What WEBTOON Creators Cite as the Platform’s Competitive Edge: “Transparent Revenue Settlements and Opportunities to Go Global”

[Financial News] “WEBTOON’s competitiveness lies not simply in market size or revenue opportunities. It is based on an operating system that supports a sustainable creative ecosystem, including creator support and care, as well as trust-building.”
Lim Cheol-min, a professor in the Department of Media and Communication at Jeonbuk National University (JBNU), made the remarks on the 10th while presenting the results of a survey of creators directly contracted with WEBTOON at a seminar titled “Questions for a Sustainable Webtoon Ecosystem” at Pilwon in Gwanghwamun.
From July 22 to August 25, Professor Lim surveyed creators’ perceptions of the platform, focusing on the fairness they experienced in revenue and contracts, creative support, welfare, and autonomy. The survey covered 111 creators directly contracted with WEBTOON, with a completion rate of 92.5%. Respondents had an average of 4.7 years of creative experience and 2.9 years of experience serializing works on WEBTOON.
“Creators directly contracted with WEBTOON gave the platform’s role an overall positive assessment,” Professor Lim explained. “Overall satisfaction averaged 6.12 out of 7, with high marks for helping works reach a large number of readers and allowing creators to gauge reactions through comments.” The platform was also viewed positively for actively embracing diverse genres and experimentation with new stories.
Revenue settlements and the contracting process received the highest scores. “Transparency in the revenue settlement system scored 6.42, while trustworthiness scored 6.41, both higher than other evaluation categories,” Professor Lim said. “The contract structure—including revenue-sharing rates, fees, and settlement transparency—emerged as a key factor in building trust in the platform.”
Opportunities to enter global markets scored 6.14, while motivation and willingness to enter overseas markets scored 6.0. Professor Lim analyzed that “positive perceptions of opportunities to enter global markets rose 18.1% from the 2022 survey, marking the largest improvement among all categories.” He added, “Creators view WEBTOON as a growth path that extends beyond domestic serialization platforms and leads to global markets.”
Support related to creator welfare and revenue sharing was also cited as a major source of satisfaction. “In open-ended responses, creators mentioned growth opportunities for their works—such as global expansion, the expansion of intellectual property (IP), and secondary commercialization—as well as access to readers as platform strengths,” Professor Lim said. “In the welfare category, practical support that enables creators to continue their work, including health checkups and programs for creators living outside major cities, received positive evaluations.”
Expectations for the platform’s role varied according to creative experience. “Creators with shorter careers cited attracting readers and opportunities to experiment with various genres and stories as sources of satisfaction,” Professor Lim explained. “By contrast, more experienced creators mentioned welfare support, such as health checkups, relatively more often.”
He continued, “Rather than providing identical support to all creators, it is necessary to consider differentiated support based on the creative life cycle and career stage. For emerging creators, this could mean providing opportunities to build a readership and experiment with their work, while long-term serial creators could receive health and welfare support that enables them to work steadily.”
Professor Lim also stressed, “For sustainable growth, it is not enough to diagnose the industry’s problems. We must also examine the trust, support, and compensation systems that enable creators to work with stability.”


[email protected] Choi Hye-rim Reporter