---
title: "Kindle ebook royalty calculator — what a sale really pays"
description: "What a Kindle sale pays after Amazon's delivery fee, and whether the 70% or 35% option earns more at your price. Amazon.com, checked August 2026."
source: https://usegalley.com/resources/kindle-ebook-royalty-calculator
---
[Home](https://usegalley.com/) [Resources](https://usegalley.com/resources) Kindle royalty calculator

# Kindle 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.

List price US dollars, before tax.

Converted file size Megabytes. A text-only novel lands near 1 to 2.

Copies a month

You keep, per copy

$3.27 on the 70% option

- **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

This runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere, and
there is no account to make.

## 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](https://usegalley.com/docs/preview-and-export), 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](https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200634560) and [its digital pricing page](https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200634500).
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.

## Next

[Kindle Unlimited earningsWhat a borrow pays instead of a sale.](https://usegalley.com/resources/kindle-unlimited-kenp-calculator) [Paperback royalty calculatorThe print side of the same listing.](https://usegalley.com/resources/kdp-royalty-calculator) [Amazon description formatterThe listing itself.](https://usegalley.com/resources/amazon-book-description-formatter)

More at [the resources index](https://usegalley.com/resources).

Put all this into practice when you write your novel in Galley.

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