The best self-publishing companies in 2026, compared honestly

How we ranked these companies

Fourteen companies, the same seven facts for each. The facts: what it costs to publish, the ebook royalty rule, whether it prints, how far it distributes, how and when it pays, whether it demands exclusivity, and who owns the ISBN. Every figure comes from the company’s own pricing, help or terms pages, fetched on 23 August 2026 and listed in the sources at the end. Where a company’s own pages disagree with each other (it happens — twice below) we say so rather than pick. Prices are quoted in the currency the company uses.

What we did not score: editing quality, cover design, customer support and dashboard usability — we cannot verify them and neither can any list you will read. No company paid to appear; there are no affiliate links. One of the fourteen, Ebokio Publishing, is ours: it is described as what it is — a single-store retailer-platform. It is not ranked above services that do things it does not, such as print or wide distribution.

A note on names. People search for "self-publishing publishers" and "self-publishing book publishers", and the phrase is a contradiction worth noticing: when you self-publish, you are the publisher. Every company below is a store you sell through or a service you hire, not a publisher that acquires your book. That is exactly why the ones that call themselves publishers and charge thousands up front belong in the red-flag section, not the ranking.

The four kinds of self-publishing company

Almost every confusing comparison comes from treating these as one category. They are four businesses with four different deals.

1. Retailers you publish to directly

Amazon KDP, Kobo Writing Life, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble Press, Google Play Books. You create an account with the store, upload, and the store pays you its rate — the highest share you will get from that store, because nobody is in between. The cost is a dashboard per store, and at Amazon a pull toward exclusivity. For English-language fiction, Amazon is where most readers are; Kobo, Apple and Google matter more outside the US than their American share suggests.

2. Aggregators

Draft2Digital, PublishDrive, StreetLib. One upload, many stores and library services, one royalty statement. They keep a slice — Draft2Digital about 10% of the list price — or charge a subscription and pass the full store rate through, as PublishDrive does. The way to "go wide" without five logins, and the only practical route into library lending services like OverDrive and BorrowBox. Most authors still publish to Amazon directly, because aggregators either cannot (D2D: invite only) or earn less there.

3. Print-on-demand distributors

IngramSpark, Lulu, Blurb — and KDP’s own print arm. A paperback or hardback exists only when someone orders it; you earn the list price minus the shop’s wholesale discount minus the print cost. Ingram’s catalogue is what bookshops and libraries order from, so IngramSpark is how a self-published paperback becomes orderable in a shop. Your own ISBN matters here, because a free one makes the distributor the publisher of record.

4. Full-service companies

BookBaby in the US; Troubador, PublishNation and SilverWood in the UK. They convert, design, list and sometimes edit, for a package price. Legitimate when the prices are published, the rights stay with you and the contract says who owns the ISBN. A vanity press is the same shape with the incentives reversed: it makes its money from authors, not readers. The UK guide covers the British ones in pounds, including a company that stopped trading this summer with authors’ royalties unpaid.

The fifth shape: retailer-platforms with their own bookshop Kotobee Books and Ebokio Publishing are free to publish on, pay a higher share than the big retailers, and sell in their own store only. They are not aggregators — nothing is pushed to Amazon or Apple — so they sit alongside a retailer or an aggregator, not instead of one.

Self-publishing companies at a glance

Fourteen companies on the same facts, as of 23 August 2026

Every figure is from the company’s own pages on 23 August 2026 (see Sources). "Reach" is where a book can be listed, not a promise that any shop will stock it.

Ebook retailers you publish to directly

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)

Still the largest market for self-published ebooks in English, and free to publish to. The deal: 70% of your list price (without VAT) on sales inside Amazon’s price band, minus a delivery fee on the file size, and 35% on everything else. The delivery fee is £0.10 per megabyte in the UK and $0.15 in the US, averaging about $0.06 a copy. The band changed on 7 July 2026 for the first time since 2007: the ceiling rose from $9.99 to $12.99 (UK £1.77–£12.99, EU €2.69–€12.99). The 70% rate applies in 41 territories; in Brazil, Japan, Mexico and India it requires KDP Select. Print-on-demand paperbacks and hardcovers earn 60% of list minus the print cost at $9.99 and above (50% below), and Expanded Distribution puts paperbacks into other retailers at 40%.

