Bookrata for authors
Compare Bookrata with Other Author Platforms
Plenty of platforms will sell your book. One can tell a reader what's inside it.
Taking 0% is no longer rare — four of the eight platforms here do it. What none of them do is measure your book the same way they measure every other book, so the reader who wants exactly what you wrote can find it on purpose. That's the comparison that matters, and it's the one below.
Eight platforms compared. Every competitor figure taken from the company's own published pages and checked in . Where a company publishes nothing on a point, this page says so rather than guessing — and Bookrata features still in development are marked In build, never counted as shipped.
Eight platforms, three completely different jobs
These tools get compared as if they're interchangeable. They aren't. Three of them help you reach readers you already have. Five of them put a checkout button on a page. Only one measures what's in the book and lets readers browse by it. Sorting them into their actual squares is what makes the rest of this page read straight — and it explains why authors end up paying for three at once.
The bookstore — rated catalogue, readers browsing it, sale happens here
Bookrata
Every book measured across six content categories on a five-tier scale. Readers set comfort caps and browse what clears them. You're the merchant of record, keep 100%, and delivery, watermarking and a reading app come with every plan.
Doesn't doNewsletter swaps. Print-on-demand printing. ARC campaign tooling.
Marketing & delivery — reach and file logistics, but the sale happens elsewhere
StoryOrigin
A cross-promotion desk: newsletter swaps, group promos, ARC and beta programmes, a site builder, and direct sales fulfilled by Lemon Squeezy. Free tier, $100/yr Standard.
Doesn't doBring readers of its own — its FAQ says so plainly.
BookBub
A deal newsletter with millions of subscribers, sold by placement: a Featured Deal you apply for at $122–$4,216 on its default all-regions pricing, or ads you bid on. Chirp is its separate audiobook shop.
Doesn't doHost files, sell your ebook, or tell you who bought.
BookFunnel
The best-known way to get a file to a reader: reader magnets, secure ARCs, watermarking, apps for phones and tablets, download tracking. $30–$300/yr plus audiobook add-on.
Doesn't doKeep a reader list — "We don't even have a reader mailing list!"
Storefronts & publishing services — a checkout button, and in some cases a printer
Books.by
Print-on-demand storefront at books.by/yourname. It prints, ships and is merchant of record, and collects and remits sales tax. $99/yr Core (against a $199 list), $299/yr Pro adds ebooks and analytics.
Doesn't doDiscovery — its own comparison page lists "You bring your own traffic — no discovery" — or custom domains.
Zenpage
A free author website builder with direct sales of ebooks, audiobooks and print. $0 forever, 0% cut, your own Stripe. Eight templates, custom domain, CSV email export.
Doesn't doPublishes no marketplace or reader-audience claim. No DRM or watermarking documented. Print is yours to post.
Tertulia
The closest thing here to a rival: a co-op bookstore with a real reader audience, plus Tertulia for Authors — a website and direct-sales tool at $7.99–$15.99/mo. Its About page names a strategic partnership with IngramSpark.
Doesn't doContent ratings. Print fulfilment — you ship it yourself.
BookAuth
An ambitious all-in-one: author site, ARC campaigns, newsletter, storefront, Lulu print, and a reader side. Free/$12/$29 a month — and a 5%/3%/2% cut on every sale.
Worth checkingIts audiobook support is stated on some pages and not on others. Launched June 2026.
BookBaby
Full-service publishing, paid upfront: editing, covers, conversion, printing, audiobook production, distribution. It publishes no package price list — its own guide is that a fully produced book "typically lands between $2,000 and $7,000".
Doesn't doCheap. It takes 0% on retail distribution, but its own Bookshop keeps 15% of ebooks and 50% of print.
A rating you can compare beats a warning you can't
Every book on Bookrata is measured the same way across six content categories — Sex, Violence, Language, Religion, Wellness and LGBTQ+ — each on a five-tier scale. The overall tier is the average of the two highest categories, so a single spike can't hide behind a low average. Readers set their own comfort cap in each category and browse what clears it.
The one near-miss, and why it isn't the same thing
BookAuth is the only other platform here that touches content at all. It offers author-set content warnings and a "Content Heat" indicator, and markets them as "Author-controlled — you set the warnings, not strangers" That's a reasonable feature, and it's better than nothing. But it's a label each author writes for their own book, which means two books carrying the same warning can be nothing alike, and a reader has no way to know. Bookrata's ratings run the other way round on purpose: the same yardstick, applied by someone who isn't selling the book. That's what makes a Tier 2 on one book mean the same as a Tier 2 on another — and it's the only version of this that a reader can actually filter by.
