Store costs

What a direct book store costs

Three sample stores, small to busy, priced on six popular places to sell and on Lanternbee. Every price is sourced.

  • Starting out

    3 titles, ebooks. About $500 a month in sales from 50 orders.

  • A growing backlist

    8 titles, ebooks, audiobooks. About $2,000 a month in sales from 160 orders.

  • A busy store

    20 titles, ebooks, audiobooks, print books. About $10,000 a month in sales from 500 orders.

Cost for a year, US prices on monthly billing, card processing included.
Where you sellStarting outA growing backlistA busy store
Gumroad$1,458$4,836$20,484
Payhip$858$2,304$6,672
Shopify$1,686$2,628$6,636
Squarespace$978$1,944$5,952
Wix$990$1,908$5,916
WooCommerce$937$1,855$5,863
Lanternbee$654$1,812$5,820

Each row uses the cheapest plan for that store's sales. For Lanternbee that is Free (5% fee when you sell, up to 5 titles) or Author, whichever costs less. Open a row to see every line, what we counted and what we left out, with the sources.