• Payout: monthly, about 60 days after the end of the month (90 for Expanded Distribution); no minimum by bank transfer, $100/£100/€100 by cheque or wire; paid in local currency.

• Exclusivity: optional. KDP Select is 90 days of ebook exclusivity, auto-renewing, in exchange for Kindle Unlimited page-read payments (a $71.0 million pool in July 2026), Countdown Deals and Free promotions.

• Formats and ISBN: EPUB, DOCX, KPF and others (MOBI is no longer accepted); ISBN optional for ebooks, required for print, with a free KDP-only print ISBN that shows "Independently published".

• Best for: maximum reach and ebook plus print in one dashboard, priced inside the band. Watch: image-heavy books pay real delivery fees; the 35% rate outside the band and outside the 41 territories.

Kobo Writing Life

Free, non-exclusive, and the most generous of the big retailers on pricing: 70% of list price on any book priced at or above $2.99 USD (£1.99, €1.99, CAD 2.99). No upper cap, no delivery fees. The rate is 45% below the threshold and 20% for public-domain works. Kobo’s stores sell in 190-plus countries and power the ebook shops of partners including Indigo (Canada), Booktopia (Australia), FNAC (France), Feltrinelli and Mondadori (Italy), Rakuten (Japan) and Bol (Netherlands and Belgium). That is why wide authors outside the US take it seriously. Kobo Plus, its subscription service, is opt-in per territory and pays per minute read at 60% of the monthly pool divided by minutes read.

• Payout: 45 days after the end of each month, sent on the 15th, once you pass CAD $50; bank transfer only, in USD, CAD, GBP, EUR, JPY, AUD, NZD or HKD (otherwise USD).

• Formats and ISBN: Word, ODT, EPUB or MOBI converted free; up to 100 MB. ISBN optional, but Kobo’s own identifier is not accepted by its partner stores, so a real ISBN widens reach. Audiobooks can be uploaded directly (45% on à la carte sales).

• Best for: box sets and premium pricing (no cap), Canada, Australia, France, Italy, Japan and the Netherlands. Watch: only 45% under the threshold; no print.

Apple Books

The simplest deal in the industry: 70% of list price on every ebook regardless of price, no delivery fees, no price band, unlimited free books, no exclusivity. You publish an EPUB with cover and sample through Apple Books for Authors and an iTunes Connect account. You can choose any of 51 countries and regions (North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Japan, Brazil and most of Latin America; no India or most of Asia). Payment is monthly, no later than 45 days after the first Friday of the month, by bank transfer in your account’s currency, with a US$40 default minimum. Audiobooks go through partner distributors rather than direct upload, and Apple’s free digital narration (English only, ebook already on the store) is nominated through Draft2Digital, PublishDrive or Ingram. Set-up is the fussy part: an Apple Account with two-factor authentication, a card on file, and tax forms.

Barnes & Noble Press

Free and non-exclusive, with a flat 70% on ebooks priced from $0.99 upward (since 2021), no delivery fees, and the fastest payout of the five retailers. The payout: 30 days after the end of the month, on the last Wednesday, once you pass $25. Print-on-demand paperbacks and hardcovers earn 55% of list minus the print cost, with a free B&N-only ISBN. The limits are geographic: ebooks sell on bn.com and NOOK only, print books sell online but are not placed in Barnes & Noble stores, and authors can sign up from just 12 countries. Two 2026 changes to know: from 22 April new print listings must be priced at $14.99 or more (cheaper ones were removed on 14 May). And from 2 March international authors are paid in US dollars rather than pounds or euros. B&N’s own pages disagree on the payout threshold — the marketing page still says "$10 and over, or bi-annual" while the legal terms say $25 — so plan on $25.

