Ikameshi: ¥10M a Year Selling 3D Assets for VRChat — Six Years on BOOTH After Quitting the Day Job at ¥50,000 a Month

The income of people who make a living in the metaverse tends to be discussed on speculation. “Ikameshi,” who sells 3D assets for VRChat, is one of the few exceptions. The creator has kept publishing figures in a note series, and the January 2025 installment is titled, verbatim, “An indie 🦑 hits ¥10M in annual revenue.” 2024 revenue exceeded ¥10M: asset sales on BOOTH accounted for ¥4.46M for the year (over ¥4M after fees), with the remainder from commissions by individuals and companies.

What’s being sold are 3D models used in VRChat worlds and avatar photography, above all food assets of the “meshi-tero” (food-porn) genre, plus props and gimmicks. Sold as one-time purchases through the BOOTH shop “IKA 3DCG art studio,” it is a textbook form of digital goods retail.

The timeline in numbers

Quitting on ¥50,000 a month

The most quotable element of this case is the threshold for going freelance. Ikameshi has said in an interview that the day job ended around the time sales reached ¥50,000 a month. That is not an amount you can live on. Quitting was possible anyway because the decision input wasn’t the amount itself but the trend, “a growing market, where what I make keeps selling.”

In hindsight, the bet rode the tailwind of VRChat’s expanding economy. Transaction volume in BOOTH’s 3D-model category has kept growing fast, and the deepening culture of decorating avatars, building out worlds, and taking photos translates directly into deeper spending. ¥50,000 a month is hobby-grade in a mature market. In a growing one, it is an early-mover’s position. By this site’s rule of thumb, the orthodox timing to quit is after MRR stably exceeds living costs (ProjectionLab didn’t quit until $23K a month). Ikameshi’s decision sits at the opposite pole, readable as a case of substituting the market’s growth rate for personal runway, including the caveat that it is not a pattern to recommend to everyone.

The compounding of stock-type goods

One-time sales on BOOTH are a stock-type business: an asset made once keeps selling at zero inventory cost. The progression (cumulative ¥7M by May 2023, then ¥4.46M on BOOTH in 2024 alone) shows the accumulating catalog raising the revenue floor. Prices sit in the low range of a few hundred to a few thousand yen: low price × many items × continuous restocking, the classic accumulation of digital goods retail.

The way milestones are celebrated says a lot about the rhythm of this trade. On reaching ¥7M in cumulative BOOTH sales, Ikameshi listed a “¥7M total sales commemorative asset.” The milestone report is simultaneously a new product, an announcement, and a thank-you giveaway. Publishing numbers, giving back to the community, and promoting sales are folded into a single act, an elegant way of converting a revenue report from a brag into a festival. The reason this article can pin down the 2023 cumulative figure precisely is that this commemorative asset survives as a dated primary record.

Also distinctive is the active distribution of free assets. Free models circulate through VRChat spaces, and the exposure itself is the sales activity. People who used them come to the shop and buy paid items, content doubling as advertising, the same way Skeb grew on creator-side support: reputation inside the community becomes the distribution channel itself. At the same time, Ikameshi has mentioned receiving “money-grubber” criticism over monetization, the friction of doing business inside a hobby community stands recorded as a gate everyone earning in this economy passes through.

What the ¥10M line actually means

In the post reporting the 2024 milestone, Ikameshi also notes that “the obligation to pay consumption tax kicks in two years later.” Annual revenue of ¥10M is a symbolic number for a sole proprietor and, at the same time, the practical boundary for becoming a taxable business for consumption tax. Freelance revenue targets are often designed around this line, and the way a number’s meaning changes with the tax system is a point worth holding onto in personal business design.

The revenue mix deserves attention too. Of the ¥10M, BOOTH (the stock side) is ¥4.46M. The majority is commissioned work (labor-intensive contracting). Commissions carry higher prices and immediate cash, but they sell time and do not earn while you sleep the way stock does. On the BOOTH side, fees have reached roughly ¥400,000 a year (¥4.46M gross versus over ¥4M net), the platform’s cut grows in absolute terms as the business grows. How to shift the balance between compounding stock and high-ticket contracting is this business’s next question.

In 2025 came the report that “BOOTH sales alone exceeded my former annual salary.” Reaching the point where the stock side alone sustains life turns contract work into work one can choose. A freelancer’s stability is decided less by income level than by the power to refuse. That is what the two pillars are for.

Conditions for reproduction, and the limits

The parts another seller could borrow: ① those who keep placing products early in a growing market receive the market’s expansion directly as revenue growth, ② free giveaways are the cheapest advertising in digital goods retail, ③ in low-priced stock-type sales, the accumulated catalog becomes the revenue floor.

The limits are equally clear: if the premise of VRChat’s economic growth breaks, the reproducibility of this pattern drops sharply. The dependence on platform rules and fees (BOOTH, VRChat) is exactly the risk shared by businesses built on someone else’s foundation. A case of a salaried worker publishing monthly numbers for side-project asset sales on the same BOOTH is coming soon. For pricing in handmade goods, see the accessory repricing case that reached ¥500,000 a month. Solo cases are listed here.