KDP Printing Cost Calculator

How KDP calculates printing cost

KDP prints every copy on demand and subtracts the printing cost from your royalty, so you pay nothing upfront and hold no stock. One formula from KDP Help covers every paperback and hardcover:

Printing cost = fixed cost + (page count × per-page cost)

The fixed cost and the per-page cost depend on five choices you make in KDP:

• Format. Past the short-book range, a black-ink hardcover pays a fixed $5.65 on Amazon.com and a paperback $1.00, plus the same $0.012 a page; short books pay one flat price instead, $6.80 for a hardcover and $2.30 for a paperback.
• Ink and paper. Black ink costs the same on cream or white paper. Groundwood paper, a black-ink option for paperbacks, is about 5% cheaper per page. Color costs more per page: on Amazon.com, in a regular trim, standard color is $0.0255 a page and premium color $0.065, against $0.012 for black ink.
• Trim size. There are only two price classes. A regular trim is up to 6.12 inches wide and 9 inches tall, like the common 6″ × 9″; anything wider or taller is a large trim, which costs $0.017 a page on Amazon.com instead of $0.012 in black ink.
• Page count. Short books pay only a flat price: black-ink paperbacks of 24 to 110 pages (24 to 108 on Amazon.com.au), groundwood paperbacks of up to 112 pages, premium color paperbacks of up to 40 pages and black-ink hardcovers of 75 to 108 pages. Standard color and premium color hardcovers pay for every page.
• Marketplace. Each Amazon store has its own prices in its own currency, and the cost follows the store the reader ordered from.

Bleed and cover finish, matte or glossy, don't change the price. KDP shows the exact figure in the Rights & Pricing section of your title setup and works in whole cents: in KDP's own royalty example a 333-page paperback, $1.00 + 333 × $0.012 = $4.996, is charged $5.00.

Black-ink paperback printing cost by marketplace

These are KDP's black-ink paperback prices for the stores in the calculator. A book up to 110 pages pays one flat price; a longer one pays the fixed cost plus the per-page cost for every page.

KDP's euro prices apply to all of its euro stores: Amazon.de, .fr, .es and .it, and also Amazon.nl, .ie and .com.be, so the Amazon.de figure in the calculator holds for those three as well. Amazon.pl, Amazon.se and Amazon.co.jp have price lists of their own, which this calculator doesn't include. KDP doesn't distribute paperbacks or hardcovers to Amazon.com.br, Amazon.in or Amazon.com.mx.

Color ink and groundwood paper printing cost

Color and groundwood use the same formula with prices of their own. KDP's Color Ink Options page describes standard color as a paperback-only option printed with inkjet printers on the lighter paper black-and-white books use, for long books with fewer images; it needs 72 to 600pages. Premium color, on heavier white paper, is the one KDP suggests for image-heavy books such as children's books, cookbooks and photography books, and the only color option for hardcovers. Groundwood paper is available for black-ink paperbacks in every trim size and every paperback store.

Each store has its own color and groundwood prices for paperbacks:

KDP's own example on the Color Ink Options page is a 120-page paperback on Amazon.com: in a regular trim it costs $4.06 in standard color and $8.80 in premium color, and in a large trim premium color costs $10.60. The same book in black ink costs $2.44. A 300-page novel on groundwood paper costs $4.42 to print instead of $4.60 on white or cream.

Hardcover printing cost by marketplace

In black ink a hardcover has a higher fixed cost than a paperback and the same per-page cost. KDP prints hardcovers from 75 to 550pages, in black ink on cream or white paper or in premium color; standard color ink and groundwood paper aren't offered for hardcovers.

Premium color hardcovers have no flat price: $5.65 + $0.065 ($0.080) a page on Amazon.com, £4.15 + £0.045 (£0.060) a page on Amazon.co.uk and €4.65 + €0.057 (€0.072) a page in the euro stores, large trim in brackets.

On Amazon.com a 300-page hardcover in a regular trim costs $9.25 to print, against $4.60 for the same book as a paperback. The gap carries into the lowest price KDP accepts: $15.42 for the hardcover, $9.20 for the paperback.

