Apple pays 70% of list price on every ebook, with no price bands. Kobo pays 70% of list price at $2.99 and above with no upper cap, 45% below it. Google pays 52% of list price as standard, with 70% applied in certain territories at Google’s discretion. Those are the rates when you publish direct. Through an aggregator, its share comes off the top. The differences that matter in practice are not the headline percentages but the structure around them: whether price changes the rate, who sets the price, and what each contract asks of you in return.
| Store | What you receive on an ebook sale |
|---|---|
| Apple Books | 70% of list price on every ebook, with no price bands |
| Kobo Writing Life | 70% of list price at $2.99 and above with no upper cap, 45% below it |
| Google Play Books | 52% of list price as standard, with 70% applied in certain territories at Google’s discretion |
| For comparison: Amazon KDP | 70% inside the $2.99–$12.99 band, 35% outside it |
All of these are calculated on the list price, not on what a reader paid after a retailer-funded discount.
Apple's rate is the simplest in the market. The agreement writes it the other way round, as a commission Apple keeps, and that commission does not change with price. A deep-discount promotion and a premium box set earn the same percentage.
Apple is also different in how it sells. Its relationship to you is agent, not reseller — the author is the principal and the seller of record. The contract that comes with that has two obligations that reach beyond Apple:
Kobo's rate has a price threshold at the bottom and nothing at the top. Its upper limit on the higher rate: none — every price from the threshold up earns 70%, however high.
That is why authors put box sets and omnibus editions on Kobo. Amazon's higher rate applies only within $2.99–$12.99, so a large bundle priced above that band earns far less per copy on Amazon than on Kobo.
The threshold is set separately in each currency, so check the one for every market you price in. Public-domain titles earn a lower rate at any price.
Kobo Plus pays differently. Subscription reading earns 60% of the per-minute value of subscriber reading time. Kobo recalculates that per-minute value every month, so there is no fixed per-read figure to plan around.
Google's help pages present the higher rate as the norm for partners on its 2019 terms. The agreement itself makes the lower rate the standard and the higher one the exception, applied in certain territories at Google's discretion and revocable. Plan on the agreement, not the FAQ.
Two more things set Google apart:
Rates are quoted from the agreements as recorded in the AuthorAZ Publishing Database. Platform facts verified 4 September 2026.
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