Money & the Commercial Model

No — there are two components, and we'd rather you budget both from day one. The recurring cost is the platform fee: Launch at $650 per month ($6,500 if paid annually), Growth from roughly $1,300–$1,950 per month depending on catalogue and features, and Enterprise agreed per deal. The second component is a one-time Launch & Onboarding Package covering catalogue ingest, app design, store submission and launch support, which is agreed per publisher based on catalogue size and scope, and can be staged across the launch period. Beyond what you pay us: payment processing on your own checkout (typically 1.5–3% to your payment provider), and your own team's time to market the channel. We model all of this with you, on your numbers, at the demo — and hand over the spreadsheet.

It covers everything between signature and a live app: catalogue ingest and conversion checks, app design in your brand, Apple and Google developer account setup (in your name — see 4.2), store submission, storefront integration, QR asset generation for your print runs, and launch-week support. Yes, it can be staged — publishers typically split it across the onboarding period rather than paying on day one.

Arithmetically: whenever 20% of your annual direct digital revenue exceeds our annual fee. At the Launch fee of $7,800/year ($650 × 12), the crossover sits at $39,000 of direct digital revenue; on annual billing ($6,500) it's $32,500. Below the crossover, a commission model is genuinely cheaper — and we'll tell you so, and suggest the cheapest sensible way to build toward it. Above it, every additional dollar of direct revenue widens the gap in your favour, because our fee doesn't grow with your success. A commission provider takes more from you in absolute terms every year your channel grows; that is precisely the wrong incentive structure for a channel whose whole purpose is growth. For comparison, typical commission models in this market charge 20% of gross or net revenue plus setup fees of £250–£750, forever.

Whatever your payment provider charges you — we add nothing. Because checkout runs on your terms (your web checkout, in-app purchase, offline, or vouchers — your choice of mix), the processing relationship is yours: typically 1.4–2.9% + a small fixed fee per transaction with mainstream providers. We are not the merchant of record on your web sales, we don't sit in your money flow, and there is no Publish360 transaction fee. The only channel that carries a platform-level fee is in-app purchase, where Apple and Google set the terms (see 1.5) — which is why we make in-app checkout an option you control, not a default you're forced into.

If you enable in-app purchase, Apple and Google charge their platform commission — 15% for most publishers under their small-business programmes (under $1M/year through the store), 30% above that threshold. That's why we treat in-app purchase as one option in your checkout mix rather than the backbone: most publishers route the bulk of sales through their own web checkout (0% platform fee) and use in-app purchase selectively, where the convenience of one-tap buying justifies the margin. Recent regulatory changes (in the US, EU and elsewhere) increasingly allow apps to link out to external checkout; we track these changes and pass the benefit through to you as store policies evolve. You choose the mix — and can change it.

Royalties on direct sales are governed by your author contracts, not by us — but the platform is built so that the accounting is never the obstacle. Every direct sale is recorded with title, price paid, buyer territory and date, and exports cleanly to your royalty system. Two things are worth knowing. First, most standard contracts pay royalties on net receipts — and your net receipts on a direct sale are far higher than on the same sale through a retailer, so authors typically earn more per copy from your direct channel even at unchanged royalty rates. Second, many publishers choose to share the direct-channel margin further — some agents now expect it — and a higher direct royalty rate is one of the strongest cards you hold in the next contract negotiation: it aligns your authors with the channel's success. We'd encourage you to decide your direct-royalty policy before launch and communicate it to authors and agents proactively; see 2.5 for what to tell agents.

By actual reading. The platform records which titles each subscriber opened and how much of each they consumed, so subscription revenue can be allocated per title on a consumption basis — the same principle streaming services use, but with the ledger in your hands rather than a black box. That gives your royalty team an auditable basis for paying authors on subscription income, and gives agents a straight answer instead of a shrug. Before launching any subscription tier, check your contracts permit subscription exploitation (see 2.2) and decide the allocation basis in writing; we'll give you the data to operate whichever basis you choose.

