A book profit calculator that tells you when your book pays for itself, from your own costs, royalties and sales.
Add your costs and your sales, and see when your book pays for itself.
Your book
eBook
PrintYour costs
Your sales
Add a price for at least 1 format in step 1.
The answer
Type a price to see your royalty.
What you type stays in this browser. Each store's rules come from its own pages, read September 26, 2026.
This free book profit calculator tells you when your book pays for itself.
It takes your real royalty for each format from the store's rules, not a guess. Then it adds your costs and your sales, and gives your break-even in months and copies.
Here's what book profit is, what counts as a cost, and how to read your break-even.
What is book profit?
Book profit is what your royalties bring in, minus what the book cost to make and sell.
Some costs come once, like editing and the cover. Others come every month, like ads.
What counts as a cost
Here's what goes into the calculator:
- Editing. Every round you pay for.
- Cover design. The front cover, and the full wrap for print.
- Formatting. The interior for print and the eBook file.
- ISBNs. KDP gives a free ISBN for print, but it only works on KDP.
- Launch and other. Advance copies, a launch list, anything once.
- Ads per month. What you spend every month to sell it.
Printing isn't on the list. KDP takes it from each print royalty, so it's already in your royalty per copy.
How break-even works
Each month, you make your royalty per copy times your copies, minus your monthly ads.
Your one-off costs divided by that monthly profit is your break-even in months. If ads cost more than the royalties bring in, the book never breaks even, and the calculator says so.
Your royalty per copy
The calculator works out a royalty for each format from your prices, with KDP's rules.
Then it blends them by your split. If 2 in 3 of your sales are eBooks, set the eBook share to 2 and the paperback share to 1.
How to use the book profit calculator
Your prices carry over from the royalty calculators, and back.
When royalties aren't the point
For many authors, the book is how clients find them. Then the royalties are the smaller part of what it earns.
The book ROI calculator adds the clients a book brings to its royalties.
Book Profit Calculator FAQs
Questions about book profit? Here's what to know.
Book profit is what a book's royalties bring in, minus what it cost to make and sell: one-off costs like editing and the cover, and monthly costs like ads.
Book profit is your royalty per copy times the copies sold, minus your one-off costs and your monthly costs.
The book profit calculator works out the royalty per copy from each store's rules.
No, printing isn't a separate cost in the book profit calculator.
KDP takes the printing cost from each print royalty, so it's already in the royalty per copy.
You don't need to buy an ISBN for KDP print books: KDP gives a free one, which works only on KDP. eBooks don't need an ISBN on KDP.
If your monthly ad spend is more than your monthly royalties, the book never breaks even at that pace, and the book profit calculator says so.
Lower the ads or raise the sales to find the point where it does.
Yes, the book profit calculator is free, with no sign-up.
The math runs on your device.
The book profit calculator is for self-published authors planning a book's budget, and for anyone deciding whether a book is worth its costs.
The book royalty calculator compares every store, and the book ROI calculator adds the clients a book brings.
See all my free tools.
Navid Moazzez
AI business strategist & AI OS builder
Navid Moazzez helps creators and founders master AI and build their own AI Operating System (AI OS) to automate their business and life.
Navid.me is reader-supported. When you buy through links on this site, I may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more.
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