What the do-it-yourself author stack costs a year: website, list, reader magnet, shop and design added up

Many self-published authors end up running five separate tools: a website, a mailing list, something to deliver the free book that builds the list, a shop for direct sales, and a design tool for covers, graphics and adverts. Each one is cheap on its own. Added up on the tiers an author needs, the set costs about $777 a year on annual billing, or about $912 if you pay monthly, as of November 2026.

We checked every price on the vendor's own pricing page on 1 November 2026. Squarespace and Shopify show prices in the currency of the country you browse from, so for those two we give the US dollar figures that Style Factory (updated 24 September 2026) and Website Builder Expert (updated 11 May 2026) record, and note what the UK page shows. Prices change, and two of these companies changed theirs this summer, so treat the table as a snapshot.

The typical stack

The monthly column uses Canva's yearly price because Canva's pricing page lists only an annual figure for one person. The 5% Payhip fee sits on top: 100 ebooks at $4.99 is $499 of sales and $24.95 to Payhip, plus Stripe or PayPal's processing fee on each order.

Where each number comes from

Website

Squarespace raised its prices in July 2026. Its US pricing page now lists Basic at $25 a month, or $19 a month billed annually, and Core at $39 or $29. From the UK the same page shows Basic at £16 or £12 a month including VAT. Basic includes a custom domain and lets you sell digital products, but takes a 7% fee on digital content and memberships, which matters if you plan to sell ebooks through the site itself. The alternative is WordPress.com Personal at $4 a month billed annually, which is $48 a year for a custom domain with no adverts. Our guide to the six pages worth building covers what goes on either.

Mailing list

MailerLite renamed its plans on 16 June 2026 and trimmed the free tier to 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month on 1 July 2026. Comfort is $12 a month at 500 subscribers and $19 at 1,000, with 10% off yearly. Kit goes the other way: its Newsletter plan is free up to 10,000 subscribers but with fewer automation features, and Creator is $39 a month at 1,000 subscribers, or $33 a month billed yearly, which is $396 a year.

Reader magnet delivery

BookFunnel charges $30 a year for First-Time Author, which delivers files and lets you join group promos but does not collect email addresses. Mid-List Author, at $200 a year or $20 a month, adds email collection, integration with up to four mailing lists and file delivery for direct sales. Bestseller is $300 a year for unlimited downloads.

Direct sales

Payhip is free with a 5% fee, $29 a month at 2%, or $99 a month at 0%. Shopify Basic is $39 a month, or $29 a month billed annually, which is $348 a year before card fees of 2.9% plus 30 cents in the US; the Starter plan is $5 a month for a buy button without a full store. Our article on what you keep on a £4.99 ebook works the fees through.

Design

Canva Pro is $144 a year for one person. Pro adds the background remover, brand kits and the premium stock library. Canva Free is enough for social graphics with your own cover image.

What you can drop

• Drop Canva Pro if your cover came from a designer, because the free tier does the graphics. That saves $144.
• Replace Squarespace with WordPress.com Personal, which does the same job for $48, because a one-book author does not need Squarespace's extra features. That saves $180.
• Move from BookFunnel Mid-List to First-Time Author at $30 if your reader magnet is delivered from a MailerLite form instead, because that plan still gets you into group promos. That saves $170, with the trade-off that signups happen on MailerLite's page rather than BookFunnel's.
• Stay on MailerLite's free tier below 250 subscribers, which means no custom domain on landing pages and no email support. That saves up to $205.

Strip everything to the free tiers and the stack is $48 for WordPress.com Personal plus $30 for BookFunnel, so $78 a year, plus 5% of each Payhip sale. That is a fair place to start. The costs come back as the list grows past 250 and as you want the pieces to talk to each other, which is when you are likely to upgrade MailerLite and BookFunnel in the same month and the bill lands near the $777 figure.

One subscription instead of five

The Indie Author Toolchest does the website, mailing list, reader magnet delivery and direct sales jobs from one author page for $120 a year, or $12.99 a month, with review copies, group promos and newsletter swaps between members included. It does not replace Canva, and it is not a general-purpose website builder, so an author who wants a blog or a full custom site still needs one of the website tiers above. For the four jobs it covers, the comparison is $120 against $633.20 a year on the stack's annual billing, before Payhip's 5%.

Whichever way you go, write the renewal dates in a calendar. Every price here is billed in advance, and the annual tiers save money only if you are still using the tool in month eleven.