Sell Audiobooks Direct: Delivery Tools, Fees and Limits

You can sell an audiobook yourself with a delivery tool such as BookFunnel or a storefront such as Payhip, as long as you hold the rights and your distribution terms allow it. Exclusive ACX terms bar it. No store labelling or listing rule applies to a direct sale, though your distribution contracts and your tool's terms may; whether you owe buyers a disclosure is not covered by the sources we read.

Check your distribution terms first

An exclusive ACX title cannot be sold direct. ACX (Oct 21, 2026) says exclusive means you are "not permitted to distribute or sell your audiobook on any site or store outside of Audible". Non-exclusive titles may be sold through other services, in whichever format you like, per ACX. See audiobook distributors compared and the ACX page. If a title is in KDP Select, KDP's Virtual Voice terms (Oct 21, 2026) give Amazon the exclusive right to sell and distribute the Virtual Voice edition for 90 days, and say you cannot sell or distribute the book in audio format during that period.

Two kinds of file have limits of their own. KDP's terms say Amazon owns the audio file of a Virtual Voice edition, and an Apple text-to-speech file made through Draft2Digital has Apple as its exclusive distributor apart from library channels, per those terms. Neither is a file you can simply sell from your own site.

Choosing a delivery setup

Selling direct is two jobs, taking the payment and getting the files to the listener, and the choice is about who does each. As read on 2026-11-08:

BookFunnel does not take the payment. Its sales delivery help says your store notifies it of a sale and it emails the buyer a unique download link. That page lists the stores it connects with, and it is also a quick way to compare them. The figures below are BookFunnel's descriptions of other companies, so confirm them with each vendor.

A merchant of record is the business legally making the sale, which is why those platforms can handle the tax. Who owes sales tax or VAT depends on your location and your buyers', so this is the column to settle before you choose. Fees change, and this list is not a recommendation of any one store.

BookFunnel audiobook delivery

BookFunnel delivers audiobook files as an add-on. Per BookFunnel's delivery help, the add-on is a separate plan that can be added to any existing Mid List Author plan or higher. Per BookFunnel's plan announcement (posted January 19, 2026, new pricing from February 20, 2026):

The pricing page matched the blog on annual prices. Publisher audiobook plans start from December 2026 per the blog. Existing customers can stay on their current plans, so older pricing may still be in use.

BookFunnel's general pages advertise plans from $30 a year, but that First-Time Author plan is not enough here: its plan help says the audiobook add-on is not available on it, and the Direct Sales feature needs Mid List or above.

Setting it up, from BookFunnel's help pages, with a trial purchase added as our suggestion:

1. Add an audiobook plan under Account, Account Settings, then Change Plan in the Audiobook Plan section.
2. Upload your chapter MP3s. BookFunnel compiles them into one audiobook.
3. Choose listening options for the title. The app is the default. Browser streaming and DRM-free MP3 downloads are optional, and the app itself does not yet support those MP3 downloads. BookFunnel warns that some readers will not be able to listen if you leave both off, and says your landing page should state that the app is required.
4. Connect your store and create a delivery action for each item. One action can deliver several books, which suits a boxset or an ebook and audiobook bundle.
5. Buy a copy yourself through the store before you announce it, then send buyers with problems to BookFunnel's help.

BookFunnel's Direct Sales page says "You sell, we deliver" and lists no transaction fees, per its page. That page's address contains "authors-direct", but it does not use that name. Do not confuse it with the shutdown service below; we did not establish any connection.

Payhip

Payhip sells files directly and allows every format, so audio is just another download. Per Payhip's audiobook page, Free Forever costs $0 a month with a 5% transaction fee, Plus $29 a month with 2%, and Pro $99 a month with none. PayPal and Stripe fees are extra, per its pricing page. Files have a "5GB per file limit" and, by default, each file can be downloaded 3 times. The page does not mention DRM or streaming, and is silent on AI audio.

What selling direct costs: worked estimates

Your take is the price, minus the store's percentage, minus card processing, minus any delivery cost. Everything in this section is our arithmetic on the listed prices, and it is an estimate. It assumes Stripe's standard US rate of 2.9% + 30 cents for domestic cards, as listed on 2026-11-08, with the store's percentage taken on the sale price. PayPal's rates were not read. Stripe adds 1.5% for international cards and 1% if currency conversion is needed.

