Lowered Expectations - The Simple Formula to Calculate How Much $$$ Your Steemit Post Will Actually Payout

The first time I had a post make money I was a little disappointed at the actual amount I was paid in $SBD compared to the amount displayed as a potential payout. I simply didn't look into all the details disclosed in the whitepaper. That was my fault but I don't think I'm alone. I think many new users after getting their first dolphin or whale vote experience this little heartbreak as well.

Then after getting your $SBD to market the minnow learns that a Steem Backed Dollar isn't actually worth a United States Dollar like the name would imply. Since Steem/Steemit is still rather young it's not accepted everywhere like dollars and bitcoins so you will most likely have to convert to use it.

There is a rather simple way to figure out exactly how much of that potential payout you will receive in liquid real world spending value so you can set your expectations properly. I will use USD & BTC for that real world spending currency for this article.

I'll use the current top trending post as a write this article as an example

As usual @charlieshrem is making bank with his latest post and at this time has a potential payout of $1,467.06. Charlie doesn't get all that money as the author though, 25% of a post's potential payout value goes to the curators. That leaves Charlie with 75% but half of that he will receive in Steem Power that cannot be traded right away. Steem power has to be powered down over 104 weeks to become Steem that can be traded so that value is locked in for the long term and will be discounted from this formula. That is how we get the value of 37.5% for the formula.

Now we just need one more value to calculate the real world spending value. We need the current price a Steem Backed Dollar is trading for so we head on over to Steemprices.com

The current price for a Steem Backed Dollar on Poloniex is at $0.85 USD or 0.001396 BTC

Alright let's whip out our calculators and do some multiplication.

PP = $1,467.06, SBD/USD = 0.85

( $1,467.06 * 0.375) * 0.85 = 467.625375 US$

PP = $1,467.06, SBD/BTC = 0.001396

( $1,467.06 * 0.375) * 0.0013965 = 0.768280984 BTC

TL;DR

At current market rates you get a little less than one third of the potential payout in cold hard cash to spend.

PS: That other 37.5% of value that is locked in as Steem Power could be worth more or less in the future. This formula doesn't give you the full value of a post over it's entire lifetime. It's for the shortsighted instantaneous reward you will receive.

Charlie's post: https://steemit.com/steem/@charlieshrem/sterling-silver-steem-ring-by-charlie-shrem-community-feedback-needed