DriveThruRPG and DMsGuild (same corporate parent) publish the number of their products that sell at different “metal tiers”. For instance, DriveThruRPG has had 10,719 products (as of today) sell 50 to 99 copies (Copper tier), compared to 1,792 products at that level for DMsGuild.

Extrapolating from these, you find that 72% of DriveThruRPG products haven’t even sold 50 copies, and 90% of DMsGuild products haven’t either. So if you’re looking for a quick market forecast for the RPG product you’re planning to sell through these channels, “under 50” is a good estimate (probably “under 10”).

It’s good to be the aggregator, though: DriveThruRPG has sold perhaps 8.8 million products, while DMsGuild has sold perhaps 1.5 million. (Those estimates will be off by an order of magnitude if non-metal products sell more than 4 copies apiece – my best guess, averaged across the two sites.)

DriveThruRPG DMsGuild
Metal Tier Threshold Products per Tier % Catalog Unit Sales Products per Tier % Catalog Unit Sales
No metal 0 86,454 72% 6 40,145 90% 2
Copper 50 10,719 9% 76 1,792 4% 73
Silver 100 12,061 10% 150 1,519 3% 145
Electrum 250 6,045 5% 330 647 1.4% 332
Gold 500 2,866 2% 647 316 0.7% 732
Platinum 1,000 1,198 1% 1,096 274 0.6% 1,253
Mithril 2,000 127 0.106% 2,542 93 0.208% 2,393
Adamantine 5,000 28 0.023% 6,500 14 0.031% 6,500
(extrapolated) 10,000 12 0.010% 12,000 6 0.013% 12,500
(extrapolated) 20,000 3 0.003% 25,000 2 0.004% 26,667
(extrapolated) 40,000 1 0.001% 40,000 1 0.002% 40,000

Note: Thanks to Tory for pointing out that the thresholds are off by 1. Minor effect on the math. Can’t trust everything you read! 😉

Photo by Shayan Eskandari on Unsplash.