KDW RUNNING COSTS

What your platform costs to run

The tools you own directly, what they actually cost, and which plan makes sense at your stage. No markup, no affiliate links — you pay the vendor, not me.

All prices in USD. Last verified August 7, 2026.

How this works

You own every account tied to your money, your list, and your readers. I connect and configure them so they work together as one system, but the subscriptions are yours and you pay each company directly. Nothing here is marked up and there are no affiliate links.

Vendors change their prices without telling me. The date at the top of this page is when I last checked every figure on it.

Website hosting — Framer

Book Page and Book Table: $10/month, billed annually at $120/year. That plan includes two CMS collections, which is exactly Books plus Series.

Book Shop and Book World: $30/month. Both packages include a third CMS collection, and that is the tier where a third collection becomes available.

Monthly billing costs more than the annual rate. Extra editor seats are $20/month each, or $10/month for a content-editor seat — only relevant if you want an assistant or co-author with their own login.

Email — MailerLite or Kit

Both are excellent and I build to either. MailerLite is my default recommendation: the author-facing interface is stronger, and it stays materially cheaper once you need real automation. Kit’s free plan is far larger, so it can be the smarter place to start if your first stage is simple. We pick together on the fit call.

MailerLite changes its plans on August 13, 2026. “Growing Business” becomes Comfort and “Advanced” becomes Power. If you already pay for MailerLite you move to the new structure at your first renewal after that date, and switching to annual billing beforehand does not lock in the old pricing.

What the free plans give you:

  • MailerLite Free — 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails a month, 3 forms, 1 landing page, 3 automations, 1 digital product.

  • Kit Newsletter (free) — 10,000 subscribers, unlimited sends, unlimited forms and landing pages, but only 1 basic automation with 1 sequence.

What it costs as your list grows:

  • 500 subscribers — MailerLite Comfort $12/month · Kit still free

  • 1,000 — MailerLite Comfort $19/month · Kit still free

  • 5,000 — MailerLite Comfort $49/month · Kit still free

  • 10,000 — MailerLite Comfort about $73/month · Kit still free

  • Past Kit’s free ceiling, Kit Creator is $39/month at 1,000 subscribers and $139/month at 10,000.

Which one fits you:

  • One reader magnet and one welcome sequence — either works, and Kit’s free plan will carry you further.

  • Multiple magnets, series or genre paths, ARC onboarding, launch branches — MailerLite Comfort, which allows 50 automations and 10 forms and costs far less than the equivalent Kit plan.

  • Heavy sending or a wider creator business — MailerLite Power, or Kit Creator.

Annual billing saves about 10% on MailerLite and about 17% on Kit. Prices are USD; if you are billed in the EU or UK, VAT may be added on top.

Reader magnets and ebook delivery — BookFunnel

Book Table and up: BookFunnel Mid-List Author, $20/month or $200/year.

The tier matters more than the price here. BookFunnel’s cheaper First-Time Author plan, at $30/year, cannot collect reader emails and has no mailing-list integrations at all — so it cannot power the reader magnet your platform is built around. Mid-List is the entry point where automation actually works.

If you are already a BookFunnel customer on older pricing you may be grandfathered at a different rate. Tell me at intake and we will work from your actual plan rather than the public page.

Direct sales — Payhip

Book Shop and Book World only. Free with a 5% transaction fee. Plus is $29/month at 2%, and Pro is $99/month at 0%. All three tiers have identical features — you are only buying down the fee — and Stripe or PayPal processing is charged on top at every tier.

Start on free and stay there. Plus only pays for itself past roughly $1,000/month in direct sales, and Pro not until around $3,500/month. Most authors should not move until the numbers say so.

Payhip also acts as merchant of record. For digital sales it handles EU and UK VAT as your reseller, and it acts as US marketplace facilitator and Canadian digital platform operator. That is a real advantage most authors have never heard of — and because it is a setting you can switch off, I confirm it is enabled before launch.

Print — BookVault or IngramSpark

No subscription. You pay per book printed, and any setup fee varies by platform and title. Priced entirely by them.

Roughly what to expect

  • Book Page — Framer $10/month. That is the whole list.

  • Book Table — Framer $10/month, plus BookFunnel $200/year, plus email once you outgrow a free plan.

  • Book Shop and Book World — Framer $30/month, plus BookFunnel $200/year, plus email, plus Payhip’s 5% only when you actually sell.

A domain runs about $12–20/year wherever you register it. Everything on this page is billed by the vendor, separately from your project fee.