Somebody else manufactures it, and the name earns a royalty.
The lowest-capital business on this list and the easiest one to ruin. A licence is a rented reputation, and the only thing that keeps it worth renting is a willingness to turn down most of the people who want one.
The categories, and what each is worth.
| Category | Typical royalty | Minimum guarantee | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homeware and kitchen | 6–10% of wholesale | £15,000–60,000 | Obvious, proven, and the shop already demonstrates the demand |
| Clothing | 8–12% | £25,000–100,000 | Crowded, and the margin sits with whoever owns the customer |
| Toys and plush | 8–12% | £20,000–75,000 | The shop has five named beasts and cannot keep four of them in stock, which is a signal |
| Garden and outdoor | 5–8% | £10,000–40,000 | Underexploited, and the most on-brand category on the list |
| Food and drink, non-alcohol | 5–9% | £20,000–80,000 | Constrained by the sixteen-mile rule at the shop, not in wholesale |
| Video games | 10–20% of net receipts | £50,000–200,000 | The Stage 1 route in the game design, and the cheapest way to test that audience |
| Board games and puzzles | 8–12% | £10,000–35,000 | A jigsaw already exists in the shop and sells |
| Machinery and tools | 3–6% | Varies enormously | Only with a manufacturer whose product is genuinely good, because this is the category where a bad licence gets noticed |
The rules that make a licensing programme survive.
What is refused
- Anything alcoholic, outside the existing drinks business
- RefusedThe drinks business exists and is very good at it. A licensed alcohol product would compete with it and dilute both.
- Financial products
- RefusedA branded credit card is the fastest way to convert affection into resentment.
- Anything aimed specifically at children under twelve
- Case by case, and mostly refusedThe audience is already family-shaped. Products aimed at small children are a different regulatory conversation.
- Any category with three licensees in it
- RefusedThree is where a licensing programme becomes a market stall.
What is required
- Sample approval on every SKU
- Physical, not photographicA photograph of a mug tells you nothing about the glaze.
- A minimum guarantee
- AlwaysIt is not about the money. It is the only reliable filter for seriousness.
- A term of two to three years
- Not fiveLong enough to invest, short enough to leave.
- Audit rights, exercised
- At least once per licenseeAn audit right that is never used is a clause, not a control.
The number nobody watches
- Licensees, total
- Kept under twelveEvery additional licensee makes every existing one slightly less valuable.
- Refusal rate
- Deliberately highA programme that says yes to most enquiries has stopped being a brand and started being a font.
The video-game licence is the interesting one.
Not because it is the largest — it is not — but because it is the cheapest possible way to answer a question nobody currently knows the answer to, which is whether an audience that watches a programme about farming will play a game about farming.
Ten million people watching is not evidence. A branded content pack inside an existing farming simulation costs between fifty and two hundred thousand pounds, takes three to nine months, is mostly a licensing negotiation rather than a build, and produces a real number: downloads, playtime and whether anybody finished it.
That is the first of three stages in the game design on this site, and the reason it comes first is precisely that it is a licence rather than a product. If the answer is no, a licence lapses and nothing has been built that has to be maintained.
What a licensing programme would actually earn.
| Scenario | Licensees | Combined wholesale | Royalty income |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cautious | Four | £3m–5m | £210,000–450,000 |
| Realistic | Six to eight | £6m–10m | £420,000–900,000 |
| Undisciplined | Fifteen or more | £15m+ for two years, then falling | High, then structurally impaired |
| Plus a video-game licence | One | Not comparable | £50,000–200,000 guaranteed, then royalty |
Nothing here is licensed, offered or proposed
This is an unsolicited third-party demonstration build. No licence exists, no manufacturer has been approached, and nobody named on this site has been contacted about anything on this page.
Licensing, questioned.
Because licensing income grows by saying yes and licensing value falls by the same act. Twelve is a judgement rather than a science, and any number is better than no number.
Because a photograph of a mug tells you nothing about the glaze, and the glaze is what somebody holds in their hand and forms an opinion about.
Because it is the cheapest way to find out whether this audience plays farming games, and it is the first stage of the game design elsewhere on this site.
And publishing, which is harder than it looks.
Five books already sell. The question is who publishes the next twenty.
