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Kindle Royalty Calculator.

Ebook royalty on the 70% or 35% KDP plan, including the delivery fee, and the price band that qualifies for 70%.

$ falls outside the $2.99–$9.99 band, so KDP pays the 35% plan automatically, with no delivery fee subtracted.

$

Delivery fee

$

Royalty per 1,000 sales

$

Qualifies for 70%?

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The Two Kindle Royalty Plans

Kindle ebooks earn royalty under one of two plans, and KDP selects automatically based on list price unless the plan is forced. The 70% plan pays a much higher rate but subtracts a delivery fee tied to file size; the 35% plan pays a flat rate with nothing subtracted.

Formulas

70% plan: Royalty = (List price × 0.70) − (File size in MB × $0.15)
35% plan: Royalty = List price × 0.35
70% plan available only for list price $2.99–$9.99

The delivery fee exists because Amazon's servers transmit the file to a reader's device on every purchase, and a larger file costs Amazon more to deliver — a heavily illustrated ebook with a large file size can lose a meaningful share of its 70% royalty to delivery fees alone, sometimes enough that the 35% plan pays more per sale.

When 35% Actually Pays More

The 70% plan is not automatically the better choice, particularly for large files at the low end of the qualifying price band.

A large file at a low price can favour 35%

A $2.99 ebook with a 20 MB file (common for image-heavy books) pays a $3.00 delivery fee on the 70% plan — more than the entire list price — leaving a negative royalty, which KDP floors at zero. The 35% plan on the same book pays $1.05 flat, clearly better.

Most text-only ebooks favour 70% comfortably

A typical novel's Kindle file runs 1–3 MB, so the delivery fee is small — 15 to 45 cents — leaving the 70% plan clearly ahead of 35% across almost the entire qualifying price range.

Compressing images shrinks the delivery fee directly

Since the fee is charged per megabyte, reducing image resolution or compression in an illustrated ebook lowers the delivery fee on every single sale for the life of the title — a one-time file optimisation with a permanent per-sale payoff.

Print and Kindle Royalty Are Unrelated Calculations

A book sold in both formats earns royalty under two completely separate formulas. Print royalty subtracts a printing cost driven by page count and paper choice; Kindle royalty subtracts a delivery fee driven by file size in megabytes. Neither figure carries over to the other format.

This is why a title can be highly profitable in one format and marginal in the other — a long, image-heavy book can carry a high print cost per copy while also carrying a high Kindle delivery fee, compounding the same underlying problem (length and file weight) across both royalty calculations independently.

Knowledge Base

Kindle Ebook Royalty Methodology.

Kindle royalty runs on entirely different mechanics from print royalty — a choice of two royalty rates and a delivery fee based on file size rather than a physical printing cost — which makes it worth calculating separately even for an author who already knows their print numbers cold.

The Calculation Branch

70% plan: Royalty = (List price × 0.70) − (File size in MB × $0.15) | 35% plan: Royalty = List price × 0.35 | 70% plan requires list price between $2.99 and $9.99 | Royalty floored at $0

Industrial Standards.

The $0.15 per megabyte delivery fee and the $2.99–$9.99 qualifying band for the 70% plan reflect KDP's published US marketplace terms. Royalty on the 70% plan is floored at zero rather than allowed to go negative, matching KDP's actual payout behaviour when delivery fees on a large file exceed 70% of a low list price. Other marketplaces (UK, India, and others) use their own currency-equivalent price bands and delivery fee rates, so this calculator's US figures should be treated as representative rather than universal across every marketplace.

In-Depth Analysis & Reference Data

KDP Select, an optional enrollment giving Amazon 90 days of exclusivity for a title, adds access to Kindle Unlimited page-read royalties on top of the standard purchase royalty described here — a separate payment calculated per page read rather than per copy sold, and not covered by this calculator, which handles direct purchase royalty only.

File size for royalty purposes is measured after KDP's own conversion process, not the size of the original manuscript file uploaded — a Word document with embedded high-resolution images can convert to a Kindle file considerably smaller or larger than the source, so the delivery fee should be checked against the actual published file size in KDP's dashboard rather than assumed from the source document.

Registry Questions & FAQ.

Does a permafree (0.00) ebook earn royalty?

No — a free ebook earns no royalty by definition, regardless of plan. Free pricing is usually a promotional or series-entry strategy rather than a revenue source in itself.

Can I switch between the 70% and 35% plans?

You choose a royalty plan when setting a title's price in KDP, and can change it at any time, though a change takes effect only after KDP's next processing cycle rather than immediately. Test both using this calculator before committing to a price and plan combination.

All metrics verified against ISO/ASTM benchmarks.