Modding Guides
How to Earn Money From ATS Mods: Complete Modder Guide
Learn how to earn money from ATS mods using premium mods, Patreon and Lemon Squeezy subscriptions. Start monetizing your mods on Modsy for free.
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Learn how to earn money from ATS mods using premium mods, Patreon and Lemon Squeezy subscriptions. Start monetizing your mods on Modsy for free.
Creating mods for American Truck Simulator takes real work.
Whether you build trucks, trailers, maps, sounds, physics mods, graphics improvements, or other ATS content, a finished release can represent dozens—or even hundreds—of hours of development.
And releasing the mod usually isn't the end of the work.
New American Truck Simulator updates can require compatibility fixes. Players report bugs. Features need improvement. Documentation needs updating. And your community expects the mod to keep working.
So, how can you earn money from ATS mods and make all that work sustainable?
There are several ways to monetize ATS mods, from donations and download revenue to premium mods and recurring subscriptions. In this guide, we'll look at the main options and show you how to start building recurring income from your mods.
Yes. There are several ways modders can generate income from their work.
The most common methods include:
Accepting donations
Earning revenue from downloads
Offering early access
Creating premium mods
Running Patreon memberships
Selling recurring subscriptions
Combining free and premium content
You don't necessarily have to choose only one.
Many modders use free releases to grow their audience while offering additional premium content to the players who want to support their work.
Players see the finished mod. They don't always see everything that went into creating it.
Depending on the project, mod development can involve modeling, texturing, programming, research, testing, troubleshooting, compatibility work, documentation, and player support.
Then American Truck Simulator gets updated—and part of that work may need to be done again.
Monetization can give you a reason and the resources to keep developing your projects over the long term.
It doesn't have to mean putting everything behind a paywall.
You can continue releasing free mods while using premium releases, subscriptions, or supporter benefits to finance your larger projects.
Donations are one of the simplest ways to monetize your work.
If players enjoy your mods, some may be willing to contribute voluntarily through a donation platform.
This works particularly well when you already have an established community.
However, donations have an obvious disadvantage: they're unpredictable.
You might receive several donations after a major release and almost nothing the following month.
That's why donations can be a useful additional income source, but they are difficult to rely on for sustainable mod development.
Another option is earning revenue based on downloads.
Some platforms and file hosts reward creators according to traffic or eligible downloads. Modsy also has a points-based earnings system for eligible downloads, with fraud controls to prevent repeated downloads from artificially increasing earnings.
This gives free mods the potential to generate some revenue while remaining accessible to everyone.
The downside is that download revenue depends heavily on traffic.
A successful release might receive thousands of downloads initially, but traffic often decreases as the mod gets older.
That makes download earnings useful as one part of your monetization strategy, but not necessarily the most predictable source of income.
If you've built an audience that trusts your work, you can offer premium content.
For example, you might keep some of your mods completely free while offering larger or more advanced projects to supporters.
Premium content could include:
More advanced versions of your free mods
Exclusive mods
Additional features or options
Early access to upcoming releases
Larger projects that require significantly more development time
The important part is giving players a clear reason to support you.
You don't need to lock your entire catalog behind a subscription. Free mods can help new players discover your work, while premium releases can support continued development.
This is where monetizing mods becomes much more sustainable.
Instead of convincing players to purchase every new release individually, you can build a community of supporters who pay a recurring subscription to access your premium mods.
For example, imagine you offer access for $3 per month.
With:
25 supporters → $75/month
100 supporters → $300/month
250 supporters → $750/month
500 supporters → $1,500/month
These are simple gross-revenue examples before platform fees and taxes, but they demonstrate why recurring memberships can become powerful as your audience grows.
You don't need thousands of paying supporters.
Even a relatively small group of players who genuinely value your work can help cover software, hosting, development costs, or simply compensate you for some of the time you spend maintaining your mods.
Patreon is already widely used by game modders.
You can create membership tiers and give supporters access to premium content in exchange for a monthly subscription.
But not every player wants to use Patreon.
That's why having another checkout option can help.
With Modsy, you can connect both Patreon and Lemon Squeezy to your modder account. Lemon Squeezy allows you to sell recurring subscriptions through your own connected store, including familiar payment methods such as credit cards and PayPal.
Your supporters can then choose the option that works best for them.
Managing premium mods manually can quickly become frustrating.
You need somewhere to publish the files, somewhere to accept payments, and some way to determine which users should have access.
Then subscriptions expire, players change tiers, new versions are released, and download links need to be managed.
Modsy is designed to bring these parts together.
You publish and maintain your mods on Modsy while Patreon or Lemon Squeezy handles the subscription payment.
When a supporter tries to access premium content, Modsy checks whether they meet the access requirements you've configured.