Google Play Books

Free, non-exclusive, and underrated: 70% of list price in 64 countries (for partners on the 2019 terms), no price band, no delivery fees, and the lowest payout threshold anywhere. It is $1 by bank transfer, paid on the 15th of the following month in local currency. Google may discount your book but pays the split on the list price you set. The catches: in eleven Asian markets (including India, Japan, Singapore and Korea) the default split is 52%. Only EPUB and PDF are accepted (no Word conversion), and selling is open to partners in 39 countries. Audiobooks can be uploaded directly from 11 countries, and the free auto-narrated audiobook beta generates an audiobook from a live EPUB — useful, though Google does not publish the audiobook revenue percentage.

Aggregators: one upload, many stores

Draft2Digital

The aggregator most English-language authors use, founded in 2012 in Oklahoma City, and since 2022 the owner of the Smashwords store (which no longer takes direct uploads). It earns roughly 10% of the retail price, so you receive about 60% of list at Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Tolino, Gardners and the others. At its own Smashwords store you receive 75%, and library rates at OverDrive, BorrowBox, cloudLibrary and Hoopla. It converts Word files free, assigns free ISBNs, and runs a print-on-demand service paying about 45% of list minus printing through Amazon and Ingram. Amazon ebook distribution is invite-only, so almost everyone keeps KDP direct. The 2026 news is its first-ever fees: a one-time $20 activation fee for new accounts and, from 14 May 2026, $12 a year for accounts earning under $100 in sales. The annual fee is not charged if you have nothing in distribution. The homepage says it is waived in year one; the FAQ does not. Payouts are monthly once you pass $10 (PayPal or US bank) or $20 (international bank or Payoneer).

PublishDrive

The subscription aggregator: instead of a cut, you pay a monthly fee and receive the full store rate on every sale. Plans as of 24 February 2026: Free (one ebook to Apple, Barnes & Noble and Kobo), Starter $16.99 a month or $13.99 billed annually for three books across ebook, print and audiobook. Standard is $24.99/$20.99 for six, Plus $49.99/$41.99 for eighteen, Pro $99.99/$83.99 for forty-eight. All plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee and 0% commission. Reach claims are the largest on this list (50+ stores, 100+ countries, 240,000+ libraries) and it is strong outside English. Print needs an official ISBN (PublishDrive issues its own identifier, not ISBNs); payouts are monthly from a $5 minimum, reported about two months in arrears, with bank fees borne by you. The arithmetic is simple: above roughly $140 a month in store royalties the subscription beats a 10% cut.

StreetLib

An Italian aggregator with unusually good reach into Italian and wider European stores (IBS, Feltrinelli, Libraccio, Bookbeat, Storytel for audio) alongside Amazon, Kobo, Apple and Google. For accounts created from 17 March 2026 outside Italy and German-speaking Europe there are two plans: $99 a year or $299 for lifetime access. Both pay 85% of net revenue on ebooks and audiobooks, capped at 100 titles. The older free tier at 70% appears only on a 2024 blog post, so assume it is gone for new accounts. Print-on-demand costs €49 per title and is not available to US or Canadian users. Free ISBNs (up to 100); its StreetLib Write tool formats ebooks and print PDFs. Payouts outside North America need a €30 PayPal or €200 bank balance and arrive 60 days after you approve the monthly invoice.

Print-on-demand distributors

IngramSpark

The print distributor behind most self-published paperbacks you can order in a bookshop, owned by Ingram, the wholesaler those shops already use. Title setup has been free since May 2023 and — a welcome change — revisions have been free since 1 February 2026. In return a 1.875% market-access fee comes off each distributed sale (it was 1% when introduced). You set the list price and the wholesale discount, and receive the wholesale price minus the print cost. (IngramSpark suggests 53–55% in the US and 48–55% in the UK and Europe so shops get their usual terms.) On a $25.99 paperback at 55% that is $11.70 wholesale minus $7.18 printing, about $4.52 a copy. Ebooks earn 85% of what Ingram receives, with separate agreements for Amazon and Apple and a 12-month block if you have sold Kindle ebooks directly. Payment is slow — 90 days after the end of the month the sales are reported — but clean: no minimum by bank transfer in USD or GBP. Non-exclusive, ISBN required per format (the free one registers the imprint as "Indy Pub"), printing in the US, UK and Australia.