A book at Tier 3 or lower overall and in every single category earns the Bookrata Certified Clean badge — one category over 3 and there's no badge, so the overall can never mask a spike. The rating badge is non-removable on every plan, including the paid ones: nobody can buy their way out of being measured. StoryOrigin, BookBub, BookFunnel, Books.by, Zenpage, Tertulia and BookBaby offer no content rating of any kind.
What each one takes, side by side
Worth being straight about this, because it's the claim most comparison pages get wrong in their own favour: a 0% platform fee is now table stakes among direct-sales tools. Zenpage, Books.by and Tertulia all take nothing per sale. What differs is who carries the tax liability, what the subscription costs, and — for the two outliers — how much comes off the top.
| Platform | Cut of each sale | What you pay | Merchant of record |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bookrata | 0% | Free, or $65/yr Pro, $150/yr Premier Audiobook add-on $15/yr | You Your Stripe, your customer |
| Zenpage | 0% | $0 forever Single tier, no paid upgrade | You So VAT and sales tax are yours too |
| Books.by | 0% | $99/yr Core, $299/yr Pro Print cost comes off the sale | Books.by It "collects and remits applicable sales tax, GST, or VAT"; your own income tax stays yours |
| Tertulia | 0% "Tertulia takes no per-sale commission" | $7.99/mo Basic, $15.99/mo Pro Billed annually; ~$96–$192/yr | Not published |
| StoryOrigin | 0% Plus $0.30 + 5% processing | Free, or $100/yr Standard $50/yr per extra pen name | Lemon Squeezy Collects and remits VAT for you |
| BookFunnel | 0% It never touches the sale | $30–$300/yr Audiobook add-on $20–$300/yr | Not applicable |
| BookAuth | 5% / 3% / 2% By tier — a cut even on paid plans | Free, $12/mo, or $29/mo Custom domain only on the $29 tier | You Your connected Stripe account |
| BookBub | ~30% Not BookBub's — the retailer it sends readers to | $122–$4,216 per Featured Deal Default all-regions view; US-only and International-only pricing differ. Plus ad spend, if selected | The retailer |
| BookBaby | 15% / 25% / 50% Ebook / audiobook / print, on its own Bookshop. 0% on retail distribution | No published package prices A quote tool. Its own guide: $2,000–$7,000 for a fully produced book. Ebook from ~$249–$299; audiobook $500 + $0.14–0.16 a word, or $2,000 + $0.06 AI-assisted | BookBaby |
Card processing is separate everywhere and goes to Stripe or the equivalent, typically around 2.9% plus 30¢. Where you are the merchant of record you keep the customer relationship and carry the tax obligation; where the platform is, it's the reverse. Neither is strictly better — but it's worth knowing which one you've signed up for.
Against the marketing and delivery tools
StoryOrigin, BookBub and BookFunnel don't sell your book — they help readers find it or help a file reach them. The question here isn't who's cheaper; it's what you still have to bolt on afterwards.