That means you can spend less time manually sending files or verifying subscribers and more time working on your mods.
The basic process is straightforward:
1. Become a Modder
Create your Modsy account and activate your modder profile.
2. Choose a Creator Membership plan
You can start with the free Launch plan or choose a paid plan if you need more capacity or features.
3. Connect Patreon or Lemon Squeezy
Connect the subscription provider you already use—or set one up for your mods.
4. Publish your premium mods
Choose which content is premium and configure whether access is available through Patreon, Lemon Squeezy, or either provider.
5. Build your supporter base
Players subscribe through your connected provider and can access the premium content they're eligible for.
6. Keep creating
As your audience grows, recurring subscriptions can help finance updates and future projects.
This keeps your mods, versions, screenshots, descriptions, updates, and premium distribution together, rather than turning your subscription page into a makeshift file manager.
One of the biggest barriers for a new modder is paying for tools before earning anything.
Modsy's Launch plan is free.
You don't need a credit card or an existing paid subscription to start. The current Launch plan includes:
Up to 3 premium offerings
5 GB of included storage
Basic creator analytics
Standard publishing workflow
Patreon integration
Lemon Squeezy integration
Modsy currently uses 50 active supporters or $500 in linked monthly recurring revenue as an advisory scale guide for Launch. Importantly, reaching those figures does not automatically upgrade or charge you, start a deadline, or restrict your commerce.
This makes Launch particularly useful if you're new to monetizing mods.
You can start building your premium catalog, gain your first paying supporters, and see whether subscriptions work for you before paying Modsy anything.
You don't need the same infrastructure with 10 supporters that you might need with 1,000.
That's why Modsy's Creator Membership has multiple plans.
The current plans range from Launch at $0/month through Starter, Growth, Pro, and Studio. Higher plans provide progressively more storage, premium publishing capacity, analytics, scheduled publishing, and other tools for larger modding businesses.
For example, Growth currently includes 100 GB of storage, unlimited premium offerings, scheduled publishing, and advanced creator analytics. Pro and Studio increase capacity further and add analytics exports.
You don't need those features when you're just getting started.
Start small. Upgrade when the additional capacity or tools actually become useful to you.
Modsy's supporter and linked-revenue figures are recommendations rather than forced upgrade thresholds. Your plan is not automatically changed or charged based on your success.
Monetization doesn't have to mean abandoning free mods.
In fact, free content can be an important part of growing a premium modding business.
Think of it as a simple cycle:
Create a great free mod → reach more ATS players → build your reputation → gain followers → offer optional premium content → convert your most engaged players into supporters → use that income to create more mods.
Your free mods become a way for players to discover what you can do.
Premium content gives the players who want more—or simply want to support your work—a way to do so.
This approach can be much more sustainable than trying to charge every player for every mod.
You don't need to create dozens of premium mods immediately.
Start with something valuable enough that your existing audience would consider supporting.
Depending on the type of ATS mods you create, that might be:
A premium version of an existing project
A completely exclusive mod
Additional customization options
Larger or more ambitious projects
Early access to upcoming releases
Supporter-only variants or add-ons
Access to your complete premium mod collection
Try to make the offer easy to understand.
A player should be able to look at your membership and quickly answer:
"What do I get if I subscribe?"
If you're already an established ATS modder, you don't have to start from zero.
You may already have thousands of downloads, social media followers, Discord members, or Patreon supporters.
You can bring that existing audience with you.
If you already use Patreon, for example, you can connect your campaign to Modsy and use your Patreon tiers as access rules for premium mods. Existing supporters can then use their eligible Patreon membership to access your premium content.
You can also connect Lemon Squeezy and offer another subscription option to players who would rather pay by card or PayPal.
So Modsy doesn't need to replace the community or subscription business you've already built.
It can become the place where you publish, organize, update, and distribute your mods.
A download counter tells you how popular a mod is.
A community of supporters can help you keep building it.
Your most engaged players can become the people who test releases, report bugs, give feedback, recommend your projects, and financially support continued development.
That's the real advantage of recurring monetization.
Instead of starting from zero financially every time you release a new mod, you gradually build a base of supporters around your work.
For some modders, that might remain a small side income.
For others, it could grow into a serious modding business.
Either way, you can start small.
If you're already spending hours creating and maintaining American Truck Simulator mods, there's nothing wrong with giving your community an optional way to financially support that work.
And you don't need a huge audience to begin.
With Modsy, you can start with the free Launch plan, connect Patreon or Lemon Squeezy, publish premium content alongside your free mods, and begin building recurring income from your work.
As your modding business grows, you can move to a larger Creator Membership plan when you actually need the additional capacity and tools.
Your mods are already the hard part. Now give the players who enjoy them an easy way to support you.
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