I want to start this post off by making my intentions very clear. I am in no way insinuating that any of this is right or wrong and I'm not going to debate those things. I firmly believe that developers of applications deserve to get paid for what the community feels are valuable apps and services. I am mainly making this post as it seems to be a recurring issue that I run into that people are unaware that benefactor rewards exist. I am going to break down some examples of apps that charge benefactor rewards to help those new users make the best decision for them. I believe we need more developers making apps on the STEEM blockchain and I also value accountability and transparency. It is on users to read the fine print and it is also highly advised that devs make this info apparent at sign up. If any of my percentages are wrong, please update me in the comments and I will correct this information. Thanks for your consideration and now I shall show some percentages below.
The settings for ZAPPL were readily available on steemd and I'll translate it. They are taking a 15% cut of Author rewards for using their platform.
To find out the dtube percentage I investigated through steemd on a payout and did the math.
As of the time of this post 1MVest (1 million vests) = 486.35059 STEEM Power. This means that 1 vest = 0.00048635059 STEEM.
The author rewards total for this post was $3.42. Out of that dtube is paid 2,411.85255 vests which equals 1.173 STEEM POWER. It looks to be a roughly 35% cut going to the app creators and 65% going to the author.
Using the same math as the previous example. The author rewards total for this post was $0.20. Out of that dmania is paid 141.873509 vests which equals 0.069000265 STEEM POWER. This one also appears to be roughly a 35% cut to the app creators and 65% to the author.
The only other popular app that I'm aware of taking benefactor rewards to support development is eSteem which I have been told by numerous witnesses that they take a 5% benefactor reward. I don't know who that is paid out to and I was unable to find it on the blockchain. I tried digging through a few users past payouts but steemd.com actually went down in the process. I have had it confirmed that busy.org is not taking any percentage benefactor rewards currently, but it's always possible for any app to adjust those settings. I am simply providing examples and tools on how to find out this information for yourself if an app is not transparent about the fee they are charging or if someone didn't read the fine print. As always I encourage everyone to do their own research and hope that this information is beneficial to users of these services and fellow steemians. Namaste.