| Capability | Bookrata | StoryOrigin | BookBub | BookFunnel |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Getting found | ||||
| Readers of its own, browsing to buy | ✓Readers come to shop the store, or open a link an author sent them |
–Its FAQ states that it does not maintain its own mailing list — reach is other authors' newsletters |
~Millions of subscribers, rented one placement at a time |
–"We don't even have a reader mailing list!" — swaps and promo boards only |
| Discovery by what's inside the book | ✓Six categories, five tiers, 2300+ tags — readers filter by their own values |
–Not offered |
–Genre and author targeting only |
–Not offered |
| Placement nobody can outbid you for | ✓No ads, no sponsored shelf, no algorithmic push — ordering is neutral |
–Depends on swap partners you recruit yourself |
–A second-price auction — CPC or CPM — plus paid deal slots |
–No shelf to be placed on |
| You get in without being selected | ✓Join free. Every book is rated, not judged |
✓Open signup; swap partners still choose you |
–BookBub says it picks "about 25% of submissions" overall and "about 10-15%" in the US, from "hundreds of submissions per day" |
✓Open signup |
| Cross-promotion with other authors | –Not offered — the one thing these tools genuinely do better |
✓Newsletter swaps and group promos — its core strength |
–Not offered |
✓Author swaps and group promos, on every tier |
| Selling and delivering | ||||
| The sale happens here | ✓Full storefront and checkout — you're the merchant of record |
~Direct sales on Standard; Lemon Squeezy is merchant of record |
–Sends readers to a retailer. Chirp is the one place it sells directly |
–Delivers the file after a sale you process elsewhere |
| DRM-free delivery, per-buyer watermarked | ✓Both, on every plan including free — a deterrent, never a lock |
~Unlimited delivery even on the free plan; watermarking not advertised |
–No file hosting |
~Core product, but capped at 500 downloads a month on the entry tier; watermarking from Mid-List up |
| A reading app for the buyer | ✓Browser reader plus an installable web-app, always re-downloadable |
–Delivery only; no reader app |
–Not applicable |
✓Apps for iOS, Android and Fire/NOOK tablets, plus a browser Cloud Reader and a library readers log into. Its supported-devices page lists e-ink readers — Kindle Paperwhite, Kobo, NOOK Glowlight — as not supported |
| The buyer's email belongs to you | ✓Consented purchaser capture on every plan, free one included; lead export and giveaway leads from Pro |
✓Collects addresses, pushes to 13+ email services |
–Click counts only. The buyer is the retailer's customer |
✓From Mid-List; 4 integrations, 6 on Bestseller |
| Someone else funds your audiobook | ✓The Guild pays production. You pay $0, keep 100%, own the master, grant no exclusivity Coming in November |
–Not offered |
–Not offered |
–Not offered |
✓ Does this ~ Partly, or with a condition – Doesn't
Against the storefronts and publishing services
These five all put a checkout button on a page. Several are cheaper than Bookrata and take just as little. The differences that matter are what happens to the file after the sale, whether anyone but your own mailing list will ever see the page, and — for BookBaby — what it costs to get there.
| Capability | Bookrata | Books.by | Zenpage | Tertulia | BookAuth | BookBaby |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Getting found | ||||||
| A reader audience grown from both sides | ✓Readers browse the rated catalogue bringing qualified buyers to your page |
–Lists it among its own cons: "You bring your own traffic — no discovery" |
–Publishes no marketplace or reader-audience claim; its discovery features are SEO metadata and social preview cards |
✓A real co-op bookstore with editorial curation — the strongest here after Bookrata |
~A reader side exists; no published size, launched June 2026 |
~Describes weekly content shared "to a growing list of over 150,000 active book buyers"; a New Release email to that list is part of its paid Promotion Bundle |
| Discovery by measured content | ✓Six categories, five tiers, one yardstick for every book |
–Not offered |
–Not offered |
–Editorial curation, not content measurement |
~Author-set content warnings and a "Content Heat" mark — self-declared, so not comparable between books |
–Not offered |
| Nothing gets pushed at readers | ✓No recommendation engine, no bestseller list, no "customers also bought", no sponsored shelf. A reader finds your book by filtering for what she wants, not by being told what's popular |
~Nothing is pushed because there is no catalogue to push from |
~Same — no store, so nothing to promote |
–Editorial curation and recommendation lists are the product |
–Documents "AI-powered personalized recommendations" on the reader side, delivered by an assistant you ask rather than an automated feed. No bestseller or trending list |
–Homepage placement and email features sold as a paid promotion bundle |
| Selling | ||||||
| Platform's cut of each sale | ✓0% on every plan |
✓0% — subscription only |
✓0% — nothing at all |
✓0% — "Tertulia takes no per-sale commission", on its own FAQ |
–5% / 3% / 2% by tier — a cut even when you're paying |
–15% ebook, 25% audio, 50% print on its Bookshop |
| You are the merchant of record | ✓Your Stripe, your customer, your money |
–Books.by is, and it collects and remits sales tax, GST or VAT on purchases. Your own income tax remains yours |
✓Your own Stripe; VAT is yours too |
–Not published |
✓Its terms say the author is |
–BookBaby is |
| Storefront on your own domain | ✓From $65/yr Pro |
–books.by/yourname only — "coming soon" |
✓Free, with free SSL |
