Tebex Fees and Escrow Explained for FiveM Sellers

Two systems sit between you and getting paid for a FiveM script: Tebex (the checkout and payout platform) and Cfx asset escrow (the encryption that protects your code). Misunderstanding either one costs you money or your account. This guide explains exactly how Tebex fees work for FiveM, what you actually keep per sale, and how to set up escrow correctly so your source stays protected while buyers can still use your resource.

What Tebex Actually Charges on FiveM

FiveM is a special case on Tebex. The standard Tebex platform fee is 5% for most games, but for FiveM it is 15% of each transaction. On top of that you pay payment gateway fees depending on how the customer checks out, which works out to roughly an additional 7 to 8%. Add it together and your total cost is around 22 to 23% per sale, meaning you keep roughly 77 to 78% of the sticker price.

That higher FiveM fee is worth pricing in from the start. On a $30 script, expect to net roughly $23 after fees. This is not a reason to avoid Tebex, because it is the only permitted platform and you cannot legitimately sell FiveM resources anywhere else, but it is a reason to price deliberately rather than racing competitors to $5 and discovering your margin evaporated.

• Tebex platform fee: 15% on FiveM (vs 5% for other games)
• Payment gateway fees: roughly 7-8% on top
• Total fees: ~22-23% per sale
• You keep: roughly 77-78% of the listed price

What You Get for the Fee

The FiveM fee is high, but Tebex earns part of it back in protection and convenience. Payouts are on a 14-day cycle, faster than the 30-day cycle most processors use. More importantly, Tebex handles chargeback disputes for you: if a buyer files a chargeback, Tebex manages the paperwork, and if the buyer wins, Tebex covers the claim out of pocket rather than clawing it back from you. For a digital product business where chargeback fraud is common, that protection has real value.

Tebex also handles checkout, tax collection in many regions, and the buyer-facing license/download flow that ties into your Cfx account. You are paying for infrastructure you would otherwise have to build, secure, and maintain yourself, plus the legitimacy of being on the only Cfx-sanctioned platform.

How Asset Escrow Protects Your Code

Escrow is what stops buyers from reselling or leaking your source. The Cfx asset escrow system encrypts supported files (Lua, plus YFT, YDD, and YDR model files) so a buyer's server can run the resource but nobody can read or modify the protected code. To use it, your fxmanifest.lua must set lua54 to 'yes', and the maximum escrowed asset size is 1GB. Escrowed assets can only be distributed through Tebex packages, which is why the two systems are tied together.

The key technique for usability is the escrow_ignore directive. You list your config and language files there so they stay fully readable and editable, while your core logic stays encrypted. This gives buyers the customization they expect (jobs, prices, locations, translations) without exposing the code that makes your script worth paying for. Get this balance wrong and you either expose your source or frustrate buyers with a rigid product.

Setting It Up Without Mistakes

The clean workflow is: build and test your resource locally, decide which files stay open (config, locales) versus encrypted (core logic), set lua54 'yes' and your escrow_ignore list in fxmanifest.lua, upload and escrow the asset to your Cfx account, then create a Tebex package, choose FiveM Asset, and attach it. Buyers receive a download link by email and can pull the resource directly into their own Cfx account. Note that escrowed assets cannot be transferred between accounts, so set them up under the account you intend to sell from.

Getting escrow and packaging right is fiddly the first time, and it is exactly the kind of setup PlayDeck walks you through, alongside building the resource itself with an AI workflow you steer. If you want to skip the trial-and-error and ship correctly from day one, join the PlayDeck waitlist.