KDP vs Draft2Digital, short answer: use KDP for Amazon, and use Draft2Digital (D2D) only for the stores where it pays the same or more than going direct. They aren’t really rivals. KDP only sells on Amazon, and D2D mostly sells everywhere else. On a $4.99 ebook, KDP pays you $3.39 per Amazon sale. D2D pays $2.99 at Apple, Barnes & Noble and Kobo, where going direct pays $3.49. That 50-cent gap is D2D’s fee, and it’s worth paying in some places and not in others.
Below is the per-copy math for every route at seven list prices, built from each platform’s current terms (checked November 13, 2026). It shows two traps that most comparisons miss: one where D2D loses you more than half your Amazon royalty, and one where D2D pays you a third more than the store itself.
TL;DR
- Amazon: KDP direct pays $3.39 on a $4.99 ebook; Amazon through D2D (invite only) pays $2.99 and blocks Select, Ads and preorders.
- Apple, B&N, Kobo: direct pays $3.49, D2D pays $2.99. D2D’s fee is about 10% of list, or 14.3% of your direct royalty.
- Trap: at $12.99, KDP pays $8.99 but D2D’s Amazon rate table gives $3.90 (30% above $9.99).
- Bonus: a 99-cent book pays $0.59 at Kobo through D2D vs $0.45 direct (+33%).
- New D2D accounts pay $20 once, plus $12 a year if net royalties are under $100 (about 34 sales at $4.99).
Before the routing question, there’s the catalog question: you need finished books to distribute. My top pick for drafting them is ImagineYourBook. It’s an AI book-writing tool that turns your idea or notes into a complete text draft with a cover, exports Word, EPUB and Markdown files you can upload to KDP or D2D, and keeps characters and plot threads consistent across a series. It takes no cut of your royalties. One thing to know if you go wide: D2D accepts AI-assisted books but not books “generated entirely by AI” without “extensive editing from a human,” so you revise the draft in your own voice before you upload it.
What each platform pays per ebook
KDP pays 70% on Amazon.com list prices from $2.99 to $12.99, minus a delivery fee of $0.15 per MB. Outside that band it pays 35%. The upper edge moved from $9.99 to $12.99 on July 7, 2026.
Draft2Digital keeps 15% of what each store pays it. Most stores keep 30% of list, so D2D’s 15% works out to about 10% of list price and you receive about 60%. D2D’s royalty table lists 60% at Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Tolino, Gardners and Fable at every price, 55% at Vivlio, and 75% at its own Smashwords Store for books at $2.99 or more. (The exact formula gives $2.97 on a $4.99 book instead of $2.99. D2D rounds to 60%, and so do I.)
Going direct pays 70% at Apple Books and B&N Press at any price, and 70% at Kobo Writing Life from $2.99 up (no upper cap). Below $2.99, Kobo pays only 45%.
Here is what one ebook copy pays on each route. I assumed a 1 MB file for KDP’s delivery fee (an assumption; KDP shows your real file size):
| List price | KDP direct (Amazon) | D2D to Amazon (invite only) | Apple / B&N direct | Kobo direct | D2D to Apple, B&N, Kobo | D2D's Smashwords Store |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $0.99 | $0.35 | $0.30 | $0.69 | $0.45 | $0.59 | $0.40 |
| $2.99 | $1.99 | $1.79 | $2.09 | $2.09 | $1.79 | $2.24 |
| $4.99 | $3.39 | $2.99 | $3.49 | $3.49 | $2.99 | $3.74 |
| $9.99 | $6.89 | $5.99 | $6.99 | $6.99 | $5.99 | $7.49 |
| $10.99 | $7.59 | $3.30 | $7.69 | $7.69 | $6.59 | $8.24 |
| $12.99 | $8.99 | $3.90 | $9.09 | $9.09 | $7.79 | $9.74 |
| $14.99 | $5.25 | $4.50 | $10.49 | $10.49 | $8.99 | $11.24 |
Trap 1: Amazon through D2D
D2D can send your ebook to Amazon too, but only by invitation now, and it’s a worse deal than KDP at every price. At $4.99 you’d get $2.99 instead of $3.39, which is 39 cents less per sale.
It gets much worse above $9.99. D2D’s Amazon page still lists 60% only from $2.99 to $9.99 and 30% outside it, while KDP’s own 70% band now runs to $12.99. Taken at face value, a $12.99 ebook pays $8.99 on KDP and $3.90 through D2D’s Amazon channel. That’s 57% less per copy. D2D’s page may simply not reflect Amazon’s July change yet, but you’d be betting the margins on your priciest books, usually box sets, on it.