✓On Basic, plus a free .com for year one |
~Only on the $29/mo Business tier |
–No author-website product |
| Signed print copies | ✓Author-fulfilled physical sales from Pro |
~It prints and ships — so nothing to sign |
✓Buyers can request dedications; you fulfil |
~Print sold, but you print and ship it yourself |
✓Signed copies alongside Lulu print-on-demand |
–Bookshop is BookBaby-fulfilled print-on-demand; no signed-copy or author-fulfilled option is published |
| The buyer's email belongs to you | ✓Consented purchaser capture on every plan, free one included; lead export and giveaway leads from Pro |
✓Full names, emails and purchase history — its headline pitch |
✓Confirmed emails, CSV export, six newsletter integrations |
✓Mailing-list building on both tiers |
~Says "You keep the buyer's email", and subscriber lists export to CSV. Its published sales-CSV schema lists no buyer name or email column, and its subscriber help article does not list purchases as a subscription source |
–No statement that authors receive buyer names or email addresses is published on its Bookshop pages |
| Campaign links you can attribute to sales | ✓Tagged links per campaign, tracked from click through visit, buy-click and purchase — so you learn which newsletter or post actually sold copies |
~Facebook Pixel and Google integrations on Pro — external tracking, not native attribution |
~Traffic sources by search, social, newsletter and country; no per-campaign links |
–Not documented |
–Not documented |
–Not offered |
| How deep the analytics go | ✓15 panels on Premier — including a four-step conversion funnel, which Bookrata tags and filters surfaced your book, abandoned carts with real revenue, impressions against clicks per title, and reading completion |
~Live sales analytics, on the Pro tier only |
~Cookieless visitor stats, retailer click-through, a weekly search summary |
~Basic on Basic, advanced on Pro; the contents aren't published |
~Sales, visitors, followers and reader demographics; the basic-versus-advanced line isn't published |
–Sales reports only |
| Delivering | ||||||
| Per-buyer watermarking instead of DRM | ✓Every copy personalised to its buyer, on every plan |
–Not documented |
–Not offered |
–Not documented |
–States "No DRM — BookAuth does not apply DRM to your files"; uses signed, time-limited links. Watermarking is not published on its pages |
–DRM-free, but no watermarking |
| The reader keeps it, forever, in a real app | ✓Browser reader and installable web-app, always re-downloadable |
–No reader app; ebook mechanics undocumented |
–An emailed link good for 72 hours and 5 downloads — and buyers "can ask for a new one any time". No reader library or app |
~Download link by email; a reader app exists for the store, not for author sales |
~"My Library" with unlimited re-downloads, but no reader app — it points you to third-party ones |
~Choose ePub, mobi or PDF at download; no app |
| Audiobooks | ✓Sell on Premier or a $15/yr add-on — and the Guild will fund making oneComing in November |
–Not supported |
✓Sells files you already have |
✓Sold and delivered on Pro |
~Its comparison pages list "Audiobook Distribution: Native (Direct Sales)"; its manuscript-upload help article says "BookAuth supports two manuscript formats for digital distribution: ePub and PDF." Both are BookAuth's own pages |
~Produces them, at $500 + $0.14–0.16 a word — roughly $12,000 for an 80,000-word book — or $2,000 + $0.06 a word AI-assisted |
| Recently shipped, and what's still in build | ||||||
| Buy a book as a gift | ✓The recipient gets it by email and claims it into their own library |
–Not offered |
–Not offered |
–Not documented |
✓Gift purchases with claim links |
–Not offered |
| Your own discount codes and timed sales | ✓Author-created codes plus scheduled sale prices per listing, so a launch week starts and ends without you at the keyboard |
~Custom discount codes, listed under Pro. Scheduled or timed sale pricing is not documented on its pages |
–Not documented |
–Not documented |
~Discount codes, capped by tier at 3 / 10 / unlimited; scheduled sale pricing not documented |
~Coupons on its own Bookshop |
| Sell a whole series as one bundle In build | →Price the series you already organise; the buyer gets every book in it |
–Not offered |
–Not offered |
–Not documented |
✓Already has book bundles |
–Not offered |
| Readers can write to you, and you can write back In build | →Reader Notes: a verified owner sends a note, you heart it and reply once. A next-book discount code on the reply follows in a later phase |
–Not offered |
–Not offered |
~Public reviews, not a private note from a verified buyer |
~Reviews and author follows, but no verified-owner note with a bounded author reply |
–Not offered |
| Cost before you sell anything | ✓$0 to start; $150/yr for everything |
~$99/yr Core, currently shown against a $199 list price, and $299/yr Pro. Ebooks are sold as a Pro feature, though its FAQ still calls ebook support roadmap |
✓$0 — the cheapest option here, by some distance |
~~$96–$192/yr; direct sales need Pro |
~$0–$348/yr, but a percentage comes off every sale on top |
–No published package prices — a quote tool instead. Its own stated guide: a fully produced book "typically lands between $2,000 and $7,000"; ebook conversion and distribution "start at approximately $249-$299" |
✓ Does this ~ Partly, or with a condition – Doesn't → In build at Bookrata — not live yet
About the two "in build" rows
Series bundles and Reader Notes are in development and are not yet available. Neither has a promised release date or is counted as a live feature in this comparison. Gift purchases and author discount codes with scheduled sale prices are available now.