Lulu

Free to publish and sell on Lulu’s own store, where the economics are the best of the print services. You keep 80% of the profit (list price minus print cost) on print and 90% on ebooks. A one-off $4.99 puts a title into global distribution through Ingram and Amazon. But there the channel takes 50% of the retail price before Lulu’s 20%, so distributed print margins are thin, and listings take around twelve weeks to appear. Lulu’s strength is direct selling: Lulu Direct plugs print-on-demand fulfilment into your own Shopify, WooCommerce or Wix store. Payouts are monthly by PayPal from a $5 balance in USD, CAD, AUD, EUR or GBP (cheques quarterly); a free ISBN makes Lulu.com the publisher of record; non-exclusive; no audiobooks.

Blurb

The choice for photographers, designers and anyone making an illustrated or layflat book, with serious design tools (BookWright, an InDesign plug-in, Lightroom) and premium print. No setup or listing fees — you pay for printing and keep your entire markup on Blurb’s bookstore. There is also Ingram distribution for trade paperbacks and hardcovers (you set the wholesale discount; payment about 90 days after a sale). An Amazon channel for photo books builds Amazon’s $1.35 + 15% fee into the price. The reason it is last in this group: Blurb no longer creates, converts or distributes ebooks at all, so it is not a platform for text-first authors. Monthly payouts from $25 (£12.50) by PayPal or US cheque; free ISBNs with Blurb as publisher of record.

Full-service companies

BookBaby

The best-known American done-for-you service (founded 2009, New Jersey). Ebook conversion plus distribution to 60-plus stores in 170 countries costs $299 (conversion alone from $99; the site also quotes "$249–$299"). BookBaby takes no commission on retailer sales, and its own shop pays 85% on ebooks. Print-on-demand packages are $199 (BookBaby’s shop) or $399 (shop plus Amazon), with cover design from $399, editing priced per word, and audiobook production from $500 plus $0.14 a word. Payouts are weekly once you pass a $10 pay point. The things to know before paying: print distribution is now Amazon and BookBaby’s shop only (no Ingram, so no bookshop ordering), and post-publication changes cost $50 for an ebook and $100-plus for print. BookBaby is publisher of record on the ISBNs it sells, and its own pages quote that ISBN at both $39 and $79. Non-exclusive, rights stay with you, and you can take your files elsewhere. For the British equivalents — Troubador, PublishNation, SilverWood — see the UK companies guide.

Retailer-platforms with their own bookshop

Kotobee Books

A free platform from the makers of the Kotobee Author ebook tool, run from Cairo, that sells ebooks in its own web store and reader app. It charges nothing and advertises 100% royalties — which it can do because buyers pay straight into the author’s own Stripe or PayPal account: Kotobee never handles the money. Its support guide describes the 100% rate as "for a limited time". Non-exclusive, EPUB and Kotobee’s interactive KPUB format, optional DRM on paid titles, prices in US dollars, a cap of 30 ebooks per account. There is no distribution to other stores, no print, and no stated ISBN or audiobook support. Best for interactive or educational ebooks where you already have the audience.

Ebokio Publishing — ours, disclosed

A UK retailer-platform: you upload an EPUB or DOCX, a human reviewer checks it, and it goes on sale as a product page in the Ebokio bookshop at ebokio.com. There readers buy and read in the Ebokio reader. Free to publish (up to thirty titles), non-exclusive, ISBN optional, no delivery fees. You keep 70% of net receipts on the Free plan, 80% on Premium (£13.99 a month) or 90% on Pro (£19.99 a month), at any price. Net receipts are the price minus the reader’s VAT (0% in the UK) and the card-processing fee. Review takes four to six working days on Free and under a day on the paid plans. Earnings are paid in pounds at the end of the month two months after the sale month, with a £30 minimum that rolls forward. What it is not: a distributor. Books sell on ebokio.com only, and there is no print. It earns its place as the extra non-exclusive storefront with the higher royalty, alongside the retailers above — and the earnings table below shows where that does and does not beat them. How it works · Plans.

