Commission vs Flat Fee: How Self-Publishing Platforms Charge Authors

Most authors never think about the model behind their royalties. They see "70%" and assume that is simply what publishing pays. But 70% means the platform keeps 30% of every sale, forever. This guide explains both models plainly, with worked numbers, so you can choose the mix that pays you best.

The commission model

Almost every retailer uses commission. You pay nothing to list, and the store keeps a share of each sale:

Checked September 2026.

Why it is popular: no upfront cost and no risk. If you sell nothing, you pay nothing. The catch: the platform's income rises with yours, so your best-selling months are also its best months.

The flat-fee model

A flat-fee platform charges a fixed plan, usually yearly or monthly, and passes on all or nearly all of each sale.

Why it appeals: every extra sale is worth its full price. The catch: you pay the plan even in a slow month, and a flat-fee store may not bring the huge audiences of the biggest retailers.

A worked example

Take a $4.99 ebook. On a 70% commission platform, the platform keeps about $1.50 per sale. On BooksOasis Starter, the platform keeps nothing per sale, and you pay $29.99 a year.

Example calculations on a $4.99 ebook. Commission modelled at 30% with no delivery fee.

At a $4.99 price, the break-even point is about 20 sales a year, across all the books on the plan. Everything beyond that is money a commission model would have kept.

Finding your break-even point

The formula is simple:

Break-even sales = yearly plan cost ÷ commission taken per sale

Rounded up to whole sales. Break-even counts sales across all books on the plan.

For a detailed walkthrough with more scenarios, see when a flat plan beats a percentage.

Why reach changes the maths

If the comparison were only about fees, everyone would choose flat plans. It isn't. Commission retailers bring something flat-fee stores often can't match: enormous numbers of shoppers.

A book on Amazon might sell 100 copies at 70% where it would sell 10 copies elsewhere at 100%. In that case, the commission platform earns you far more. That is why the right question is not "which model is better?" but "which model suits each place I sell?"

• Where the store brings the readers, a commission is the price of access to them.
• Where you bring the readers, or the store is smaller, a flat fee keeps more of what you earn.

Flat fees get cheaper as your backlist grows

A flat plan's cost is shared across every book on it. The more books you list, the less each one costs to keep in the store.

For an author with a full Starter plan, each book needs to sell only one or two copies a year at a typical price to cover its share. Commission, by contrast, takes the same percentage from every sale of every book, however large your catalog becomes.

How commissions add up over a career

Commissions feel small because they are taken quietly, one sale at a time. Over years, they become large. Imagine an author selling 1,000 ebooks a year at $4.99 for ten years:

• Total sales: $49,900.
• A 30% commission over ten years: $14,970.
• BooksOasis Starter over ten years: $299.90.

That doesn't mean retailers aren't worth their cut; the readers they bring are real. It means every sale you can move to a flat-fee store is worth noticeably more to you.

What commissions pay for

To be fair to retailers, their share isn't pure profit. It pays for the store itself, payment processing, customer service, hosting and delivery, reading apps and devices, and marketing that brings readers in. When a retailer's marketing sells your book to someone who would never have found you, the commission is money well spent.

The question is simply whether each sale needed that help. Readers who already know you, and buy on your recommendation, don't.

Five questions to decide your mix

1. How many books do you have, and how many do you plan to publish?
2. Roughly how many sales do you make a year, across all books?
3. Where do your readers find you today?
4. Do you have a newsletter or following you can direct to a store?
5. Do you run regular promotions?

More books, more sales, a bigger following and more promotions all point toward adding a flat-fee store to your retail listings.

Print: a third model

Print books add a printing cost to every copy. Platforms handle it differently:

• KDP Print: a percentage of list price (60% or 50% on Amazon.com), minus printing.
• IngramSpark: list price minus the wholesale discount you set, minus printing and a market access fee.
• BooksOasis: the sale price minus the printing cost and a handling fee of 30% of that printing cost; readers pay shipping.

On BooksOasis, the handling fee is tied to the printing cost, not the sale price. Raise your price, and the whole increase is yours.

Hidden costs to watch for

When a commission model makes more sense

• You are publishing your first book and don't expect many sales yet.
• The platform's own shoppers are how readers will find you.
• You want zero upfront cost while you test a genre or pen name.

When a flat fee makes more sense

• You sell steadily, even modestly, across several books.
• You have readers who follow you and will buy wherever you point them.
• You run promotions and want every discounted sale to keep its full value.
• You have a large backlist, where per-book plan costs become tiny.

The best of both

You don't have to choose. The strongest setup for most authors combines both models:

1. Commission retailers for discovery.Amazon, Apple, Kobo, B&N and Google put you in front of their shoppers.
2. A flat-fee store for margin.Send your own readers there, and keep 100% of the ebook price on those sales.
3. Your newsletter as the bridge.Readers who find you on retailers join your list; your list buys where you earn most.

A note on "100% royalties"

Several platforms advertise 100% royalties. Check what that means on each:

• Is card processing deducted from your share?
• Is printing charged at cost, or with a markup or handling fee?
• Does the plan include ebooks, or only print?
• What happens to your books and royalties if you stop paying?

On BooksOasis: no processing cut on ebook royalties; print is charged at printing cost plus a 30% handling fee on that cost; every plan includes ebooks and print; and if your plan lapses, your books keep selling and royalties are held until you renew.

In short

Commissions are free to start and grow with your success; flat fees cost a little upfront and then stay fixed. Past a break-even of a few dozen sales a year, a flat plan keeps far more of each sale. Use commission retailers for the readers they bring, and a flat-fee store like BooksOasis for the sales you can win there at full price.