Appendix · Calculator
Self-Publishing Software Stack Cost Calculator
Total one-time and recurring costs of your self-publishing software over 1 to 5 years, using vendor prices read November 8, 2026, with a worked example.
This calculator totals what a chosen set of author tools costs over 1 to 5 years, splitting one-time purchases from recurring subscriptions. You pick tools, set the number of years and, for pay-by-the-month tools like ElevenLabs, how many months you will subscribe. The prices in the tool were read from vendor pages on November 8, 2026.
How this page was researched
Written from published documentation, pricing and reports, cited below. No original test has been run for this page.
Disclosure
NarratedIndie has not joined any affiliate program, so links on this page earn nothing today. See our affiliate disclosure.
What it does and how it totals
It adds three numbers. One-time items are counted once. Annual items are multiplied by the number of years. Monthly items are multiplied by the months you say you will pay, per year for always-on subscriptions or total for short bursts.
- Total = one-time costs + (annual price x years) + (monthly price x months subscribed)
- For an always-on monthly tool, months subscribed = 12 x years.
- A tool with an uncertain price or billing interval can still be ticked, but it is left out of the total and named under the result.
Tool choices and a stack explanation are on the self-publishing software stack page. AI narration credits have their own tool, the AI audiobook cost calculator.
Worked example (an estimate)
Take Atticus ($147 once), a Plottr annual plan ($60 a year), and one month of ElevenLabs Pro ($99), plus free Audacity, over three years. One-time: $147. Annual: $60 x 3 = $180. Monthly: $99 x 1 = $99. Audacity: $0. The total is $147 + $180 + $99 = $426. This is arithmetic on listed prices, not a quote. It assumes prices do not change and that one Pro month is enough credits, which depends on book length and is unmeasured. Tax is excluded. In this example the Plottr lifetime plan ($150) would be cheaper than three annual payments ($180). See the Plottr review.
Limitations
- Prices change. They are as displayed on November 8, 2026, and most pages show no revision date. Check the vendor page.
- Some entries are uncertain. Sudowrite's entries use the annual-billing prices from its help page; monthly billing costs more (pricing explained), and its pricing page lists two credit figures for Professional. Scrivener's Mac and Windows prices were not shown on the pages we read. Annual Novelcrafter prices are not shown on its page, so the spec has monthly entries only. Plottr Pro prices are left null because the page extraction could not show which figures are struck through.
- No usage costs. AI API keys, ElevenLabs top-ups, BookFunnel per-hour delivery and taxes are not modelled.
- It does not judge fit. A cheap tool may not suit your platform. For example, Vellum is macOS only. Read the Atticus review and other single-tool pages.
- Disclosure rules are separate. The total says nothing about KDP's AI disclosure or store rules on AI narration.
To see plans: Atticus and ElevenLabs. For Sudowrite, see the pricing explainer. All tools are listed on the tools hub.
Last verified 2026-11-08. Rules and prices change: check the linked primary page before you rely on this.
Sources
- Atticus Primary read
- Plottr pricing Primary read
- Novelcrafter pricing Primary read
- Sudowrite pricing Primary read
- ElevenLabs pricing Primary read
- Reedsy Studio Primary read
- BookFunnel pricing Primary read
- Audacity Primary read
- ProWritingAid pricing Primary read
- Publisher Rocket Primary read
- REAPER purchase Primary read
- Vellum Primary read
- Scrivener store page Primary read
- Sudowrite docs: What plans are available? Primary read