more than $1 million in gross revenue during their lifetime.

Non-game development in the Unreal Engine usually refers to the production of other content, such as movies, TV shows, or infotainment systems in cars.

Not all non-game developers will have to pay for Unreal Engine under the new pricing model. Epic is exempting companies that earn less than $1 million in annual gross revenue, as well as students.

Companies that create plug-ins for Unreal Engine can continue to use it for free; in these cases, Epic will continue to receive its share through a revenue sharing model on its Unreal Engine Marketplace.

The annual fee of $1,850 includes access to both the Unreal Engine and Epic’s Twinmotion real-time visualization tool and RealityCapture photogrammetry software.

Epic says that by the end of 2025, additional tools will be integrated directly into the Unreal Engine, but they can also be purchased separately for $445 per year for Twinmotion and $1,250 for RealityCapture.

Epic says that its new pricing model will only apply to developers working on the latest version of the engine: Unreal Engine 5.4. If a developer is using version 5.3 or earlier, the pricing changes will not be applied until they upgrade.