How audiobook stores pay
Your audiobook is sold, streamed and lent through dozens of stores and libraries, and each one pays in its own way. Here's how the money reaches you, and what each kind of sale has actually earned on our catalog.
- ListenerBuys, streams or borrows the book
- Store or libraryKeeps its share and passes the rest on
- DistributorDelivers the book to stores and collects payment
- Academy VoicesReceives the net and splits it per your contract
- YouPaid quarterly by PayPal with a sales report
What one sale, listen or loan brings in
Real averages from our own catalog, October 2024 to August 2026: what reached Academy Voices for each copy sold, each library loan, or each listen a streaming service reported, after the store and the distributor took their shares.
| How it's sold | Where | We receive, each | Narrator's 50% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Library buys a copy | OverDrive (Libby) | $4 to $5per copy | $2.00 to $2.50 |
| Retail purchase | Apple, Google Play, Libro.fm, NOOK, Audiobooks.com, Kobo, Chirp, the Spotify store | $2 to $4per sale | $1.00 to $2.00 |
| Subscription credit | Libro.fm, Audiobooks.com | about $2.30per credit | about $1.15 |
| Audible / Amazon | Audible, Amazon | about $0.80per sale | about $0.40 |
| Streaming and pools | Storytel, Nextory, BookBeat, Scribd / Everand | $0.30 to $0.95per listen | $0.15 to $0.48 |
| Spotify listening | Spotify Premium audiobooks | about $0.20per listen | about $0.10 |
| Library borrow | hoopla, cloudLibrary, OverDrive pay-per-use | $0.45 to $0.55per borrow | about $0.25 |
Why is Audible lower than other stores? Audible sets the price itself, many listeners pay with credits or member discounts, and it keeps a larger share than most stores. Streaming services count listens in their own ways, so treat those rows as approximate.
Most of our catalog is shorter classics, about 2 hours long on average. Stores price longer books higher, so a 10-hour novel usually earns more per sale than these averages. Narrator figures are for Academy Voices titles, which split 50/50 and make up nearly all of our catalog. On an author's royalty-share title the narrator's share is 40%.
Small payments, lots of them
A single listen pays very little, but three outlets bring in most of the money because they reach so many listeners.
Share of all royalties received, October 2024 to August 2026.
How we split what comes in
Academy Voices titles
Books we publish ourselves, like the classics in our catalog. Most of our narrators' royalties come from these.
Author royalty share
For 10 years from publication. After that, the narrator's share goes to the author.
Author pays per finished hour
When we distribute it. The narrator was already paid per finished hour, so there's no narrator royalty.
Your earnings statements break every payment down by store, so you can see exactly where your book is earning. Full terms are in our Terms & Conditions.
Academy Voices distributes through INaudio, Spotify for Authors and Authors Republic. The figures above are our own results, not those companies' rates, and they change as stores change their pricing and payouts.