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publica.la
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Publisher Revenue Calculator

Enter your monthly revenue to see how much of each sale your house keeps today, and how much it would keep on publica.la.

For trade publishers, university presses, magazines and digital-first houses with a real catalogue. If you are an indie author with one title, use our Author Royalty Calculator instead.

Enter your monthly revenue

Use what you take in a month today to see what you could save

Adjust to your current costs You keep 55.2%

Set these to what you really pay. The defaults are typical for a trade publisher on a generic ecommerce set-up.

3%
40%
Your result will appear here.

How we get from 55% to 85%

Once payment processing, ecommerce fees, the retailer’s share and platform and tech costs come out, most publishers keep around 55% of every sale. On an all-in-one publishing platform like publica.la that rises to roughly 85%, because the shop, the reader, native apps, DRM and integrations come in a single tool: no add-on apps, no plugins and no backlog of development work.

This calculator gives you a rough answer in seconds. For the full breakdown (Stripe fees, retailer share, hosting, development hours), a comparison with your current set-up or a three-year projection, book a 30-minute call and we’ll model it with your real figures.

Frequently asked questions

What share of each online sale does a publisher usually keep?
A trade publisher selling through a mix of Amazon, other retailers and a basic shop of its own usually keeps between 45% and 60% of every sale, once payment processing, ecommerce platform fees, the retailer’s share and platform and tech overheads come out. On an all-in-one publishing platform like publica.la, that rises to roughly 85%.
How does publica.la compare with Shopify for publishers?
Shopify Plus starts at around $2,000/month and still needs third-party apps for digital downloads and an external reader, with no native audiobook delivery. A publisher on Shopify typically keeps about 65% of revenue after apps, processing and channel share. On publica.la, prices start at $492/month, the shop, reader, native apps and DRM come in one product, and what you keep rises to ~85%.
Is it cheaper to build a custom publishing platform?
A custom build can let you keep 80–90% of each sale, but it typically costs $5,000 to $25,000+ a month to run once you count engineering, hosting, security, plugin maintenance and reader development. It also takes 4–9 months to launch, and that is the real bottleneck for most publishers.
How is this calculator different from the Author Royalty Calculator?
This one assumes a publishing house with a catalogue, a mix of channels and platform costs, and answers ‘how much revenue is my house leaving on the table?’. The Author Royalty Calculator compares what an individual author earns on Amazon KDP, Apple Books, Kobo, Google Play and their own shop, for one or two books. The reader is different, and so are the sums.
Where does the 55% industry average come from?
It is a rough benchmark drawn from publishers’ financial reviews and an analysis of platform fees: Stripe/PayPal ~3%, ecommerce platform 2–5%, retailer share 30–55% on the wholesale portion, plus fixed platform and tech overheads. For a figure specific to your house, book a call and we’ll run the full breakdown against your channel mix.
Who is this tool for?
Trade publishers, university presses, magazines and newspapers with paywalls, and digital-first publishing houses with a real catalogue. University presses that sell heavily through Amazon should use the University Press ROI Calculator, which also models institutional channels and gives a more accurate answer.

Want the full model with your own numbers?

On a 30-minute call we’ll model it with your channel mix, your current stack and your real figures.

Let’s talk about your shop

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