A while back I put together a lengthy Frequently Asked Questions, some of which is now used in the FAQ on Steemit.com. Since then, we've seen significant changes to the Steem ecosystem and have had many new users join us, so I think an update to the FAQ is overdue.

Given that the full document is 56 pages long, I'm breaking it up into smaller sections so it's not overwhelming for readers. I'll be updating and posting it one part at a time. Included in this post is "Payouts."

The previous two sections, parts 2 and 3, didn't require many updates, but payouts required significantly more changes.

My following posts will include the categories:

• Money
• Posting
• Voting
• Security
• Technical Questions
• Other

If you have any questions about Steem, let me know and I'll try to get them answered or add them to the updated FAQ.

Payouts

Why does the amount of time until payout keep changing? When do I get paid?

After you make a post, a 24-hour timer starts counting down. When you get an upvote, time is added. The amount of time added depends on how much the payout increased: If the payout increased by 10%, not much time will be added to the clock. However, a vote that triples the payout will add a significant amount of time.

Nearly all first payouts occur within 48 hours of posting. If you get at least $0.01 of upvotes after the first payout, you will receive a second payout four weeks later.

Distribution of rewards for all curation and comments happen only at the first payout, but the author gets rewards from both payouts.
See: How do reward distributions work?

Why does my payout estimate keep changing when I’ve received no new upvotes or flags?

There is a fixed amount of new STEEM created every day to be dispersed as rewards in a rolling 24 hour period. At any given time, the system is making an estimate of how much you will be paid based on what percentage of Steem Power-adjusted votes your post possesses.

Let's pretend a piece of content is currently worth $5. But then, many other articles suddenly become highly-upvoted. The money to pay those popular posts needs to come from somewhere, so a portion of your post's value is reallocated to these newly-popular posts. Now your post may only be worth $4.

Another reason your payout may change is price movements in the 3.5-day moving average of Steem.

My post said I was going to get paid $10, why did I only make $7.80?

The value appearing on your post is not the amount of your payout. You, as the author, are guaranteed at least 75% of the total. As much as 25% goes to the curators (the people who upvoted your post).
See: How do reward distributions work?

How do reward distributions work?

The Steem network separates payouts into two categories, the author reward, and the curation reward:
The author is guaranteed at least 75%. Curators get up to 25%.

Author reward is paid out:

• 50% in Steem Power
• 50% in Steem Dollars, STEEM, or a combination of the two

Curation rewards are paid out:

• 100% in Steem Power

At the time of posting, authors have the option to be paid 100% in Steem Power or to decline a payout altogether.

What determines how much of the curation reward goes to the author versus curators?

The payout split depends on how long after posting the vote was cast, using a linear function:

• If a post is upvoted the moment of posting, 100% of the curation award goes to the author.
• If a post is upvoted 30 min after posting, 100% of the curation award goes to the curator.
• Between 0 and 30 minutes, each moment that passes, more of the reward goes to the curator.
• At 15 minutes it's a 50/50 split.
• At 3 minutes, 90% goes to the author and 10% to the curator.
• At 27 minutes, 10% goes to the author and 90% to the curator.

I’m upvoting posts at the right time. Why am I not getting meaningful curation awards?

This is a complicated topic, but keeping things more understandable - To receive meaningful curation rewards, you need a combination of:

• Steem Power
• High voting power
• High voting weight
  You must also upvote posts before they become popular and after some time has passed since posting.

The more accurate answer to this question involves a lot of math. If you are not mathematically inclined, you may want to skip to the next question.

The system determines the total amount of rewards (in STEEM) to allocate for a post based on its net rshares (sum of both positive upvoting rshares and negative downvoting rshares contributed to the post), its reward weight percentage (normally 100% if you don't post more than 4 posts per day), as well as other global parameters in the system at the time of payout like the sum of total vshares of all posts/comments on the platform with positive net rshares, and the total STEEM held in the reward pool. Assuming the net rshares of the post is positive (otherwise there would be no payout), the exact equation is steem_in_reward_pool * reward_weight_percentage_of_post * vshares_of_post / total_global_vshares where vshares_of_post = f(net_rshares_of_post) and f(x) = (x+s)^2 - s^2 with s = 2000000000000.

The fraction of the total rewards allocated for a post that go towards curation rewards is at most 25% (it can be less because of upvotes during the initial 30 minute reverse auction period). Then that amount allocated to pay curators of the post is divided among the various upvoting curators (who haven't changed their initial vote on the post) according to the relative weight they received for their upvote on that post. That weight is a function not only of the rshares they contributed to the post with their upvote (which is itself proportional to the product of their chosen voting weight percentage and the total amount of VESTS they had at the time of the upvote), but also on the accumulated rshares contributed by upvoters of the post before them. If you want to learn the exact math behind the calculation, I recommend reading @theoretical's post series on the topic.

Steem rewards users for commenting and upvoting. Why not for sharing?

You can gain curation rewards from resteeming (reblogging). The rewards that you gain will depend on how much STEEM the post gains after you upvoted the post and shared it with your followers. What this means is that sharing content that will be popular before it gains popularity would give you a greater curation reward than sharing content that is not going to be popular or content that has been seen by everybody already.

Can I choose to be paid in 100% Steem Power?

Yes, you can. Before you publish your post, you can checkmark the “Pay me 100% in Steem Power” box.

Now that I earned some Steem Dollars, what can I do with them?

You have a few options:

• Visit a Steem marketplace such as https://www.peerhub.com (created by @steemrollin)
• Hang onto them and earn interest
• Cash them out
• Buy STEEM
• Power Up (Must convert to STEEM before powering up)
  https://steemit.com/steemit/@piedpiper/so-you-just-earned-your-first-steem-dollars-now-what
  https://steemit.com/steemit/@highlite/steemswap-is-now-livehttps://steemit.com/how-to/@blueorgy/how-to-convert-your-steemdollars-sbd-to-cash-usd-transfer-it-into-your-bank-account
  https://steemit.com/tutorial/@beanz/how-to-get-my-usdteemit-money-into-my-bank-account

Please let me know if you see anything here that's inaccurate or misleading. Follow me to see the rest of my FAQ updates in the coming days. Money is the next category I'll be taking on.