Early Access has been introduced and used for months and has proven to be the most important step Civitai has taken to support creators.
However, in its current state, the limitations on Early Access put creators at a disadvantage and should be adjusted to be fairer toward the effort and work of creators.
Suggestions:
15-day time limit is too short. During the test stage of the Creators Program, we discussed expanding the Early Access duration to 30 days, with intermediate intervals, which should not be a problem—especially since Illustrious 1.0 creators have already used an extended duration.
The model limit in Early Access is too low. Currently, EA is limited to 20 models. If the duration is expanded to 30 days, the number of models should be increased as well.
In general, it’s not beneficial for Civitai to limit how creators profit. The limit could be raised to 50, which would allow 99.99% of creators, particularly the most productive ones who release 30 models per month, to properly monetize their hard work without being disadvantaged or penalized.Creators should have full control over EA pricing, including price increases. Like any product—including digital goods—if demand rises, the seller should be allowed to increase the price accordingly.
A creator might accidentally set a price too low and should have the option to increase it if needed. Users can then choose whether to pay the price or not—just like with any other product.Allow models in Early Access to be used in the generator only—without a download option. This feature was already implemented for Illustrious 1.0, and it should be an option for all creators.
EA should have an option to block image generation for versions that are not in EA—unless the user has already paid for a previous EA version.
In this case, the user should only have access to the versions they paid for.
I made a specific feature request regarding this here:)
Changes Needed When All Checkpoints Become Available in the Generator (+ article)The new Creators Program creates problems with direct transactions between users and creators.
If a user buys Buzz for $5 and pays 5000 Buzz for a model in EA, the full $5 is not transferred directly to the creator.
The actual value depends on the total pool size and how much Buzz all creators are trying to withdraw.
The main problems:The system still contains a large amount of old Buzz that was generated from clicks and is not backed by real money.
Civitai is giving 25% of the value of generations to creators, which is not a sustainable share.
This devalues Early Access and forces EA to subsidize an impractical 25% of on-site generation.
This is unfair to Early Access creators.
I’ve described these problems and potential solutions in my article:
New Creators Program: Issues and Solutions
My suggested fixes:
The 25% cut for image generation should be lowered.
Worthless old Buzz should be flushed out of the system.
Early Access and Bounties should have a clearer value transaction between user and creator—so EA prices are not inflated, while still providing fair value to creators.
These features were suggested to Civitai via the official feature request system, but some features are just never reviewed and never become public. These are important features that require Civitai attention, that's why I publish them as an article.