Ebook royalties explained: what each platform actually pays, and when

The four questions every royalty rule answers

Platforms describe royalties in marketing shorthand, but each rule reduces to four questions. A share of what — the customer-facing list price, the price excluding VAT, or receipts after fees? At which prices — flat, or banded like Amazon’s? Minus which fees — delivery, activation, subscriptions? And paid when — 30, 45 or 60 days after the month, at what minimum? The table in the companies guide answers all four for fourteen companies; the sections below walk the maths for the ones most authors use.

One UK-specific simplification helps all the way through: UK ebook VAT has been 0% since May 2020, so for a UK reader your customer price and your ex-VAT list price are the same number. In countries that do charge ebook VAT, platforms compute your share on the price excluding that VAT.

Amazon KDP: 70% inside the band, minus delivery

Amazon’s ebook rule has three moving parts. The rate: 70% inside its price band, which changed on 7 July 2026 for the first time since 2007 and now runs $2.99–$12.99 in the US and £1.77–£12.99 in the UK; price outside the band and the rate is 35%. The deduction: at the 70% rate only, a delivery fee on file size — £0.10 per megabyte in the UK, $0.15 in the US, about 6 cents on a typical novel and real money on an image-heavy book. The territory: the 70% rate applies in 41 countries; in Brazil, Japan, Mexico and India it additionally requires KDP Select enrolment.

Worked example at £4.99 for a 1 MB novel: 70% × £4.99 = £3.49, minus £0.10 delivery = £3.39. The same book at £1.49 sits below the band: 35% × £1.49 = £0.52, with no delivery fee — less than a third of the £1.99 royalty (£1.29) on a price only 50p higher. That cliff is the single most expensive pricing mistake in self-publishing, and the price calculator is built to keep you off it.

Kobo, Apple, Google and Barnes & Noble: the simpler deals

Kobo Writing Life pays 70% of list on ebooks priced at or above $2.99 USD / £1.99 / €1.99, with no upper cap and no delivery fees, and 45% below the threshold (20% on public-domain works). The no-cap rule is why box sets and premium-priced non-fiction often earn more per copy on Kobo than on Amazon. Apple Books is the simplest deal of all: a flat 70% at any price, no bands, no delivery fees, no exclusivity. Google Play Books also pays 70% with no delivery fees. Barnes & Noble Press pays a flat 70% on ebooks from $0.99 — but it is a US-centred store (bn.com and NOOK), pays in dollars, and accepts authors from only 12 countries.

Per-copy royalty on a £4.99 ebook (1 MB file, UK reader)

Rules as published by each platform, checked 23 August 2026; compute any other price in the royalty calculator.

Aggregators: one upload, a slice off the top

An aggregator forwards your book to many stores and keeps a share for the service. Draft2Digital’s cut works out at roughly 10% of list — the store pays its usual ~70% and you receive about 60% of list — plus, since May 2026, a one-off $20 account activation for new accounts and a $12/year fee if annual sales stay under $100. PublishDrive charges a subscription instead of a share (its free plan covers one ebook in three stores); StreetLib moved to paid-only plans for new accounts on 17 March 2026. The trade is convenience against margin: direct uploads to Kobo or Apple pay the full 70%, the aggregator path pays less but manages every store from one dashboard.

Subscription reading: pools, not prices

Kindle Unlimited and Kobo Plus are not royalties on a sale — they are shares of a subscription pool. In KDP Select (a free, optional, auto-renewing 90-day programme that requires ebook exclusivity to Amazon), your book joins Kindle Unlimited and earns by pages read from the monthly KDP Select Global Fund — $71.0 million in July 2026 — with no published per-page rate and a cap of 3,000 read pages per title per customer. Kobo Plus is opt-in with no exclusivity: authors are paid from 60% of the monthly revenue pool, divided by total minutes read. Binge-read genres can out-earn per-copy sales inside these programmes; slower genres usually earn more wide. The full decision is worked through in the novel guide.

Ebokio: 70–90% of net receipts, and what "net" means

Ebokio’s model is a retailer-platform’s: your book sells on ebokio.com and you keep your plan’s share of net receipts — 70% on Free, 80% on Premium (£13.99/month), 90% on Pro (£19.99/month). Net receipts is defined precisely: the sale price minus the reader’s VAT (0% for UK readers; Ebokio collects and remits it in countries that charge it) and the ~2.9% + 25p card-processing fee. There are no delivery, hosting or listing fees, and royalties are paid gross — no tax is withheld.

Worked example at £4.99 to a UK reader: the card fee is £4.99 × 2.9% + £0.25 = £0.39, net receipts are £4.60, and you keep £3.22 on Free, £3.68 on Premium or £4.14 on Pro. A paid tier only makes sense once it covers its own subscription: at this price Premium needs about 31 Ebokio sales a month to beat Free, Pro about 22 — the royalty calculator computes the breakeven live at your price.

When the money actually arrives

Payout schedules differ as much as rates. Amazon pays about 60 days after the end of the month of sale, with no minimum by bank transfer. Kobo pays 45 days after month end once your balance passes CAD $50. Apple pays monthly, within 45 days of the first Friday, US$40 default minimum. Barnes & Noble pays 30 days after month end at $25. Draft2Digital pays monthly with a $10–$20 minimum by method. Ebokio pays automatically at the end of the month two months after the sale month (January earnings arrive at the end of March), by bank transfer, £30 minimum — balances below roll forward.

Royalties and tax Every platform here pays royalties gross — you receive the full share and declare the income yourself (UK: Self Assessment). VAT on the sale is the reader’s, not yours: the platform collects and remits it. The UK-specific picture, including PLR’s 12.40p per library loan, is in the UK guide.