Amazon KDP Percentage Rates By Plan And Marketplace

The number on your royalty statement changes based on delivery fees and price brackets. Amazon KDP percentage depends on where you sell and what you charge. Different markets and formats follow different rules. Your job is to pick the structure giving you the most money per sale.

The Two Royalty Plans and When Each One Pays More

Amazon offers you two choices for ebooks: 35 percent or 70 percent. The 70 percent option sounds obvious. It isn’t always better.

The 70 percent plan adds a delivery fee to each sale. Amazon charges you for the file size of your book. A short novel with simple formatting might cost five cents per delivery. A cookbook with dozens of photos might cost two dollars per delivery.

Say you price your book at $2.99. You pick the 70 percent plan. Amazon calculates your royalty at $2.09 before the delivery fee hits. If your delivery fee is 15 cents, you take home $1.94.

Now try the 35 percent plan at the same price. No delivery fee applies. Your royalty comes to $1.05. The 70 percent plan wins here.

Drop the price to $1.99. The 70 percent plan isn’t available at this price. You get 35 percent no matter what. Your royalty is 70 cents.

Raise the price to $9.99 for a photography book with a large file. The delivery fee might reach $1.50. Your 70 percent royalty before delivery is $6.99. After delivery it’s $5.49. The 35 percent plan gives you $3.50. The higher plan still wins, but the gap shrinks.

You need to run the math for every book you publish. File size matters more as your images and formatting get complex.

Amazon KDP Percentage Rules for Paperback Sales

Paperbacks follow a completely different structure. Amazon pays you 60 percent of the list price minus printing costs. The printing cost depends on page count and whether you use black ink or color.

A 200-page black and white paperback costs around $2.50 to print in the US. You price it at $12.99. Amazon takes 40 percent of that, leaving $7.79. Subtract the printing cost and you get $5.29.

The page count drives everything here. Add 100 pages and your printing cost might jump to $3.20. Same price, lower royalty. You either raise the price or accept less per sale.

Color printing changes the equation completely. A 100-page color book might cost $6 to print. Your pricing needs to account for this or your royalties shrink fast.

Paperback royalties also change by marketplace. A book sold in the UK has different printing costs than one sold in Germany. Amazon converts everything to your local currency based on the marketplace rules.

You can’t pick a different percentage plan for paperbacks. The 60 percent structure is fixed. Your only control is price and page count.

How Marketplace Selection Changes Your Earnings

The 70 percent ebook plan only works in specific countries. The US, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Japan, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and India qualify. Everywhere else gets 35 percent automatically.

This restriction matters if you’re trying to reach readers globally. A sale in Poland pays you 35 percent no matter what you do. A sale in Brazil pays 70 percent if you set it up correctly.

Some authors assume worldwide distribution always helps. It doesn’t if the effort of managing extra marketplaces outweighs the royalties. You might earn three sales a year in a small market at 35 percent each.

Amazon also requires certain price points for the 70 percent plan. Your ebook must cost between $2.99 and $9.99 in the US marketplace. Other countries have equivalent ranges in local currency.

Price outside this range and you drop to 35 percent. A $0.99 book gets 35 percent. A $12.99 book gets 35 percent. The brackets don’t move based on genre or book length.

You need to decide if pricing higher than $9.99 makes sense at the lower royalty rate. Sometimes it does. A technical manual priced at $19.99 earning 35 percent still pays more than a $6.99 book at 70 percent.

Delivery Fees and How They Eat Your Royalties

Amazon calculates delivery fees based on file size at a rate per megabyte. The rate changes by marketplace. The US charges roughly 15 cents per megabyte in 2026.

A text-only novel might be 0.5 megabytes. Your delivery fee is about eight cents. A graphic novel with full-color pages might hit 50 megabytes. Your delivery fee becomes $7.50.

This fee only applies to the 70 percent royalty plan. The 35 percent plan never charges delivery fees. This is the single reason some authors pick the lower percentage deliberately.

You reduce file size by compressing images before you upload. A photo saved at maximum quality might be 5 megabytes. The same photo compressed intelligently drops to 500 kilobytes. Readers won’t notice the difference on most screens.

Some authors export their ebooks at lower resolution settings. The file shrinks. The delivery fee drops. Your royalty per sale goes up.

Every marketplace has its own delivery fee rate. Japan might charge differently than Canada. You can check the exact rates in your KDP dashboard under pricing options.

Expanded Distribution and the Hidden Royalty Cut

KDP offers expanded distribution for paperbacks. This puts your book in libraries, bookstores, and academic institutions through third-party channels. The royalty drops to 40 percent of list price minus printing costs.

You lose 20 percent compared to direct Amazon sales. A book earning you $5 through regular channels earns $3.30 through expanded distribution. Same book, same price, smaller check.

Most authors enable expanded distribution anyway. The logic is simple. Extra sales at lower royalties beat no sales at all. You’re not losing existing Amazon customers. You’re adding new channels.

The catch is that expanded distribution sales happen slowly. You might see two or three sales a year from these channels. The royalty percentage matters less when volume stays low.

Some authors disable expanded distribution because it complicates pricing strategy. If you want to run a promotion at $0.99, expanded distribution locks you out of certain options. You have to choose between access and flexibility.

Hardcover books through KDP follow the same 60 percent structure as paperbacks. Printing costs run higher because of the binding style. Your royalty per sale drops unless you price significantly higher.

Price Matching and How It Forces Percentage Changes

Amazon reserves the right to match lower prices from other retailers. If you sell your ebook for $4.99 on KDP and $2.99 on another platform, Amazon can drop your price to match.

When Amazon does this, your royalty percentage might change. If the matched price falls below $2.99, you automatically move to the 35 percent plan. You don’t get to keep the 70 percent rate just because you originally set a higher price.

This happens more often than new authors expect. You run a promotion on Apple Books. Amazon’s bots notice within hours. Your KDP price drops. Your royalties change.

The reverse also happens. If Amazon raises your price to match a competitor, you might move from 35 percent to 70 percent. This is rare but possible.

Some authors avoid other platforms entirely to prevent price matching issues. Others accept the risk because wider distribution brings more readers. Both approaches work depending on your goals.

KDP Select adds another layer here. If you enroll in Select, Amazon requires exclusivity. You can’t sell the ebook anywhere else. Price matching becomes impossible because there’s no other price to match.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the standard amazon kdp percentage for most authors?

Most authors use the 70 percent plan for ebooks priced between $2.99 and $9.99. Paperbacks always earn 60 percent of list price minus printing costs. The delivery fee reduces the effective ebook rate slightly.

Can I change my royalty percentage after publishing?

You can change your price anytime. This might move you between the 35 percent and 70 percent plans. Changes take effect within 72 hours across all Amazon marketplaces.

Do preorders use the same royalty rates as regular sales?

Yes. Preorders follow the same percentage structure as regular sales. Your royalty is calculated at the price set when the book releases. Price changes during the preorder period don’t affect existing preorders.

How do Kindle Unlimited pages read affect my royalty percentage?

Kindle Unlimited doesn’t use percentage rates. Amazon pays from a global fund based on pages read. This payment is separate from your regular royalty percentage on purchased copies.

Does Amazon take a different percentage for audiobooks through ACX?

ACX uses completely different rates. You earn 40 percent if you pay the narrator upfront. You split 20 percent with the narrator if you use royalty share. These rates don’t connect to KDP ebook or paperback percentages.

Check your KDP dashboard right now and calculate your actual take-home after delivery fees and printing costs.