Worth saying plainly: the two that shipped were catch-up. BookAuth already offered gifts and discount codes, Books.by offers codes on its Pro tier, and BookFunnel has had book gifting for a while — Bookrata has drawn level rather than pulled ahead, though scheduled sale pricing is not something any of them documents. Of the two still in build, series bundles is also catch-up to BookAuth. Reader Notes is the one with no equivalent anywhere here: a private note from a verified owner of the book, with a single bounded reply from you. Everyone else's version of reader contact is a public review.
BookAuth launched publicly on 3 June 2026 and publishes no user numbers. Its help centre is substantial — roughly 109 articles across 17 categories — though six of those categories currently show no articles, and its blog and changelog pages have not yet published an entry. None of that is a criticism of the product, which is ambitious and moving quickly; it is simply a different proposition from a platform with a longer track record, and worth weighing before moving a catalogue onto it.
Fifteen panels that tell you why a copy sold
Most author tools give you a sales total and a visitor count. That tells you that something worked, never what. Bookrata Premier ships fifteen analytics panels built on the storefront's own event stream, and the one that matters most is the part no other platform on this page can offer: which Bookrata tags, filters and searches surfaced your book to the reader who bought it.
Where readers came from
- Traffic sources — referrers, and what sent each visit
- Bookrata discovery — the tags, filters and searches that surfaced your book inside the store
- Campaign ROI — per tagged link, all the way to purchases
- Devices and country — coarse, never personal
- Peak visit times — when to send the newsletter
- New versus returning — whether anyone comes back
What happened on the page
- Conversion funnel — store visit → book view → buy click → purchase, with the drop-off at every step
- Impressions against clicks, per title — how often a cover was actually seen versus clicked
- Title performance — views and buy-clicks per book
- Traffic over time — daily and weekly trend
- Overview — the one screen for a Monday morning
Money and readers
- Abandoned carts — read from Stripe's own checkout lifecycle, not guessed from behaviour, which also produces reliable revenue figures
- Member buyers — how much of your revenue comes from Bookrata members
- Reading completion — whether people finish the book they bought
- Customer list — purchaser emails, consented
Campaign links, and why they matter more here
Tag a link once and every visit it brings is attributed through the whole funnel — not just "500 people clicked" but how many opened a book page, how many hit buy, and how many paid. Run the same title in a newsletter, a Facebook post and a podcast mention and you will know which one sold copies rather than which one got attention. Because you are the merchant of record, that attribution runs all the way to the money instead of stopping at a retailer's door, which is exactly where BookBub's reporting ends.
Analytics that don't surveil your readers
The capture is deliberately blunt. No IP address is ever stored — location resolves to country at the moment of capture and the address is discarded. Any cut involving members or demographics is suppressed below five people, so you see patterns and never individuals. Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control are honoured. It is less granular than an ad platform would give you on purpose: a store that sells readers on not being surveilled cannot then surveil them on the authors' behalf.
What one sale is worth, and what a year costs
Two numbers decide whether changing platform was worth it: what you keep from a sale, and what the year costs before a single copy moves.
