"I'm new here. Can you explain post payouts like I'm 5?"

This one comes direct from @toblerusse48 in the comments section of my last "Explain it like I'm 5" post, which you can read here: https://steemit.com/steem/@aggroed/i-m-new-here-can-you-explain-steemit-to-me-like-i-m-5

"Very helpful. Could you write a post about how the payments are made/sent to accounts and why there is a delay. I am new here and I wasn't given any sign up bonus steem like others were. Some of my posts have earned rewards but in my wallet it still says 0.00 across the board. I'm confused by that.
Do I need to pay for steem to get started?"

This stuff isn't obvious when you start

Before I answer the question I want you to know that the answer isn't obvious. Even harder is that the answer changes over time as different "hardforks" happen. Well, now you probably want to know what a hardfork is... Ok, well, the program that runs this place is called steemd. You can find it on github, which is a repository for programs here- https://github.com/steemit
The program isn't static though. The developers make changes and tweaks to how this thing runs. Some of the tweaks are big and some of the tweaks are small. While it's not a complete answer a simple answer is that every time there is consensus on how to change the program and drop improvements it's delivered as a "hardfork." So, each new version of steemd is basically a new hardfork. So, think of it as V1, V2, V3 and so on.

How do the payouts work now?

Again, this could change in the next hardfork, but right now it works like this. The steem platform increases the amount of steem in supply. The overall rate is something like 10% a year. There's 240M steem in circulation now. So roughly speaking 24M steem are generated each year. Some portion of that goes towards a pool of steem called the "rewards pool" which awards posting and curating content on Steemit. When you get an upvote on a post it signals the program to award you some of the total daily rewards to go into your account. The more upvotes you get the higher a percentage of the reward pool your content will earn.

Not all votes are equal though. Posts that are upvoted by whales (Not a solid definition but at a minimum 50k steem power) will be worth more than a dolphin, which will in turn be worth more than a minnows vote.

As you rack up votes your posts will rack up payout.

There is a split between curation and authoring

The folks who are authoring a brand new post are considered authors. The people that are upvoting and commenting on posts are called curators. The total reward for a post doesn't all go to the author. 25% of the rewards goes back to the curator. 75% of the rewards goes back to the author.

There's a weird side note to this. Think of it kinda like investing... people that invest in a post early benefit from the upvotes that happen afterward. If you're within the first 30 minutes some of your curation reward will actually credit back to the author. After 30 minutes you'll get the full curation reward, but you might miss out on some of the big votes that come through. So, timing your curation matters too. If you're a minnow starting out, it doesn't really matter all that much... but as a dolphin I like to time my upvotes to be around the 20-30 minute mark, unless I think a post is going to blast off and then I think it works out to get in early.

What kind of posts get high payouts?

Honestly, there is a giant range. Three things that I've seen get consitantly high rewards are the following:

1. Being a programmer writing about programming. If you look at the trending page right now some of the highest post rewards are going to programmers talking about the stuff they've made that interacts with steemit. A lot of the biggest whales are developers for Steemit. So, they dig on the programming aspect. So, if you can code, and you can contribute to steemit expect a payout.

2. Positive and upbeat commentary that's helpful to the community. People that write rants and diss the platform don't end up getting a lot of support. Sometimes if they are right and the whole community is feeling it then it might get supported, but generally negative rants don't do so well. What does well are people supporting new people here. Helping to grow the platform. Sharing a unique perspective. Those kinds of things that grow this place can be rewarded.

3. Witness reports. Witnesses are people that have servers that maintain this platform. Instead of it all being centralized into one computer there are more than 50 servers throughout the world that run steem. So, if one gets knocked down then there are 49+ others that maintain it. If one server communicates something incorrectly there are others that will override and fix it. Witnesses get paid to help construct all the data that goes into the block chain and verify it's accuracy. The steem they get for this service is more than it costs to run the server and many of them choose to do things that are helpful to the platform. As a result there are more things you can do with steem, which in turn increases the value of everyone's steem. Often they will write a report detailing what they are working on. Witness reports often do well.

4. People with big audiences already. Getting a post to explode when you have one follower is nearly impossible. Getting a post to explode when you have 3000 followers and many of them have hundreds of followers helps a ton. Hell, even getting one big name to resteem your posts can help you exposure tremendously. So, know that once you make it on steemit and have a following, a nice rep, and a little pocket of steem in your wallet then your hard work will pay off.

All that's cool, but how and when do I actually get paid?

The payouts as of now are timed 1 week after your article was posted. You'll get 75% of the reward for the post you wrote. 25% of the reward goes back to the folks that upvoted it. So, hang in there. You won't get it right off, but that's a good thing as it allows more folks to upvote your work.

Hope that helps!

STEEM ON!

<3 Aggroed

PS Did you notice a badge change? Rockin' 600+ now! Next stop 700! CHOOO CHOOO!