KDP Printing Cost Calculator
What does Amazon charge to print your paperback? Standalone print-cost lookup — useful before you set a list price.
Inputs
Amazon counts a book as large trim above 6.12 in wide or 9 in high, and charges more per page for it.
Printing cost per book
$1 + $0.012/page × 120 pages
Disclaimer: Estimates use Amazon KDP's published rates. Final amounts vary by marketplace, promotions and Amazon policy changes — always verify against your KDP dashboard.
How Amazon prices printing
printing cost = fixed cost + (page count × per-page cost)
With one exception that matters more than the formula: at the short end there is a flat band where the page count is ignored completely. Books of 24 to 110 pages pay the fixed cost and nothing else (24 to 108 on Amazon.com.au). Above that the meter starts.
Bleed settings and cover finish do not change the price. Trim size, page count, ink and marketplace do.
Regular trim or large trim
Amazon splits paperbacks into two classes and charges the large one more per page. A book is large trim if it is more than 6.12 in (155.5 mm) wide or more than 9 in (228.6 mm) high. So:
- Regular — 5 × 8, 5.5 × 8.5, 6 × 9.
- Large — 8.5 × 11, 8 × 10, 8.25 × 11 and anything bigger.
Almost every puzzle, worksheet and activity book is 8.5 × 11, which means almost every low-content book is on the more expensive table. Pricing one off the regular-trim numbers understates the cost by 54 cents a copy in the flat band, and more above it.
Black ink, white or cream paper: the full table
| Marketplace | Flat band, regular | Flat band, large | Above the band, regular | Above the band, large |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon.com | $2.30 | $2.84 | $1.00 + $0.012/pg | $1.00 + $0.017/pg |
| Amazon.co.uk | £1.93 | £2.15 | £0.85 + £0.010/pg | £0.85 + £0.012/pg |
| Amazon.de / es / fr / it / nl | €2.05 | €2.48 | €0.75 + €0.012/pg | €0.75 + €0.016/pg |
| Amazon.ca | C$2.99 | C$3.53 | C$1.26 + C$0.016/pg | C$1.26 + C$0.021/pg |
| Amazon.com.au | A$4.74 | A$5.28 | A$2.42 + A$0.022/pg | A$2.42 + A$0.027/pg |
| Amazon.co.jp | ¥422 | ¥530 | ¥206 + ¥2/pg | ¥206 + ¥3/pg |
| Amazon.pl | 9.58 PLN | 11.61 PLN | 3.51 + 0.056/pg | 3.51 + 0.075/pg |
| Amazon.se | 22.84 SEK | 27.67 SEK | 8.37 + 0.134/pg | 8.37 + 0.179/pg |
Read off KDP’s printing cost help page in September 2026. Cream and white paper cost the same; premium colour and standard colour have their own tables, which the calculator above carries too.
The fixed cost most calculators drop
Above the flat band the cost is not just pages times a rate. There is a fixed component — $1.00 on Amazon.com — and a great many free calculators forget it. On a 300-page US regular-trim paperback that is the difference between $3.60 and the correct $4.60, which is Amazon’s own published example. A dollar a copy, every copy.
The second thing they get wrong is the edge of the band. It sits at 110 pages, not 108, everywhere except Australia. And crossing it always costs money: a 110-page US large-trim book prints at $2.84, a 111-page one at $1.00 + (111 × $0.017) = $2.89.
Page count is free until it isn’t
This is the one planning insight the formula hands you. Inside the flat band, extra pages cost nothing:
| 8.5 × 11, black ink, Amazon.com | How it is built | Printing cost |
|---|---|---|
| 40 pages | Flat band | $2.84 |
| 110 pages | Flat band | $2.84 |
| 111 pages | $1.00 + (111 × $0.017) | $2.89 |
| 150 pages | $1.00 + (150 × $0.017) | $3.55 |
| 300 pages | $1.00 + (300 × $0.017) | $6.10 |
A 40-page activity book and a 110-page one cost you exactly the same to print, but the second is worth far more to a buyer and justifies a higher price. If your book is short, fill the band. If it is just over, either trim back under 111 pages or commit and go long — the worst place to sit is 115 pages.
One trap specific to puzzle books: a solution page is a printed page. A 55-puzzle book with a key for each puzzle, plus a title and copyright page, is a 112-page book. Count what Amazon prints.
Minimum page count and other hard limits
- Paperbacks run 24 to 828 pages; under 24 will not print.
- Standard colour needs 72 pages minimum and caps at 600. For a short colour book, premium colour starts at 24.
- Premium colour has its own flat band, 24 to 40 pages, much shorter than the black-ink one.
What to do with the number
Printing cost is only half the equation — Amazon deducts it from your share, then pays 50% or 60% of list depending on where your price falls. Put the figure from this page into the KDP royalty calculator to see what actually lands in your account per copy, and what the minimum price Amazon will accept is.
Amazon changes these tables without much notice. Treat any calculator, this one included, as a planning tool and confirm the final number on your KDP pricing screen before you publish.