One copy of a $4.99 ebook
You keep about a third more than on a retailer — $1.06 a copy — and on Premier the reader who bought it becomes someone you can reach again.
| BookFunnel, Mid-List Delivery, ARCs, watermarking, email capture | $200 |
| StoryOrigin, Standard Swaps, group promos, review tools | $100 |
| Books.by, Pro A print storefront with ebooks and analytics | $299 |
| One accepted BookBub Featured Deal Crime fiction at $1–$2. Assumes you're in the 10–15% selected in the US | $1,747 |
| BookFunnel audiobook add-on 5,000 delivered hours, before overage | $100 |
| Before you sell anything | $2,446 |
| Bookrata Premier Storefront, custom domain, all 15 analytics panels, campaign links, embeds, purchaser capture | $150 |
| Platform fee on every sale | $0 |
| Ebook and audiobook delivery Included at this tier | $0 |
| Audiobook production, if the Guild funds you You keep the master and grant no exclusivityComing in November | $0 |
| Before you sell anything | $150 |
To be fair about it: you could also run a Zenpage site for $0 and keep 100%. What you wouldn't get is anyone discovering the book, a watermark on the file, a reading app, or a route to an audiobook. Cheap and complete aren't the same axis.
What actually changes about your week
Price is the easy part. The bigger change is that several standing problems in an indie author's working life stop being problems you manage and start being problems you don't have.
The content of your book stops being a liability
A clean book has nothing to advertise. There's no field for it, no filter for it, and no way for the reader who wants precisely that to find you on purpose. The best you can do is write a warning yourself and hope someone believes it.
Six categories, five tiers, measured the same way on every book by someone who isn't selling it. Readers set comfort caps and your book appears because of what's in it. Clean across the board earns Certified Clean — a claim she can check rather than one you have to make.
Reaching readers stops being something you buy
Every wave of visibility costs money or a favour: a deal slot, an ad bid, a swap you owe back. Stop paying and the reach stops the same week. A storefront with no discovery behind it just moves the problem.
Your book sits in a store where readers are already filtering for exactly what it is. Ordering is neutral — no one outbids you for the shelf, and the listing doesn't switch off when the budget does.
The file stays yours after it leaves
Most direct-sales tools email a download link and consider the job done — sometimes one that expires in 72 hours. No watermark, no library, no way for a reader who changed phones to get the book back without asking you.
Every copy is personalised to its buyer and tied to her account, re-downloadable forever, readable in the browser or the installed app. DRM-free throughout — a deterrent, not a lock.
You stop guessing which thing worked
You send a newsletter, post twice and appear on a podcast in the same week. Sales go up. A retailer's dashboard shows you a number three days late with no idea where it came from, and BookBub's report stops at the click.
Tag a link per campaign and watch it through the whole funnel — clicks, book views, buy clicks, purchases. Fifteen panels sit behind it, including which tags and filters surfaced your book inside the store, and abandoned carts read straight from Stripe's checkout lifecycle rather than inferred.
Nobody has to select you first
The biggest promotions are editorially chosen. BookBub says it receives "hundreds of submissions per day" and selects "about 25%" overall — "about 10-15%" for US deals — and asks you to wait four weeks before resubmitting, unless you resubmit at a lower deal price.
Create an account and you're an author here. Every book is rated, not judged. No committee, no queue, no resubmission calendar.
The audiobook you couldn't justify gets made
Coming in NovemberProduction runs into the thousands — BookBaby publishes $500 plus 14 to 16 cents a word for narrated production, roughly $12,000 on an average novel, or $2,000 plus 6 cents a word for its AI-assisted option. The alternatives are a royalty share or an exclusivity deal. Either way you hand over a slice of the thing you made.
Submit a rated title to the Guild. Paying members read it and vote; the fund pays for production. You pay nothing, keep 100%, own the master, and sign no exclusive. You pick the narrator and approve the sample before anything is signed.
Your stack becomes one line item
A delivery subscription, a promo subscription, a storefront subscription, an audiobook add-on and a per-campaign spend — five tools, five dashboards, five renewal dates, and the reader still checks out somewhere none of them can see.
Store, ratings, discovery, delivery, reading app, analytics and audiobooks in one place, on one bill, starting at nothing. What you save in fees on a few hundred copies covers the year.
Where the others are the right answer
A comparison that finds nothing good in the competition isn't a comparison, it's an advert. Five places where something else on this page genuinely beats Bookrata — and moving here doesn't mean cancelling everything on day one.
Zenpage
You cannot beat free
A full author site with direct sales of ebooks, audiobooks and signed print with buyer-requested dedications, a custom domain, CSV email export, 0% cut, and no paid tier at all. If what you need is a place to send your own list and nothing more, this is the honest answer and Bookrata costs more than it.