The money isn’t the only loss. Books that reach Amazon through D2D can’t be in KDP Select, can’t run Amazon Ads, can’t take Kindle preorders and can’t be priced free on Amazon (D2D submits “free” as 99 cents). Every one of those is a tool a series author uses on launch day, so publish to Amazon through KDP. If you use preorders, I covered the 2026 rules in KDP preorders.
Trap 2 (in your favor): 99-cent books on Kobo
D2D pays 60% at Kobo at every price. Kobo itself pays 45% below $2.99. So on a 99-cent Book 1, D2D pays $0.59 and Kobo direct pays $0.45, which is 33% more through the middleman.
That matters if you run first-in-series at 99 cents as a funnel. At an assumed 30 Book-1 sales a month on Kobo, routing that one title through D2D adds about $53 a year. Your full-price sequels can still go direct to Kobo at 70%. Splitting one series across two routes is allowed, because every D2D store is opt-in per book.
The 50-cent question: direct or D2D for Apple, B&N and Kobo?
Above $2.99, going direct always pays more: 70% versus 60%. D2D’s fee is 10 cents of every list-price dollar, which is 14.3% of what you’d earn going direct. Whether that’s worth it depends on how many copies you sell outside Amazon:
At an assumed 40 non-Amazon sales a month at $4.99, D2D costs you about $240 a year in royalties. In exchange you get one upload, one dashboard, one tax form and one payment instead of three or four, plus D2D’s free Universal Book Links and author pages. At 10 sales a month it’s $60 a year, which is cheap for that convenience. At 160 sales a month it’s $958 a year, and an afternoon of setting up direct accounts pays for itself.
There’s also a small fixed cost now. Since April 2026, new D2D accounts pay a $20 one-time activation fee, and accounts that earn under $100 in net royalties over 12 months pay $12 a year. At $2.99 per $4.99 sale, you clear that $100 bar with 34 sales a year.
Stores you can only reach through D2D
Going direct isn’t possible everywhere. D2D’s royalty table includes Tolino (the German-language retail group), Everand (60% once a subscriber reads past 20% of the book), Gardners, Fable, Vivlio and its own Smashwords Store at 75%. On the library side it pays 46% of a library purchase at OverDrive, BorrowBox and cloudLibrary, and 4.6% per OverDrive checkout. Kobo Writing Life reaches OverDrive directly too, at 50% of your library price.
For these, the choice isn’t D2D versus direct. It’s D2D versus not being there. So even authors who go direct to the big three often keep D2D on for the long tail.
| Store or channel | Through D2D | Direct | Better route |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Kindle | 60% at $2.99 to $9.99, else 30% (invite only) | KDP: 70% at $2.99 to $12.99 minus delivery, else 35% | KDP direct |
| Apple Books | 60% | 70% | Direct (D2D if low volume) |
| Barnes & Noble | 60% | B&N Press: 70% | Direct (D2D if low volume) |
| Kobo, $2.99+ | 60% | 70% | Direct (D2D if low volume) |
| Kobo, under $2.99 | 60% | 45% | D2D |
| Smashwords Store | 75% at $2.99+, 40% below | Only via D2D | D2D |
| Tolino, Gardners, Fable | 60% | Not covered here | D2D |
| Everand (subscription) | 60% after 20% read | Not covered here | D2D |
| Libraries (OverDrive) | 46% purchase, 4.6% per checkout | Kobo Writing Life: 50% of library price | Either |
Before any of this: KDP Select or wide?
D2D only matters for books you take wide. An ebook in KDP Select must stay exclusive to Amazon for each 90-day term, so it can’t be on any D2D store. What you give up is Kindle Unlimited page reads. At the 2026 January to September average of $0.00474 per page read (Written Word Media’s tracker), and assuming about 190 words per page, a full read of a 70,000-word novel pays about $1.75, or 0.58 of one $4.99 sale through D2D.
I ran the full reader math, including the Amazon sales you keep either way, in KDP Select vs Wide. For a store-by-store comparison of one wide store, see KDP vs Barnes and Noble Press. If you bundle a finished series, the KDP box set math shows where KDP’s $12.99 ceiling bites.
One book, one route per store. If a store already carries your book directly, switch that store off in D2D. Every D2D store is opt-in per book, so you can mix direct and D2D without listing the same ebook twice.
A setup that works for a series catalog
- Amazon: KDP direct, always. It pays more at every price and keeps Select, Ads, preorders and free days available.
