- List price
- $12.99
- Royalty
- $3.19
- Margin
- 24.6%
- Min viable
- $9.20
300 pages · 6 × 9 · rates checked 2026-11-10 · check on KDP ↗
Amazon KDP · paperback pricing · 2026-11-10
Book pricing calculator — find the price that pays you most
Royalty on a paperback is not a share of your profit — it is the rate times the list price, minus the printing cost. On a 300-page 6×9 in the US that is $3.19 a copy at $12.99, $1.39 at $9.99, and $0.39 at $9.98: one cent of price, one dollar of royalty. The lowest price that does not lose money is $9.20, and the slider below turns a target margin into a price you can defend.
Royalty per copy · 60% tier · US
$3.19USD
Margin 24.6% of the list price
Royalty = 60% × $12.99 − $4.60 printing · 6 × 9 · 300 pages · black & white · Paperback royalty rates ↗ / Printing cost table ↗
- Printing cost
- $4.60
- Margin
- 24.6%
- At 25% target
- $13.15
vs expanded distribution $0.60
Your book
24–828
Margin = royalty ÷ list price. The slider only moves the three suggestions below — the result card follows the price you type.
Rates for Amazon.com, checked 2026-11-10. Paperback royalty rate: 50% at or below $9.98, 60% above it.
Price ladder
Where your price sits between "loses money", the 50% tier and the 60% tier.
Current price $12.99 — the marker follows the input above.
Three prices to consider
click a card to load it into the price box
The cliffs
Where one cent of price moves a dollar of royalty
Two rates, one threshold, no sliding scale: 50% below it, 60% at or above, printing cost taken off after the multiplication.
- 60% band starts
- $9.99
- One cent below
- $9.98
- At the band floor
- $1.39
- Minimum viable price
- $9.20
first price above the threshold
pays $0.39 a copy
royalty at $9.99
royalty 0.00 — anything lower loses money
Royalty at each cliff
| List price | Tier | Royalty per copy | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| $9.20 | 50% | $0.00 | 0.0% |
| $9.98 | 50% | $0.39 | 3.9% |
| $9.99 | 60% | $1.39 | 13.9% |
| $12.99yours | 60% | $3.19 | 24.6% |
| $14.99 | 60% | $4.39 | 29.3% |
| $19.99 | 60% | $7.39 | 37.0% |
| $24.99 | 60% | $10.39 | 41.6% |
Royalty = royalty rate × list price − $4.60 printing cost. Checked against KDP’s published tables on 2026-11-10.
Price ladder
Where your price sits between "loses money", the 50% tier and the 60% tier.
Current price $12.99 — the marker follows the input above.
Copy, not margin
If KDP multiplied the margin instead of the price — 60.0% of ($12.99 − $4.60) — you would be paid $5.03 instead of $3.19. That $1.84 gap is the common mistake.
Five steps to a price you can defend
- 1. Clear the printing cost. Below $9.20 on a 300-page US paperback every sale loses money. Get the exact figure from the KDP printing cost calculator.
- 2. Land in the 60% band. $9.99 is the first price that pays 60% in the US; the cent below pays $0.39 instead of $1.39.
- 3. Read a price off your margin target. The slider starts at 25%, which needs $13.15 for this book; 40% needs $23.00.
- 4. Sanity-check the ceiling. Above $19.99a 300-page paperback competes with hardbacks. We publish no “typical” genre price because we cannot source it.
- 5. Re-run it when the book changes. Extra pages add printing cost, so a longer book needs a higher floor. A 90,000-word novel is not the same pricing problem as a 50,000-word one, and word count to pages converts between them.
Why the margin rises with the price
Margin is royalty divided by list price, and printing cost is fixed per book, so margin climbs with price towards the rate and never reaches it: 13.9% at $9.99, 24.6% at $12.99, 37.0% at $19.99.
None of this tells you what a reader will pay. Royalty per copy is a straight line above the band floor, so no magic price hides in the curve — you are choosing how much of each sale to keep against how many sales you get. Hence three labelled suggestions rather than a ranking.
Ebooks are a different curve: 70% applies between $2.99 and $12.99 in the US, with delivery fees off, and 35% outside it. Run those through the KDP royalty calculator before deciding the paperback and the ebook should share a price.
Sources: KDP’s published paperback royalty rates ↗ and printing cost table ↗, checked 2026-11-10. Every figure is recomputed from that table on each render; the all free KDP tools list shows the rest. Nothing here is a quote from Amazon — check KDP’s own calculator before publishing.
Questions
Pricing questions people actually ask
Clear the floor first: $9.20 stops you losing money on a 300-page US paperback. Then get into the 60% band at $9.99, where a copy pays $1.39 instead of $0.39. From there, price against your margin target — 25% needs $13.15 for this book.
KDP paperbacks have two rates and a hard threshold, not a sliding scale. $9.98 sits in the 50% band and pays $0.39; $9.99 crosses into the 60% band and pays $1.39. That cent only makes sense as a deliberate psychological price point.
We publish no industry number, because we cannot source one. Work back from your own costs: ads, author copies and returns come out of the royalty. At $1.50 a copy of non-KDP cost, this book needs about 30% of list price.
No. Above the 60.0% band start the royalty rises 0.60 per extra dollar of price, in a straight line, so no peak hides in the curve. The real trade is copies sold against royalty per copy.
It moves with each marketplace and the calculator reads it from the rate table: $9.99 on Amazon.com, and different floors in the UK, Canada, the EU, Poland, Sweden, Australia and Japan.
Yes, from your Bookshelf at any time. The new price is checked against the same printing cost and rate band, so a change can move you between 50% and 60%. Future sales take the new royalty.
Next numbers to work out
Price is one of six. Printing cost sets the floor, page count sets that cost, and the budget decides how many copies must sell.
- KDP royalty calculator →
- KDP printing cost calculator →
- Book spine width calculator →
- Self-publishing cost calculator →
- 30,000 words in pages →
- see pricing →
Start this book → the planner turns the price you settle on into a print-ready interior.