Kindle Direct Publishing gives every author a choice between two royalty plans: 35% or 70%. Most authors assume 70% is the obvious pick — more than double the payout per copy sounds like an easy decision. It usually is the better choice. It is not always the better choice, and the exception comes down to two numbers most authors never check together: list price and file size.

The 70% plan is not simply "70% of the list price." Amazon subtracts a delivery fee from that royalty before you see it, and that fee is based on how large your ebook file is, not how many pages it has. For a text-only novel, the fee is small enough to ignore. For an ebook packed with illustrations, embedded fonts, or high-resolution images, it can erase most of the royalty advantage — and in extreme cases, wipe it out completely.

What the 70% Plan Actually Pays

Royalty on the 70% plan equals 70% of your list price, minus a delivery fee. The fee is $0.15 per megabyte of file size, charged in the US Kindle store. Two conditions apply: your list price has to fall between $2.99 and $9.99, and the delivery fee cannot push your royalty below zero — KDP floors it at $0 rather than charging you money for a sale.

70% Royalty = (List Price × 0.70) − (File Size in MB × $0.15)

A 300-page novel with no images typically runs 1–2 MB as a Kindle file. At a $4.99 list price: royalty = (4.99 × 0.70) − (1.5 × 0.15) = 3.49 − 0.23 = $3.27 per sale. The delivery fee barely registers.

What the 35% Plan Pays

The 35% plan is simpler: 35% of list price, flat, with no delivery fee subtracted and no price restriction. It works at any price from $0.99 to $200.

35% Royalty = List Price × 0.35

Using the same $4.99 book: royalty = 4.99 × 0.35 = $1.75. Against the 70% plan's $3.27, the 70% plan wins by nearly double for a typical text file. This is the case for the large majority of fiction and non-fiction ebooks, which is why 70% is the default recommendation.

Where the 70% Plan Loses

The delivery fee scales with file size, but the price band caps out at $9.99. That ceiling limits how much royalty the 70% plan can produce, while the fee keeps growing with every additional megabyte. Illustrated children's books, comics, cookbooks with photos, and textbooks with diagrams routinely run 15–50 MB or more — and at that size, the delivery fee can consume the entire royalty advantage.

Take a $2.99 picture book at 20 MB, the low end of a heavily illustrated file. Royalty = (2.99 × 0.70) − (20 × 0.15) = 2.093 − 3.00 = a negative number, floored to $0. The same book on the 35% plan pays 2.99 × 0.35 = $1.05 — a real dollar amount, against nothing.

Finding Your Break-Even File Size

There is a fixed relationship between price and the file size where the two plans pay exactly the same. Setting the two formulas equal and solving for file size gives a break-even point of roughly 2.33 megabytes for every dollar of list price.

Break-Even File Size (MB) ≈ List Price × 2.33

At $2.99, that break-even point is about 7 MB. Below 7 MB, 70% pays more. Above it, 35% starts winning, and the gap widens as the file gets larger. At $9.99, the break-even point rises to roughly 23 MB, since the higher price gives the 70% plan more room before the delivery fee catches up.

Checking Your Own File Size

KDP shows your converted file size on the pricing page once you upload your manuscript, listed next to the royalty preview for each plan. Check that number against your planned list price before assuming 70% is the better option, particularly if your book includes cover art, embedded fonts, illustrations, or a fixed layout format rather than reflowable text.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the 35% plan have a delivery fee?

No. The 35% plan pays a flat 35% of list price with nothing subtracted, regardless of file size.

Can I choose 70% for a book priced under $2.99?

No. The 70% royalty plan requires a list price between $2.99 and $9.99. Outside that range, KDP pays 35% automatically regardless of which plan you select.

Is the $0.15-per-MB delivery fee the same in every country?

The rate applies to the US Kindle store. Other Amazon marketplaces set their own delivery fee rates and currency-adjusted price bands, so a book priced for 70% eligibility in the US store is not automatically eligible everywhere else.

Why does KDP floor the royalty at $0 instead of charging a negative amount?

Because the delivery fee is a cost recovery mechanism, not a separate charge to the author. If the fee would exceed the royalty, KDP simply pays nothing for that sale rather than billing the difference.

Should I always pick 35% for image-heavy books?

Not always — check the actual file size against your list price first. A 10 MB file at $9.99 still favors 70%; the same file at $2.99 does not. The break-even math changes with both variables, so the answer depends on your specific book.

Run your own numbers with the Kindle Royalty Calculator — enter your list price and file size to see both plans side by side before you publish. For print royalties on the same book, see the KDP Royalty Calculator and the earlier comparison of KDP vs IngramSpark print payouts.