I heard it was free for Arch visualization but I need a clear answer and link to the license. I was looking into doing some product rendering for some packaging and I don’t want to be faced with money issues. This is not for video games at all but for retail products. If someone from Epic can clear this up for me I’d appreciate it. Thanks.
It’s free if you are using it to make non-interactive media, so if you make images or videos with it you won’t owe any royalty on those.
it just free for anything under 100 000 USD / year profit.
No, for non-interactive media like images or video it is completely free. Otherwise if you are selling a game you are required to pay 5% royalty each quarter on amounts above $3,000
Oh yeah I see, thank you.
This is good a some clarification is required. What about to AEC, is there a charge for creating interactive VR or AR environments of buildings, stations, stadiums, road designs etc?
It depends on the situation, if you’re hired to do a visualization then you wouldn’t pay anything, if the visualization itself is sold then whomever is selling it would have to pay royalty.
It might get weird though if an architectural design firm is paid extra to create some interactive visualization of the design, I think if the customer receives the file then that’s equal to them “buying the software” but if it’s simply shown to the customer and not given to them then that’s not all that different from the customer watching a movie and that would be free. It’s not very clear on that so depending on the situation you might want to ask Epic to clarify: licensing@epicgames.com
It’s kinda strange how much confusion this subject causes, when it’s all set straight in the licensing FAQ.
This is true, but this clause doesn’t necessarily apply here. What DOES apply regarding to e.g. all visualizations (no matter if interactive or not) is this:
If this still sounds complicated, think about it like this: Whatever paid work you do on a UE4 based project is royalty free for as long as you get paid for your WORK. If, on the other hand, you get paid for the product itself and if that product can potentially be sold to a multitude of customers, you no longer get paid for “consulting” or “work-for-hire services”, but for the product itself.
TL;DR: You may do one project for one company and get $10k for it. That’d be royalty free. But if you sell 10k copies of your product for $1 each, you owe 5% to Epic.
Simple, huh? 
I like to say, “free is free”. If you’re freely giving away the UE4 app you build, or even if you’re hired to build the UE4 app, you don’t owe us money. If you’re instead selling an Unreal app, then you owe us money. If you’re simply producing visuals, then that is clearly free, even if you’re paid to produce visuals.