Worked examples

• Paperback, 300 pages, 6″ × 9″, black ink, Amazon.com: $1.00 + 300 × $0.012 = $4.60. This is KDP's own example.
• Paperback, 100 pages, 5″ × 8″, black ink, Amazon.com: at 110 pages or fewer only the fixed cost applies, so $2.30.
• Paperback, 300 pages, 8.5″ × 11″, black ink, Amazon.com: a large trim, so $1.00 + 300 × $0.017 = $6.10.
• Hardcover, 300 pages, 6″ × 9″, black ink, Amazon.com: $5.65 + 300 × $0.012 = $9.25, again KDP's own example.
• Paperback, 300 pages, regular trim, black ink, other stores: £0.85 + 300 × £0.010 = £3.85 on Amazon.co.uk, €4.35 in the euro stores, C$6.06 on Amazon.ca and A$9.02 on Amazon.com.au.
• Paperback, 120 pages, 6″ × 9″, standard color, Amazon.co.uk: £0.85 + 120 × £0.020 = £3.25.
• Paperback, 100 pages, 8″ × 10″, premium color, Amazon.de: a large trim, so €0.75 + 100 × €0.0715 = €7.90.
• Picture book, 32 pages, 8.5″ × 11″, premium color, Amazon.com: up to 40 pages premium color pays one flat price, $4.20.
• Hardcover, 120 pages, 8.25″ × 11″, premium color, Amazon.com: $5.65 + 120 × $0.080 = $15.25.

A hardcover for Japan isn't an option at all: KDP doesn't publish hardcovers on kdp.amazon.co.jp. The table runs the black-ink formula for common page counts on Amazon.com.

No page count yet? The word count to page count calculator estimates one from your manuscript, and the KDP cover size calculator turns the same page count into a spine width and a full cover size.

Minimum list price: where printing meets royalty

KDP won't accept a list price at which your royalty can't cover printing. It divides the printing cost by the royalty rate: 60% for list prices at or above the store's threshold, 50% below it.

Minimum list price = printing cost ÷ royalty rate

On Amazon.com a 300-page paperback costs $4.60 to print, so its minimum is $4.60 ÷ 50% = $9.20. At 400 pages printing is $5.80: at 50% that would take $11.60, but from $9.99 the rate is 60%, and 60% of $9.99 is $5.99, enough to cover printing, so the minimum is $9.99. A 300-page hardcover needs $9.25 ÷ 60% = $15.42. Color raises the floor: the 120-page premium color paperback above costs $8.80, so its minimum is $8.80 ÷ 60% = $14.67.

Above the minimum, the royalty is the rate times the list price minus printing: the 300-page paperback at $14.99 earns 60% × $14.99 − $4.60 = $4.39. The KDP royalty calculator does this for any price and store. KDP works out the royalty on the list price you set: when Amazon sells the book for less in a promotion your royalty stays the same, and where Amazon adds VAT or GST to the price readers see, that tax isn't part of it.

Author copies and proof copies

Author copies are printed copies of your live paperback or hardcover, sold to you at printing cost. KDP calls this the author price: the printing cost in the marketplace you order from, times the number of copies. KDP says it is the lowest price it can offer, with no further discounts. Proof copies, which you order to check a book before you publish it, are priced the same way.

Shipping and tax come on top. On Amazon.com shipping and any sales tax are added at checkout, and orders in Europe pay local VAT, according to KDP's Holiday Season FAQ. These orders don't qualify for free or Prime shipping; the shipping total shows on the last checkout page, before you place the order.

Twenty copies of the 300-page paperback ordered on Amazon.com cost 20 × $4.60 = $92.00 before shipping and tax; twenty hardcovers of the same length cost $185.00. The author copies line in the calculator does this sum for any store and ink.

• Up to 999 author copies and 5 proof copies per order.
• No royalty on these orders, and they don't appear in your KDP reports, as KDP's proof and author copies page says.
• You can resell or give away author copies; proofs carry a “Not for Resale” watermark.
• Hardcover proof and author copies for Canada are ordered from Amazon.com.

Our guide to KDP author copies covers ordering, delivery and which store ships to your country.

What this calculator doesn't include

• The Amazon.pl, Amazon.se and Amazon.co.jp price lists, which KDP Help publishes alongside the others.
• Hardcovers on Amazon.ca and Amazon.com.au, and standard color on Amazon.com.au, for which KDP lists no printing costs.
• Shipping, sales tax and VAT on author and proof copies, added at checkout.
• Expanded Distribution, which offers paperbacks to bookstores, libraries and other retailers outside Amazon and pays 40% of the list price minus printing. KDP's example: a 333-page paperback at $15 earns $4.00 on Amazon.com and $1.00 through Expanded Distribution.
• Exact page limits for custom trim sizes. KDP's trim size table lists the page range of each common trim size, ink and paper.
• Your exact setup in KDP. KDP's own Printing Cost & Royalty Calculator and the Rights & Pricing page of your title show the figure KDP will charge.

Printing cost across all your books

The calculator prices one edition in one store. Across a catalog, the royalty in your KDP report is already net of printing, but ad spend sits in a different console. Import the KDP report and connect Amazon Ads, and SelfPub Go shows what each book earned after its ads, per marketplace. With the royalty known, the ACOS calculator shows how much of each sale you can spend on ads.

SelfPub Go is a desktop app for macOS and Windows. Download SelfPub Go to see it with your own KDP reports and campaigns.