Home Resources Kindle royalty calculator
Free toolKindle ebook royalty calculator
What a Kindle sale actually pays once Amazon has taken the delivery fee out, and which of the two royalty options is worth more at your price. Amazon.com, with the price band as it stands after July 2026.
US dollars, before tax.
Megabytes. A text-only novel lands near 1 to 2.
You keep, per copy
- At 70%, before the delivery fee
- $3.49
- Delivery fee, at $0.15 a megabyte
- −$0.23
- At 70%, net
- $3.27
- At 35%, no delivery fee
- $1.75
- A month at this rate
- $327
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How the Kindle royalty is worked out
At 70%: royalty = (0.70 × list price) − (0.15 × megabytes). The delivery fee has a one cent minimum and is charged on every sale.
At 35%: royalty = 0.35 × list price, with no delivery fee at all.
The 70% option is only available between $2.99 and $12.99. Below and above that band, 35% is the only option, which is why a $0.99 launch price earns thirty-five cents and a $19.99 box set earns seven dollars rather than fourteen.
The megabytes are Amazon's converted file, not your upload. For a novel with no images the two are close. For anything illustrated they are not, and the difference comes out of every single sale.
These are Amazon.com figures. The other stores have their own bands and their own delivery fees, and Amazon moved the US ceiling in July 2026, so I would rather cover one marketplace properly than three approximately.
Galley exports the EPUB itself, including the retailer-specific builds, so the file you upload is the file you meant to upload.
For working things out, not for signing anything. Printers and retailers set their own rates and specifications, change them without notice, and none of them is affiliated with me or with Galley. I checked these figures by hand in August 2026 against KDP's ebook royalty terms and its digital pricing page . Confirm on the official page before you commit money to a price, a print run or a contract.
Questions
Should I choose 70% or 35% on KDP?
Seventy per cent, at almost any price it is allowed at. Thirty-five only wins below 2.99 dollars, where 70% is not offered, or above 12.99, where it is not offered either. Between those two prices the 70% option pays roughly twice as much even after the delivery fee.
What is the KDP delivery fee?
Amazon charges 0.15 dollars per megabyte of the converted file on every 70% sale, with a one cent minimum. A text-only novel converts to one or two megabytes, so it costs fifteen to thirty cents a sale. A book full of images can cost several dollars.
How do I reduce the delivery fee?
Compress the images, and do not embed fonts you do not need. Amazon charges on the converted file, not on what you uploaded, so a 30 MB upload of a text novel usually still converts to about 2 MB. Check the real figure in your KDP dashboard rather than guessing from your export.
Why did the 12.99 ceiling change?
Amazon raised the top of the 70% band from 9.99 to 12.99 dollars in July 2026. It is opt-in, so a book already priced above 9.99 did not move to the higher royalty on its own.
Does the ebook price affect the paperback?
In the reader’s head, which is where the pricing decision gets made. A paperback priced close to the ebook makes the ebook look poor value, and a paperback priced far above it makes the paperback look like a mistake.
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