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 US$500 a month in sales from 50 orders.
A growing backlist
8 titles, ebooks, audiobooks. About US$2,000 a month in sales from 160 orders.
A busy store
20 titles, ebooks, audiobooks, print books. About US$10,000 a month in sales from 500 orders.
| Where you sell | Starting out | A growing backlist | A busy store |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gumroad | US$900 | US$3,360 | US$15,000 |
| Payhip | US$300 | US$828 | US$1,188 |
| Shopify | US$708 | US$1,152 | US$1,152 |
| Squarespace | US$420 | US$468 | US$468 |
| Wix | US$432 | US$552 | US$552 |
| WooCommerce | US$300 | US$379 | US$379 |
| Lanternbee | US$0 on Free | US$468 on Author | US$468 on Author |
Both sides always count the same jobs. For a store starting out we compare Lanternbee Free, so we count only the store and sending ebooks to buyers. For the other two we compare Lanternbee Author, so we also count bundles and reader reviews, and printing for the busy store. When a platform can't do one of these jobs itself, we add one app that does. When it can, we add nothing. When we found no way at all, we say so. Each row uses the cheapest plan for that store's sales. Open a row to see every line, what we counted and what we left out, with the sources.
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