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Printing cost

Costs & royalties

Also called: print cost, manufacturing cost

What Amazon charges to manufacture one copy, deducted from every sale before your royalty. It is a fixed amount plus a per-page amount, set by marketplace, ink type, and trim category.

Printing cost is the single largest deduction on a print book, and unlike your list price it is not something you control — it falls out of decisions you already made about size, length, and ink.

The structure is a fixed charge plus a per-page charge, banded by page count. Below a threshold the fixed charge applies alone; above it, each page adds a small amount. That is why very short books have a surprisingly high cost per page and long books have a surprisingly high cost per copy.

Three things move the number: the marketplace (each currency zone has its own table), the ink and paper combination (colour costs far more per page than black), and whether your trim is standard or large. The last one is the easiest to get wrong, because two trims that look identical can sit on opposite sides of the boundary.

Read the numbers

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SmartKDP is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Amazon. Amazon, Kindle, and Kindle Direct Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.

Related terms

  • Royalty rate

    The share of the list price you keep before printing costs are deducted. KDP print books pay 60% at or above a per-marketplace price threshold and 50% below it.

  • List price

    The price you set for your book in each marketplace. It drives both your royalty rate and your royalty amount, and KDP enforces a floor and a ceiling on it.

  • Trim size

    The finished width and height of a printed book after the pages are cut. KDP publishes a catalog of standard trim sizes, and the one you pick affects both layout and printing cost.

  • Interior paper

    The stock your pages print on — white, cream, or groundwood for black ink, and colour stock for colour interiors. It changes both the printing cost and the spine width.