Draft2Digital vs PublishDrive: Commission or Flat Fee?

The Short Answer

Draft2Digital takes a small cut of each sale and charges little else, so it costs you almost nothing until you sell. PublishDrive charges a subscription on its paid plans and lets you keep all the royalties the stores pay. If your ebook sales are modest or unpredictable, Draft2Digital is usually cheaper. If you sell steadily and in volume, PublishDrive's flat fee can cost less.

Both are ebook aggregators. You upload once, and they deliver your book to many stores and library platforms and send you combined payments. The difference is mainly in how they charge.

Two Ways to Pay an Aggregator

Aggregators earn money in one of two ways, and each suits a different kind of author.

• Commission (Draft2Digital). The aggregator keeps a percentage of each sale. You pay more as you sell more, but nothing much while sales are low.
• Subscription (PublishDrive's paid plans). You pay a recurring fee based on how many titles you publish, and keep 100% of the royalties the stores pay. You pay the same whether you sell ten copies or ten thousand.

Neither is better in general. The right model depends on how much you sell, how many books you have and how predictable your income is.

Side by Side

PublishDrive does not list its plan prices publicly on its pricing page; it offers an earnings calculator and sales contact instead. Check current prices before deciding, since they set the break-even point.

The Break-Even Formula

You can work out which model costs less with one line of arithmetic. Draft2Digital's commission is roughly 10% of the retail price of what you sell. So a subscription becomes cheaper once your monthly retail sales through the aggregator exceed ten times the monthly plan fee.

As an illustration only: if a plan cost $20 a month, you would need about $200 a month in retail sales through the aggregator before the subscription saved money. Below that, the commission is cheaper. Plug in the real plan price for your catalog size to get your own number.

Remember that this counts only sales through the aggregator, not Amazon sales you make directly through KDP. Many wide authors earn most of their ebook income on Amazon and a smaller share elsewhere, which keeps them below the break-even point.

Three Authors, Three Answers

Applying the rule to real situations makes it clearer. These examples use retail sales through the aggregator only.

• One book, about $60 a month in sales outside Amazon. A 10% commission costs around $6 a month. Unless a plan costs less than that, Draft2Digital is cheaper.
• Five books, about $400 a month outside Amazon. The commission is now around $40 a month. A subscription that costs less than $40 for five titles would save money.
• A series with big launches and quiet months. Sales might be $800 in a launch month and $80 in others. A commission rises and falls with sales, while a flat fee is charged every month, so total the whole year before comparing.

The pattern is simple: low or uneven sales favor commission, and high, steady sales favor a flat fee. Recheck the math once a year as your catalog grows.

Stores and Libraries

Both aggregators cover the major non-Amazon ebook stores, including Apple Books, Barnes & Noble and Kobo. The differences are at the edges.

According to its FAQ, Draft2Digital delivers to Apple Books, Barnes & Noble and Kobo, plus Kobo Plus, Bookshop.org, the European retailers Tolino and Vivlio, the subscription service Everand, the wholesaler Gardners and its own Smashwords Store. For libraries it names four platforms: OverDrive, cloudLibrary, Hoopla and BorrowBox. Amazon is reachable only by invitation.

PublishDrive describes reaching more than 50 retailers and more than 240,000 libraries, and shows Google Play Books among its stores. If a particular store matters to your readers, check that each aggregator delivers to it before you commit.

The Free Options

PublishDrive offers one ebook free, distributed to Apple Books, Barnes & Noble and Kobo, with no subscription and no commission. For a single book aimed mainly at those three stores, that is hard to beat on price.

Draft2Digital does not have a separate free plan, but because it charges mainly by commission, you pay very little until you sell. Beyond the commission, a brand-new account costs $20 to activate once, and a small $12 yearly charge applies only in years when an account with live books earns less than $100.

Extras Beyond Distribution

Both companies offer more than delivery to stores. Draft2Digital is known for its free ebook formatting tools and universal book links that send readers to their preferred store. PublishDrive offers Abacus, a royalty-tracking tool priced at $1.49 per title per month with the first title free, and print-on-demand partnerships in some markets.

These extras rarely decide the choice on their own, but they can tip it if two options are otherwise close.

Support and ease of use matter too, especially for a first book. Before committing, upload a test title to each platform's dashboard or read through its setup steps, and see which one feels clearer to you. You will be using it for every book and every price change, so a dashboard you understand is worth a lot.

Who Should Choose Which

Whichever you choose, keep your Kindle edition on KDP directly unless you have a reason not to. Our comparison of KDP and Draft2Digital explains how Amazon fits alongside an aggregator, and why KDP Select exclusivity rules out wide distribution for an ebook.

Switching Aggregators

You can move from one aggregator to the other later. Do it carefully to avoid two suppliers listing the same edition at the same store:

1. Set up the book in the new aggregator, but do not publish yet.
2. Remove the book from distribution in the old aggregator.
3. Wait until the stores confirm the old listings are gone.
4. Publish through the new aggregator, using the same files and metadata.

Frequently Asked Questions