One $15 sale through Payhip. Card processing is $15 x 2.9% + $0.30 = $0.74, rounded up to the cent.

When a paid Payhip plan pays for itself. Moving from Free to Plus saves 3 points, so $29 / 0.03 = about $967 of monthly sales, or 65 copies at $15. Moving from Free straight to Pro takes $99 / 0.05 = $1,980 a month, or 132 copies. Below those volumes, the free plan costs less.

Adding BookFunnel. BookFunnel counts delivered hours as readers times hours, so its example of a 7-hour book claimed by 10 readers is 70 hours. It charges once per delivery, however often the listener returns, and meters by the minute. Here is a 10-hour book at $15 on Payhip Free, with BookFunnel Mid-List ($200) and the usage add-on ($20) billed annually:

The copy counts are examples, not forecasts. The table shows the real decision: BookFunnel's fixed cost is steep at low volume and fades as you sell more. On these numbers, the prepaid 5,000-hour plan ($100 a year) overtakes the usage add-on at $20 + 2,000 x $0.04 = $100, or 2,000 delivered hours a year, as long as no month goes over its allotment, because BookFunnel says allotments reset monthly. At 1,000 copies that saves $420 - $100 = $320.

These sums leave out income tax, refunds, your website and marketing. To estimate store earnings for comparison, use the royalty calculator. Do not set these figures against a store's royalty percentage applied to list price, because some store percentages are not paid on list price.

Preparing the files

A direct sale still needs files that work on the buyer's device, and BookFunnel's rules are the stricter of the two tools. From the audiobook delivery help: MP3 files only, a 192 kbps minimum (one note says 128 kbps, so the page conflicts), one MP3 per chapter, starting with the intro or opening credits and ending with the outro or credits. The page is silent on AI narration and file size. Compare the retailer specs.

• Export MP3s, even if your tool offers a package. An LPF made for a distributor does not meet BookFunnel's MP3-only rule. ElevenLabs' pricing page lists 192 kbps from its Creator plan and 128 kbps below that, but its Studio docs list 128 kbps for Creator and 192 kbps from Pro for new projects, so confirm the bit rate of your actual export.
• Work out the size. At a constant 192 kbps, one hour is 192,000 x 3,600 / 8 = 86.4 MB, so a 10-hour book is about 864 MB. That fits comfortably under Payhip's 5GB per file, as a single ZIP or as chapters.
• Think about Payhip's 3 downloads. With chapter files, each one has its own count. With a ZIP, the whole book does, and buyers should be told if they will need a computer to unpack it.
• Name files so they sort. Number them with leading zeros, such as 01, 02 and 03. ACX's submission page requires US alphanumeric file names, which is a safe habit anywhere.
• Make a separate sample. A short excerpt lets people hear the voice before buying.

Disclosure and your own product page

No store labelling or listing rule applies to a direct sale, though your distribution contracts and your tool's terms may. Whether you owe buyers a disclosure is not covered by the sources we read, and we did not read consumer-protection law on the point. As the seller, though, you decide what the buyer knows before paying, and on your own site no store adds a label for you.

If the narration is AI, say so where it counts: on the product page before checkout, in the delivery email or landing page, and in the opening credits. A line such as "Narrated by a synthetic voice" is our suggested wording. The labelling guide shows how stores word it. Check that your narration tool's plan allows commercial use, and decide your refund rule before launch, because you handle those requests yourself.

Authors Direct shut down in 2023

The Authors Direct service at authors-direct.com closed. Its notice says no purchases or downloads after April 14, 2023, and app listening until June 5, 2023. We found no tie between it and BookFunnel's feature at a similar address.

Who should avoid this

As general advice, not a sourced finding: direct sales depend on bringing your own audience, because a storefront of your own has no built-in listeners. Skip them for any title under an exclusive contract, and hold off if you have no mailing list or readers to send there yet. Other routes are in the AI audiobooks hub.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Last verified 2026-11-08. Rules and prices change: check the linked primary page before you rely on this.