Tertulia
A bigger bookstore, today
A co-op bookstore with editorial curation, its own warehouse, and a reader audience that exists right now — plus author tools at $7.99–$15.99 a month. Bookrata's bet is that filtering by measured content beats curation for the reader who knows what she wants. Tertulia's readership is the stronger starting position.
StoryOrigin · BookFunnel
Swaps, promos and ARC tooling
Trading a mention with another author in your genre is effective and cheap, and Bookrata has no swap desk. Their ARC programmes are also deeper: vetted reviewer histories, automated follow-up, beta questionnaires, a dozen-plus email integrations. If swaps are working, keep them.
BookBub
Sheer size of audience
Nothing in indie publishing matches the raw scale of a Featured Deal. It's expensive, selective and rented — but when it lands, it lands. Bookrata's audience is smaller and far more targeted. Different instruments, not better and worse.
Books.by · BookBaby
Someone else prints and ships it
Books.by prints, ships and carries the sales-tax liability; BookBaby will do the whole production job if you have the budget. Bookrata's physical sales are author-fulfilled — good for signed copies, no help at all if you don't want to own a box of books.
BookAuth
One dashboard for more of the job
Site, ARCs, newsletter, storefront and print in a single tool is a real convenience, and content warnings at least acknowledge the problem Bookrata is built around. It also already ships gift purchases and book bundles, which Bookrata is still building. The trade-offs are a cut on every sale, no audiobooks, and four months of public track record.
Frequently asked questions
If other platforms also take 0%, why use Bookrata?
Because a 0% fee on a page nobody visits is still nothing. Zenpage, Books.by and Tertulia all take nothing per sale, and that's genuinely good — but of those three only Tertulia has readers of its own, and none of them can tell a reader what's inside your book. Bookrata's case is the combination: no cut, plus measured content ratings that make you findable, plus watermarked delivery and a reading app on every plan, plus a route to a funded audiobook.
Does Bookrata really take 0% of my sales?
Yes, on every plan including the free one. You connect your own Stripe account and are the merchant of record, so payment processing goes from you to Stripe at Stripe's rates — Bookrata is not in that chain. Our revenue comes from reader memberships and the optional Pro and Premier author plans.
How is Bookrata different from BookAuth?
BookAuth is the nearest thing to a like-for-like competitor: site, storefront, ARCs, newsletter, print and a reader side in one tool. Three differences matter. It takes 5%, 3% or 2% of every sale depending on tier, where Bookrata takes nothing. It doesn't support audiobooks at all. And its content warnings are set by the author who wrote the book, so two titles carrying the same warning can be nothing alike — Bookrata rates every book on the same scale, which is what makes the rating something a reader can filter by.
How is Bookrata different from Tertulia?
Tertulia is the strongest competitor here on audience — it runs a co-op bookstore with editorial curation and its own warehouse fulfilment, and its author tools start at $7.99 a month. The differences are what the reader can do and what happens to the file. Tertulia's discovery is curated by editors; Bookrata's is filtered by the reader against measured content ratings. And on Tertulia, print sold through your author site is yours to package and post — it doesn't print or ship for you.
How is Bookrata different from Books.by?
Books.by is a print-on-demand storefront and a good one: it prints, ships, and acts as merchant of record, so sales tax is its problem rather than yours. What it openly doesn't have is discovery — its own comparison page lists "You bring your own traffic — no discovery" among its cons — and custom domains and hardcover are both described as coming soon. Ebooks are sold as a Pro feature while its FAQ still describes ebook support as roadmap, and no ebook delivery protections are documented either way. Bookrata brings the readers and the ratings; Books.by brings a printer.
How is Bookrata different from BookBaby?
Coming in NovemberBookBaby is a services company, not a platform: you pay upfront and it does the work. It publishes no package price list — pricing runs through a quote tool — but its own guidance is that a fully produced book "typically lands between $2,000 and $7,000", ebook conversion and distribution "start at approximately $249-$299", and narrated audiobook production is $500 plus $0.14–$0.16 a word, roughly $12,000 on an average novel. It takes nothing on retail distribution but keeps 15% of ebook, 25% of audiobook and 50% of print sales through its own Bookshop. Bookrata costs $0 to $150 a year, takes nothing, and the Guild route to an audiobook costs you nothing at all.
