Pricing math
What you actually pay over 3 years
A subscription that looks cheap monthly can be expensive over 3 years.
PublishDrive — typical solo author
Plus plan at $19/month × 36 months = $684 over 3 years. Premium plan at $39/month = $1,404 over 3 years. The Premium plan is required for some features like advanced reporting and royalty splits in some configurations.
Chiify — same author, Lifetime plan
One-time $300, never again. $300 total across 3, 5, 10 years.
Break-even point
Chiify Lifetime pays for itself against PublishDrive’s Plus plan in roughly 16 months. After that, every month is pure savings.
Commission
Who takes what from each sale
On a $4.99 ebook sold on Amazon (Amazon takes 30%, leaving $3.49 to the aggregator):
- Chiify Lifetime/Pro — author keeps $3.49 (100%)
- Chiify Free — author keeps $3.14 (90%)
- PublishDrive Plus/Premium — author keeps $3.49 (100% — subscription replaces commission)
- PublishDrive Free tier — author keeps $3.14 (90%)
On commission alone, paid plans tie. The difference is what the subscription costs vs. the one-time Lifetime fee.
Where Chiify wins
Differences that matter
1. One-time vs. recurring
You pay Chiify Lifetime once and you’re done. You pay PublishDrive every month for as long as you want your books live. For a hobby author publishing 1–3 books over their lifetime, the savings stack up.
2. European Accessibility Act 2025
The EAA requires every ebook sold to the EU to meet WCAG 2.1 (with 2.2 increasingly expected). Chiify’s pipeline automatically validates and fixes accessibility defects in every EPUB. PublishDrive does not publicly document automatic accessibility compliance.
3. Lifetime EPUB warranty
If your EPUB needs re-conversion because a retailer’s validation rules tightened, Chiify does it free, forever. No equivalent from PublishDrive.
Where PublishDrive wins
Honest about what they do better
We’re not going to pretend Chiify is better at everything. Where PublishDrive has the edge:
- Track record— They’ve been operating since 2015, distribute to a longer list of niche European retailers we don’t reach yet, and have a larger backlist of public case studies.
- Marketing tools— They’ve invested heavily in marketing add-ons (BookBaby-style services, bundled ads, price-promotion scheduling across 14+ stores). Chiify offers price scheduling but doesn’t bundle ad buys.
- Big-publisher track— If you’re a mid-size press with hundreds of titles and complex enterprise ONIX workflows, PublishDrive has more years of enterprise customer experience.