you mean 10% of the total income? So like if they have 48 girls, they split those 10%?
its sad to hear the japanese idols are paid so poorly
no each girl can be signed to any agency, and from my recollection those agencies keep up to 90%( hopefully that is wrong or at least its from outside gigs.)
The pay to be a member of akb is a flat amount. i would guess that just has a minor commission since i think they have to be represented to get a job.
some answers i found. thankfully maybe my 90% was misremembered .
but i did find this.
Agencies take huuuuuge percentages of talent's pay in general. It's hard to estimate what they actually take home.
i think this is why so many members switch agencies as they get popular for better contracts.
AKB48 members (and this happens with the sister groups as well) are under yearly contracts for a fixed monthly salary (according to their activities within the group and the amount of time they have been in the group)
To that you can add the “bonuses” members get from being under 2 contracts (Their AKB48 contract and their agency contract, cuz yes, AKB48 members are signed under different agencies that manage them individually) so this could make them earn more, especially if they are promoting as a soloist or as part of an idol unit outside of their 48G.
Back in 2015, HKT48’s member Sashihara Rino was estimated to be earning a base salary of 68,000,000 yen (around 471000 USD). AKB48’s member Maeda Atsuko was estimated to be earning 20 million yen ( around $243,000 USD)
On the other hand, there were members like AKB48/SDN48’s member Megumi Ohori was said to earn around 540,000 yen a year (around 3700 USD) but then again SDN48 didn’t have that many activities and later disbanded.
So, It really depends on how many activities, seniority, and popularity the member has yet starting members are said to earn around 100000 yen a year (around 3 times the minimum salary)
Hoping this satisfactorily answers your question.
AFAIK members receive minimum wage.
The absolute lowest ranking ones may, they did in the past at least. But there was a show where some former members spilled the tea and discussed payment. They said they have an evaluation where they are rated out of 10 points on various categories like handshake sales, how well they're representing the group or something. I'm not sure what all the categories are. But the top end number that's been thrown around even before this evaluation stuff came out was something like $200k salary for top members, and then of course they make their own money(the big money for some) from outside work as you mention.
For some idea about what a midrange member might have made, one of the girls who was leaking a lot of this stuff Nishino Miki was complaining on a show that before she graduated that she could afford a $2100 per month apartment in Tokyo, and now has to live in one that's ike $800 or something. So we can assume that it's not just like minimum wage for everyone but the very top, since $2100 a month must have meant a decent salary unless she's crazy enough to spend most of her salary on rent, lol.
But yeah, like you said before outside jobs are where the real money is. I was pleased to find out that even marginalized girls on Team 8 apparently get lots of opportunity for outside work back in their home prefecture. That was on one of the recent AKBingo episodes. Also, I bet Toyota pays better than minimum wage. Although you never know.