Draft2Digital takes a flat 10% commission on every book you sell — forever, with no path to 0%. Chiify offers paid plans from $25/month that drop your commission to zero, reach 14× more retailers, and include audiobooks (which Draft2Digital doesn’t distribute). This is an honest side-by-side, with worked math.
Updated May 2026. All figures verified against draft2digital.com and chiify.com.
Every cell below was checked against the official documentation of each platform in May 2026. Where a platform doesn’t publish a specific number, we say so rather than guess.
| Feature | Chiify | Draft2Digital |
|---|---|---|
| Commission on paid plan | 0% | 10% (no paid plan) |
| Commission on free plan | 10% (≤ 3 books) | 10% (any volume) |
| Cheapest paid tier | $25/month | None offered |
| Lifetime option | $300 one-time, 150 books | None |
| Retailers | 414+ | ~30 |
| Library platforms | 50,000+ (OverDrive, Hoopla, Bibliotheca, Baker & Taylor) | OverDrive, Bibliotheca only |
| Countries | 170+ | Not published |
| Ebook | ||
| Print-on-demand | IngramSpark backbone | IngramSpark backbone |
| Audiobook | Audible, Apple, Spotify, Storytel, +10 more | |
| ISBN provided free | Yes (Bowker pool) | Yes (Bowker pool) |
| Bring your own ISBN | ||
| Universal book link | chiify.link | Books2Read.com |
| Pre-order support | ||
| Per-market pricing | US/UK/EU/CA/AU/AE separately | US only, auto-convert |
| Pen-name / imprint management | ||
| Payout — USD bank | ||
| Payout — USDT crypto | TRC20, $10 minimum | |
| Payout — PayPal | ||
| Payout — Local NGN bank | ₦20,000 minimum | |
| Affiliate program | 5% recurring, 12 months | None public |
| Drops your account on AI books? | No, with disclosure | Restrictive AI policy |
Let’s do this honestly. Take a typical mid-list author: one $4.99 ebook, distributed wide, selling around 100 copies/month across all retailers. Amazon takes a 30% retailer cut, so net revenue to the aggregator on each sale is roughly $3.49. Across 100 copies that’s $349/month in net sales, or $4,188/year. Here’s what each platform keeps and what reaches your bank account.
| Line | Draft2Digital | Chiify Pro ($100/yr) | Chiify Lifetime ($300) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Net sales / month | $349 | $349 | $349 |
| Net sales / year | $4,188 | $4,188 | $4,188 |
| Aggregator commission rate | 10% | 0% | 0% |
| Commission paid / year | $418.80 | $0 | $0 |
| Subscription / year | $0 | $100 | $300 (one-time) |
| Total cost / year (year 1) | $418.80 | $100 | $300 |
| You keep / year (year 1) | $3,769.20 | $4,088 | $3,888 |
| You keep / year (year 2+) | $3,769.20 | $4,088 | $4,188 |
Chiify Pro saves you $318.80 vs Draft2Digital. Lifetime saves $118.80.
Chiify Pro still saves $318.80/year. Lifetime now saves the full $418.80/year — no recurring cost.
The $300 Lifetime fee pays back in 8.6 months at this volume. From month 9 onward, you keep everything forever.
Math note: this uses an average 30% retailer cut, which is correct for Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Kobo, and most mainstream stores. Some retailers (Barnes & Noble Press, Books2Read direct) keep less, which would push net sales higher and make the Chiify advantage bigger.
Comparison pages tend to make one side look perfect and the other look ridiculous. Real life isn’t like that. Draft2Digital is a serious, well-run platform — they just made different design choices than we did.
For very low-volume authors. If you have one book selling $40/month, paying 10% ($4) is cheaper than paying $25 for Chiify Starter. The crossover is around $250/month in net sales — below that, D2D wins on raw cost.
Books2Read universal links.D2D’s universal-link tool is mature, free, and well-known. Chiify has chiify.link which does the same job, but Books2Read has 10 years of brand recognition.
If you specifically want PayPal payouts. Chiify removed PayPal in 2026 after too many authors had accounts frozen mid-payout. D2D still offers it. If PayPal is your only available method, D2D is the better fit.
Free tier with no book cap. Chiify free is limited to 3 active titles; D2D free is unlimited. If you publish a lot but earn very little, this matters.
Once you’re earning real money. Above $1,000/year in net sales, the 10% D2D takes is more than Chiify’s subscription costs. Above $5,000/year, you’re paying D2D $500/year that Chiify Lifetime would charge you only $300 once.
Audiobooks.D2D does not distribute audio. Chiify reaches Audible, Apple Books, Google Play, Spotify, Storytel, Chirp, Libro.fm, Findaway/OverDrive, Hoopla, and more. If you ever plan to release an audiobook, you can’t do it through Draft2Digital.
International reach.Chiify distributes to 170+ countries with retailer relationships in markets D2D doesn’t serve — Bookmate (Russia/EU), Storytel (Sweden/global), Tolino (Germany), Scribd (US/global), 24symbols (Spain), and local distributors in Africa, MENA, and India.
Crypto and emerging-market payouts.USDT TRC20 ($10 minimum) and Nigerian Naira local bank transfer open up cohorts of authors that D2D’s PayPal/Payoneer-first system effectively excludes.
Lifetime option.Pay $300 once and never pay another commission or subscription. There’s no equivalent at D2D — their 10% is permanent.
Most migrations take about a week. Here is the safe order — do not skip steps, or you may end up with the same book delivered twice and getting blocked at retailers.
From your Draft2Digital dashboard, download the “My Books” CSV. You’ll need title, ISBN, retailer mix, and current sales price for each book. This becomes your migration checklist.
If you have under 3 books, start free. If you have 4–20 books, Starter at $25/month. 21–100 books, Pro at $100/year. 101–150 books, Lifetime at $300. You can downgrade later if needed.
Use Chiify’s bulk-import feature to upload all books with the same ISBNs you used at D2D. Save them as drafts. Confirm the metadata and pricing matches. Don’t hit “Publish”.
In the D2D dashboard, choose “Take down from sale” for each book. D2D will send the takedown notices to retailers. This takes 2–7 days to propagate — Amazon usually 24h, Apple usually 3–5 days, Kobo usually same week.
Watch your D2D dashboard for “Removed from sale” status on every retailer. Until every retailer confirms, do not publish on Chiify. Publishing into a still-live D2D listing will cause retailers to reject your new feed for “duplicate ISBN”.
Once all D2D listings are confirmed down, publish your Chiify drafts. Chiify delivers to retailers within an hour. Most listings reappear within 24h on Amazon and 3–5 days everywhere else, against the original ISBN — so reviews, sales rank, and the URL slug stay intact.
If you used Books2Read for marketing links, update them to chiify.link or another universal-link service. Old Books2Read links will still resolve, but D2D may remove them once your books are off their platform.
If you have 10 or more books on Draft2Digital, our Customer Success team will handle the migration for you — we run the takedown, monitor retailer confirmations, and republish on Chiify on your behalf. Email [email protected] with your D2D author dashboard screenshot.
Free tier or Lifetime, the upload flow is the same. Try Chiify with a single book first — migrate the rest once you’re comfortable.
Questions about migration? Email [email protected]