The headline break-even — 143 direct sales a month at typical prices, or 100 subscribers at $6.50 — covers the platform fee. Your true break-even adds two lines: payment processing (1.5–3%) and the author royalty on each direct sale, which depends on your contracts. As a worked example: on a $13 ebook, with 2% processing and a 25% net-receipts royalty, you keep roughly $9.55 per direct sale versus roughly $6.30 net from a typical retail sale after the retailer's cut and the same royalty — so each direct sale is still worth about half as much again as a retail sale, and break-even on incremental margin (direct versus retail on the same unit) needs materially fewer sales than the headline number suggests. Bring your actual royalty rates to the demo and we'll run the calculation on your numbers, in a spreadsheet you keep.

Yes — it's your checkout and your price file. Publishers use direct pricing three ways: matching retail (simplest, no channel-conflict questions), premium bundles (ebook + audiobook + bonus content at a price no retailer can assemble), and direct-first editions or early windows at full price. What we'd caution against is systematic undercutting of retail on identical products: it invites trade friction (see 7.1) and trains readers to see your channel as the discount bin. The stronger play — and the one the whole platform is designed around — is to make the direct edition worth more (exclusive content, formats bundled, early access) rather than cost less. Note that if you sell any titles under agency terms, your agreements may constrain retail price relationships (see 7.3).

On your web checkout: you are. The sale happens on your storefront, on your terms, and the customer relationship — including the money — is contractually yours. That's a deliberate structural choice: merchant-of-record platforms (where the vendor takes the payment and remits to you) are simpler to start with but put your revenue, your customer records and your refund policy inside someone else's company. On in-app purchases, Apple or Google is the merchant of record, as on every app on those stores. On offline sales and vouchers, you are. If you'd rather not carry merchant-of-record obligations for digital VAT in some territories, we'll discuss the right structure at the demo — including where a merchant-of-record checkout for specific territories can be sensible (see 3.1).

On web, offline and voucher sales: no. Reader payments go to your payment provider and settle to your bank account on your provider's normal schedule; we never hold your revenue, and there is no settlement delay, minimum payout or reserve on our side. In-app purchases settle from Apple/Google to you on their standard cycles (roughly 30–45 days). Our invoice to you — the platform fee — is a separate, predictable line item. Your FD can treat direct revenue as first-party revenue, because it is.

Thirty days' notice, no long-term lock-in. If you leave, you keep the app (it's on your developer account), your reader data (full export), and your content; see 8.3 for exactly what offboarding involves. We think notice periods are a test of confidence: a vendor that needs to lock you in for three years is telling you something about how it expects you to feel in year two.

Partly — and that's fine, because a cannibalised sale is worth more to you. When a reader buys from you instead of a retailer, your net receipt on that unit typically rises by 30–50% (see 1.8), so even a fully cannibalised sale is margin-accretive. But three effects mean direct channels are not zero-sum in practice. First, the QR mechanism converts print buyers — people who already bought through the trade — into digital app users, which is additive, not substitutive. Second, exclusive content and bundles create purchases that don't exist at retail. Third, subscription income is a category retailers barely offer for your list at all. The honest position: some substitution happens, it's profitable substitution, and the channel's growth comes mostly from purchases the retail channel was never going to generate. Model both cases in the calculator — set the substitution assumption as high as you like and watch what it does to net margin.

Three, honestly. Marketing time: the channel succeeds on audience-building — budget a few hours a week of marketing attention for push campaigns, email, QR placement in new print runs, and promotion planning; publishers who treat the app as shelfware get shelfware results. Royalty administration: one-off work to confirm your contracts cover direct and subscription sales (see 2.1), and a small recurring addition to royalty runs. Finance setup: confirming VAT treatment in your main territories (see 3.1–3.2). What you should not budget: developers, hosting, app-store liaison, DRM licensing, or customer-care infrastructure — that's what the platform fee buys. No new headcount is the honest claim; no new hours would not be.