- Apple, B&N and Kobo: direct if you sell more than a few dozen copies a month there; D2D if you don’t. The gap is 50 cents on a $4.99 book.
- 99-cent openers on Kobo: through D2D. 60% beats Kobo’s own 45%.
- Everything else (Tolino, Everand, libraries, Smashwords): D2D. There’s no direct route for most of them.
- Box sets above $9.99: never through D2D’s Amazon channel, and check D2D’s pricing page for the current Amazon band before you assume otherwise.
| Situation | Number | Route |
|---|---|---|
| $4.99 ebook on Amazon | $3.39 KDP vs $2.99 D2D | KDP |
| $12.99 ebook on Amazon | $8.99 KDP vs $3.90 D2D (listed rate) | KDP |
| $4.99 ebook at Apple, B&N, Kobo | $3.49 direct vs $2.99 D2D | Direct above ~40 sales/mo |
| 99-cent Book 1 on Kobo | $0.59 D2D vs $0.45 direct | D2D |
| Stores with no direct route | 60% to 75% via D2D | D2D |
| Book in KDP Select | Full 70k-word read about $1.75 | No wide store at all |
If you want to run your own prices, Finxter’s Python KDP royalty calculator reproduces KDP’s price band and delivery fee. Swap in 0.60 for D2D or 0.70 for a direct store and you have every line in the chart above.
Limits of this comparison
All figures are US list prices before taxes and currency conversion, and D2D itself calls its rates “approximations.” KDP’s delivery fee depends on your real file size; a 1 MB file is my assumption. The sales volumes in the napkin math are assumptions, not data. Print is a separate question: D2D Print pays about 45% of list minus printing, KDP about 60% at $9.99 and up.
FAQ
Is Draft2Digital better than KDP?
Not for Amazon. KDP pays $3.39 on a $4.99 ebook versus $2.99 through D2D, and only KDP gives you Select, Amazon Ads and preorders. D2D is better for reaching Apple, Kobo, B&N, Tolino and libraries from one upload.
Can you use KDP and Draft2Digital at the same time?
Yes. Most wide authors publish to Amazon through KDP and use D2D for other stores. Just leave Amazon unchecked in D2D, and keep the book out of KDP Select, which requires ebook exclusivity.
How much does Draft2Digital take?
About 10% of list price: 15% of what the store pays. On a $4.99 ebook that's about 50 cents, so you get $2.99 instead of $3.49 direct. New accounts also pay $20 once.
Does Draft2Digital charge a yearly fee?
Only if your account earns under $100 in net royalties over 12 months; then it's $12 a year. At $2.99 per $4.99 sale, 34 sales a year clears it.
Can Draft2Digital publish to Amazon?
Only by invitation. Books sent that way can't use KDP Select, Amazon Ads, Kindle preorders or free pricing, and D2D's page lists 30% above $9.99.
Does Draft2Digital accept AI-written books?
AI-assisted books, yes. Books generated entirely by AI without extensive human editing, no. KDP accepts AI-generated content but asks you to disclose it.
The takeaway
KDP vs Draft2Digital is not an either-or choice. KDP wins Amazon outright: $3.39 against $2.99 on a $4.99 book, and $8.99 against $3.90 on a $12.99 ebook at D2D’s listed Amazon rate. D2D wins 99-cent books on Kobo and every store you can’t reach direct. In between, its 50-cent fee buys you convenience, which is a fair price until your wide sales grow. None of it matters until you have books to route, though. If drafting is the slow part, ImagineYourBook turns your outline into a full text draft with a cover that you then revise in your own voice. The trial is $0 today with a card required and includes one complete 10,000-word book; the first $24.99 charge happens after 7 days unless you cancel before day 8. Sales are never guaranteed on any store.
Sources (checked November 13, 2026): Draft2Digital: Ebook royalty rates · D2D: 10% list vs 15% net · D2D FAQ (fees, AI policy) · D2D: activation and maintenance fees (Apr 14, 2026) · D2D: Amazon distribution · D2D content guidelines · KDP Help: eBook list price requirements · KDP digital pricing (delivery costs) · KDP Select exclusivity · Kobo Writing Life: earnings · Apple Books for Authors · B&N Press royalty terms · Written Word Media: KDP Global Fund payouts · ImagineYourBook pricing. Assumptions: 1 MB ebook file for KDP’s delivery fee; 190 words per KENP page; sales volumes in the napkin math (10 to 160 wide sales a month, 30 Kobo Book-1 sales a month). US list prices, before taxes and currency conversion.