What you actually earn per sale

Royalty percentages mislead because they apply to different bases — list price, net revenue, or profit after print — and come with fees attached. The table below computes what lands in your account for one ebook sold to a UK reader (0% VAT) at five list prices, using each company’s published rules. Amazon’s figures assume a 1 MB file (delivery fee £0.10); Ebokio’s assume a card-processing fee of 1.5% + £0.20, typical for UK cards — Ebokio’s fee varies slightly with the payment method. Through an aggregator, take the store’s figure and subtract about a tenth of list (Draft2Digital) or nothing (PublishDrive, on a subscription).

Net to the author per ebook sold to a UK reader, by list price (as of 23 August 2026)

KDP: 70% of list minus £0.10 delivery fee inside the £1.77–£12.99 band, 35% outside. Kobo: 70% at £1.99 and above, 45% below. Apple, Google and B&N: 70% flat (B&N from $0.99; Google in its 70% countries). Draft2Digital: ~60% of list. Ebokio: 70%/90% of (price − 1.5% − £0.20). Amounts rounded to the penny; your platform’s exchange rates and tax settings will move them slightly.

Three things the table says plainly. Below £1.99 the big retailers pay 35–45%, and only the flat-rate platforms pay more than half. In the middle of the market — £2.99 to £9.99 — Kobo, Apple, Google and Amazon (inside its band) are within pennies of each other. Ebokio’s Free plan sits just below them and its Pro plan above. The paid plan pays for itself at roughly fifteen £4.99 sales a month. Above £12.99 Amazon drops to 35% and everyone else keeps paying 70%, which is why premium nonfiction and box sets go wide. None of this says which store sells the most copies; it says what each copy is worth.

How to spot a vanity press

Every company above publishes its prices and leaves you the rights. The companies to avoid look similar from the outside and differ in where the money comes from. A vanity press earns from authors, so its incentive is to sell you services, not to sell your book. The Alliance of Independent Authors rates self-publishing services on exactly this basis in its Best and Worst list; these are the patterns it and we see.

• Packages in the thousands before a single sale, especially with a "limited time" discount and a salesperson who calls.

• The company owns the ISBN, the imprint or the files. You should be able to leave with your book and your number.

• Rights or exclusivity in the contract beyond a platform’s non-exclusive licence to sell.

• Royalties on an undefined "net" with deductions the contract does not itemise.

• Promises of bookshop placement, bestseller status, film interest or awards. Availability to order is real; placement is sold by no one.

• Flattery as a sales technique — "we have accepted your manuscript" from a company that accepts everything.

• You must buy copies of your own book, or buy marketing packages with no measurable deliverable.

• No named people and no registered company on the site.

What legitimate looks like Itemised prices on the website; you own the ISBN and can take the files; non-exclusive; cancel at any time; named staff and a registered company. The retailer or distributor pays you directly rather than the company holding your money. That last point is not theoretical — a UK distributor that collected authors’ royalties stopped trading in June 2026 with the money unpaid; the UK guide has the story.

Which self-publishing company should you use?

Match the kind of company to the job, then combine.

• English-language fiction, readers fast, no budget: KDP first. Go wide via Kobo, Apple and Google direct — or Draft2Digital for everything but Amazon — once you have two books; add Ebokio or Kotobee for a higher-royalty storefront alongside.

• Highest royalty per copy and full control: direct to each retailer (no aggregator cut), no KDP Select, plus a flat-rate platform. Accept five dashboards as the price.

• Paperbacks in bookshops and libraries: IngramSpark with your own ISBN and a 53–55% discount, KDP Print for Amazon. Lulu if you sell mainly from your own website.

• Someone else does the production: BookBaby in the US; in the UK, Troubador for bookshop stocking, PublishNation for the cheapest clean files, SilverWood for editorial care — after the red-flag check.

• Non-English or European markets: PublishDrive or StreetLib for the store reach, plus Kobo direct for its partner network.

• Premium pricing, box sets, nonfiction above £12.99: Kobo, Apple, Google and Ebokio keep paying 70–90% where Amazon drops to 35%.

• Illustrated or photo books: Blurb, with Ingram distribution for the trade edition.