Why doesn't Bookrata recommend books or show a bestseller list?
Because the moment a store decides what to put in front of people, it has taken the choice back off the reader — and it has created something authors can be sold. There's no recommendation engine here, no "customers also bought", no popular-this-week shelf and no sponsored placement. Readers set their comfort caps and filters and see what matches; ordering is neutral. For you that means your book's visibility doesn't depend on early momentum, an ad budget, or an algorithm deciding you're not worth surfacing this month. It also means Bookrata will never sell your competitor a slot above you, because the slot doesn't exist.
What do the storefront analytics actually show?
Fifteen panels on Premier. The core ones are a four-step conversion funnel (store visit, book view, buy click, purchase, with drop-off at each step), traffic sources, campaign attribution per tagged link, abandoned carts read from Stripe's checkout lifecycle rather than guessed, impressions against clicks per title, devices, country, peak visit times, new versus returning visitors, member buyers, and reading completion. The one that's unique to Bookrata is Bookrata discovery — which tags, filters and searches surfaced your book to the reader who bought it. No other platform here can report that, because no other platform has a rated catalogue for readers to filter.
Capture is deliberately privacy-first: no IP address is stored, geography resolves to country only, any cut involving members or demographics is suppressed below five people, and Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control are honoured.
What are campaign links?
Tagged links you create for a specific push — a newsletter, a podcast mention, a post. Every visit that arrives on one is attributed through the whole funnel, so you see not just clicks but book views, buy clicks and completed purchases for that campaign. Because you're the merchant of record, the attribution runs all the way to the money rather than stopping at a retailer's door. Campaign links and the analytics that read them are Premier features.
What does "In build" mean on this page, and can I count on those features?
It means the feature is in development and is not yet available. Series bundles and Reader Notes are in process, with no promised release date. They are not counted as live features in this comparison. Gift purchases and author discount codes with scheduled sale prices are available now.
Do I have to leave anything to use Bookrata?
No. Nothing you upload becomes exclusive to us. You keep your rights, your files and your mailing list, and you can sell the same book anywhere else at the same time. Most authors add a Bookrata storefront alongside what they already run rather than replacing it on day one.
What is the Bookrata Guild?
Coming in NovemberA paid reader membership that funds audiobook production. Authors submit a rated title into a cycle; members read samples and vote; the fund pays to produce the winners. The author pays nothing, keeps 100% of audiobook revenue, owns the master recording, and grants no exclusivity. You choose your narrator from a shortlist and approve their sample before anything is signed. No other platform on this page does anything comparable.
What does "Certified Clean" actually mean?
Every book is rated across six content categories — Sex, Violence, Language, Religion, Wellness and LGBTQ+ — each on a five-tier scale. The overall tier is the average of the two highest categories. A book earns Certified Clean only when the overall tier and every individual category come in at Tier 3 or lower. One category over 3 and there's no badge, so a low average can never hide a single spike. The guarantee applies to the file sold through Bookrata.
What do the Pro and Premier plans add?
Pro, at $65 a year, adds a custom domain, full theme control, removal of the "Powered by Bookrata" mark, free giveaway listings with email capture, lead export, and author-fulfilled signed print sales. Premier, at $150 a year, adds the full fifteen-panel storefront analytics suite, campaign links with end-to-end attribution, custom HTML and video embeds, and audiobook selling. Consented purchaser email capture is on every plan, including the free one. The content rating badge and the membership funnels stay on every plan — including Premier. Nobody can pay to hide how their book was rated.
Four steps to a storefront that keeps everything
Nothing you upload becomes exclusive to us. Your rights, your files and your list stay yours, and you can start on the free plan without a card.
- Step 1
Join free
No agent, no committee, no approval to clear. Create an account and you're a Bookrata author.
- Step 2
Upload your book
A DRM-free EPUB, your cover and metadata. Nothing becomes exclusive to us.
- Step 3
Your book gets rated
Six categories, five tiers, the same yardstick for every book. Clean books earn the badge.
- Step 4
Open your storefront
You're the merchant of record. Readers buy direct and you keep 100% — a 0% platform fee.
Rated books. Direct sales. Audiobooks readers pay for.Coming in November
Open a storefront in a few minutes and keep every cent of what it sells.