What is your platform’s cut costing you?
A percentage grows with you forever; a subscription does not. Put in what you sell in a month and the difference stops being an argument and starts being a number.
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At $2,000 a month, Inkwharf costs you $228 a year — a flat subscription, and still 0% of every sale.
| Where you sell | They advertise | You actually pay | A year of it | You would keep |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leanpub | 20% | 20% | $4,800 | +$4,572 |
| Gumroad | 10% + 50¢ | 15% | $3,601 | +$3,373 |
| Payhip | 5% | 5% | $1,200 | +$972 |
| BookFunnel | flat fee | — | $200 | — |
| Inkwharf | 0% | 0% | $228 | — |
- Where the two rate columns disagree, the platform charges a fixed amount per sale on top of its percentage. That gap is the reason this calculator asks what your book costs — at $9.99 it is worth Gumroad 15%.
- Card processing is excluded throughout, at roughly 2.9% + 30¢ either way. It is billed to your own Stripe account here rather than marked up on the way through someone else’s.
- Leanpub also sells author memberships from $12.99 to $99 a month for the writing toolchain, which are not counted above — the royalty is charged whether or not you subscribe.
Questions
- Why does the book's price change the answer?
- Because two of these platforms charge a fixed amount per sale on top of, or instead of, a percentage — Gumroad takes 10% + 50¢, and Leanpub's royalty drops to 80% minus 50¢ below $7.99. A fixed fee is a bigger share of a cheap book than an expensive one, so 'Gumroad takes 10%' is 15% on a $9.99 title and 20% on a $4.99 one. Move the price and watch which platforms move with it.
- Why is payment processing left out?
- Because including it would compare two different things. Stripe's rate — about 2.9% + 30¢ — is charged on every platform in this table, but some of them fold it into a headline percentage and some bill it separately to your own account. Excluding it everywhere keeps the columns honest, and it is roughly the same money either way.
- Is a percentage ever the better deal?
- Yes, and the calculator says so when it is — it prints a line naming any platform that beats us at the volume and price you entered. On a $9.99 book that is below about $127 a month in sales for Gumroad and about $380 for Payhip's free plan. That window is exactly why the free tier here runs to $500 a month at 0% and no subscription, so the answer for a new author is not 'pay us' either.
- What counts as a sale?
- Gross, before anyone takes anything: the sum of what your readers paid. Plans here are capped on that same figure, so the number you type is the number your ceiling is measured against.
- Where do the competitor rates come from?
- Their own published pricing, with the date each one was last checked printed on its comparison page. Prices move — if one of these is out of date, it is a bug and worth telling us about.