Reddit Collectible Avatars: A Look Back at the Numbers

The Reddit Collectible Avatars program (Avatar Creator Program) has been officially sunset. It has been three years, since its inception and a lot has happened during its lifetime, with an entire ecosystem forming around and now ending with it. Like most things in this world, the state of the project and the people involved were not all sunshine and rainbows, leading to its inevitable end.

As someone who was fairly involved in this project and as one of the few people that had the privilege to experience the entire journey from start to finish, I would like to give some insights into the numbers behind this project. This will perhaps serve as my last active contribution to this space, before leaving it once and for all, for better or worse. Moreover, this writing focuses primarily on the primary market rather than the secondary one.

The Cost of Early Success

For a program to last this long, it certainly achieved a degree of success during its lifetime. However, it may also have been that very success, that led to decisions which ultimately backfired immensely. One that may have pushed the supply a little bit too much, from which it could ever be corrected.

A Question regarding Quantity

Every platform with creators will eventually face the inevitable question: How much content exists? In the case of the Collectible Avatars program, the question becomes: How many collectibles do we have?

Steady growth can be observed since the public opening of the program in January 2024, a curse disguised as a blessing if you will. According to many, including myself, this period may also be recognized as the turning point at which the project began to go downhill. It marked the start of an influx of profit oriented individuals producing collectibles, whether through plagiarism, generative AI, retextures, recolors, or low effort work, prioritizing quantity over quality. This trend quickly became obvious to anyone involved in the project.

Over the course of the program's lifetime, more than 600 creators participated by releasing collectibles for purchase. It is important to note that not all of them are unique individuals, as it was common for creators to operate through multiple accounts for collaboration and branding purposes. Some individuals used this loophole to their advantage by submitting multiple collectibles under different aliases, bypassing the three concurrent submissions per creator limitation.

Profitable? Probably Not.

It is fair to question the program's profitability, but the answer is already clear given that the program has been sunset. Nonetheless, it is still worth taking a closer look at its revenue.

Revenue was calculated in USD, actual revenue may differ due to localized pricing. Furthermore, all numbers (excluding the final total) are an over or under approximation of the actual revenue, this is because the revenue is grouped by the month the collectible was deployed, rather the time it was released or sold. For example, a collectible deployed in August 2024 but released in September 2024, with units sold up until November 2025, would have all revenue counted toward August 2024.

Another interesting note is that Reddit's cut was 5% at the very beginning, increased to 20% of net proceeds thereafter, and shifted to 20% of gross proceeds after 14 March 2024. An overestimation of Reddit's revenue would be $2,000,000, which, over three years, is a very disappointing figure for a company of this size.

Revenue is not what ultimately ends up in a creator's pocket, actual proceeds, after 14 March 2024, are roughly 50% of reported revenue after localized pricing, mobile app store (30%), Stripe fees and Reddit's cut.

A Closer Look at the Economics

The data presented so far is more general in nature, but it provides a solid overview of the project's financial state. More in depth statistics on supply and pricing will be presented in this section, as they reflect which pricing strategies proved effective and which did not.

Balancing Pricing and Supply

Reddit made several attempts to limit the pricing and supply of collectibles. One of the changes introduced to limit supply after the public opening was a cap of 500 units on new collectibles, with the only exception being official collaborations. While this was a welcome change, it certainly wasn't enough, as the damage had already been done by older collectibles having an enormous supply.

With that said, it is only fair to begin by looking at how many collectibles were released at each price point.

The chart above is largely self explanatory, except that the $2.49 collectibles (accessories) are excluded. There are only ten of them, each with a supply of 5,000, which means there is very little interesting data to display for all of the charts in this section and therefore omitted.

One important detail to note is that $74.99 was only available in Gen 1, while $99.99 and $199.99 were available before the public opening and $4.99, $9.99, $24.99, and $49.99 became the only options after the public opening. One should not consider the $74.99 collectibles as more than a small, fun statistic, as they do not represent the majority, especially given that only a few ever existed.

I personally believe that the supply distribution from above is a perfect example of the importance of distinguishing between the median and the average. A few outliers can significantly pull the average upward, for example, the $9.99 collectibles, some of which have a supply of 10,000 or more.

Typical Sales for Reference

Typical may not be the best word to use here, as nothing is truly typical and many factors can affect sales. One such example would be releasing a collectible during a crowded release window, which often leads to underperformance, as it becomes buried among other releases.

The chart above serves as a reference point for expected sales of a collectible. However, again, one should not blindly trust the numbers, as selling out 50 units of a collectible with a total supply of 50 is significantly easier than selling 500 units of a collectible with a total supply of 500 in the same price category, as collectors tend to buy low supply collectibles more often due to FOMO.

Considering a Relative Approach

Rather than just looking at the absolute numbers, it can be more useful to consider relative figures, such as a collectible's sales rate.

It is once again crucial to remember that collectibles priced above $49.99 were sold before the public release and benefited from heavy speculation during a previous generational bull run on the secondary market, as well as from having been available in the shop for a longer period. This is especially true for the $74.99 collectibles, as they were exclusive to Gen 1, which sparked the speculation. A sales rate above 100% indicates overmints, which can occur when multiple people purchase the last available unit of a collectible simultaneously.

How about Traits?

With the exception of official collaborations and $2.49 accessories, a collectible consists of multiple traits, with a minimum of four and a maximum of eight.

Collectibles with eight traits would be the rarest in most cases, given that hair traits are not always possible. Similarly, collectibles with four traits are less favored, as collectors generally prefer collectibles with a greater number of traits. Some creators address this by duplicating the same trait across different slots, giving collectors more flexibility without adding new traits, since adding more could make the collectible worse (less is more!).

On paper, eight trait collectibles may seem to underperform compared to seven trait ones, but it's important to remember that there are generally fewer eight trait collectibles to begin with. For this reason, as in the previous section, it is also beneficial to examine the relative sales rate in relation to the supply.

The number of traits definitely has an impact on sales. However, as observed, the average buyer does not pay much attention to them, since they rarely examine individual traits and use a collectible as a whole, without combining it with others in a way that would make the number of traits influence their purchase decision.

Wrapping Up

Well, what now? This program, unlike others, is one of the very few that allowed small creators to reach a massive audience and kickstart their presence. However, I, like many others, am grateful that the program has been sunset. Admittedly, I have spent far too much time on this program and, like many others working behind the scenes in this space, failed to achieve success.

Unfortunately, this program did not receive the care it needed, and by the time Reddit realized there was no return from its disastrous state, it was already too late to fix the damage. One can blame this on the greedy individuals clogging the pipeline with generative AI collectibles, as well as those who spam low effort collectibles for a quick profit. Honestly, thinking about it now, this entire program has essentially become a never ending mouse and cat game, with the sheer number of mice overwhelming anyone.

From the creator's perspective, the program was only ever profitable for a few, which led most of them to quit. It is rather rare for a creator to remain in this space and I do not blame them, after all, someone has to pay the bills.

All in all, we all knew this was bound to happen, and I would consider it a good ending, better than having Reddit drag it out, delaying the inevitable and potentially making the situation even worse. At some point, letting go is the right choice and this feels like one of those moments.