ACX Audiobook Royalties: How Much Do You Get Paid?
It’s the three-letter acronym that all authors want to know more about:
ACX.
US audiobook sales have grown year over year for each of the past 12 years, with revenue increasing by 9% to $2 billion in 2023, according to the Audio Publishers Association.
The three largest platforms for audiobook listening are Amazon, Audible, and Apple—all three of which are served by the audiobook distributor ACX.
So it’s not surprising that many self-published authors/rights holders are looking to enter the audio arena.
In working with book coaching clients, I regularly encounter authors who are trying to determine if an audiobook is right for them and if they should distribute it through ACX.
Like you, they’ve got the same questions:
How much can you earn on ACX? Is ACX worth it for authors? How does ACX pay? And is ACX worth it?
First of all, so we’re on the same page, the basics about ACX and who it’s for.
What is ACX?
ACX (Audible Creation Exchange) is an online marketplace where authors, narrators, agents, publishers, and rights holders can create audiobooks. It was launched in 2011 by Audible, which is now an Amazon-owned company.
Rights holders, meaning self-published authors and anyone who owns the rights to the audiobook edition of a book, such as a deceased author’s estate, a small publishing company, or a literary agent, can use ACX to distribute their audiobook.
ACX Distribution
When you publish an audiobook to ACX, distribution is with Audible, Amazon, and Apple Books.
Who is eligible to publish a book with ACX?
According to ACX, “individuals and companies resident in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Ireland who have a mailing address, valid local Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), and banking details for one of these countries.”
If you’re not from the US, UK, Canada, or Ireland, you’ll need to use Voices by INaudio, PublishDrive, StreetLib, Audiobooks Unleashed, Lantern Audio, or some other distributor to get your audiobook to Audible, Amazon, and Apple Books. (More here on the best audiobook platforms for self-publishing authors).
You must also have an ebook or print book edition already for sale on Amazon. This is a requirement unique to the ACX platform.
How much can you earn on ACX?
Your earnings depend on your distribution choice (exclusive or non-exclusive) and your production agreement.
Since May 26, 2026, all newly claimed titles and new users are enrolled in Audible’s new royalty model, whereas existing users on the “legacy model” had until the end of the year (2026) to opt in to the new model.
Production Options
You can narrate your own book or hire a narrator and/or audio engineer to assist you.
Under the Pay-for-Production (P4P) Deal option, you can hire a narrator (producer) through ACX and pay them upfront by their full production fee directly. Payment is based on the producer’s per-finished hour rate. You retain full ownership of, and a full share of, your royalties.
In a Royalty Share Deal, you split royalties 50:50 with the producer for 7 years. Under the new model, these titles will continue to earn their respective shares based on the updated royalty calculations.
In a Royalty Share Plus (RSP) Deal, you pay a reduced upfront per-finished hour payment and split royalties 50:50 with the producer. Not all producers do these deals.
If you produce your own audiobook or hire a narrator with a Pay-for-Production (P4P) Deal on or off of the ACX platform, you have the choice for your audiobook to be ACX exclusive or not.
If you enter into a Royalty Share agreement through ACX, your audiobook must be ACX exclusive. That means you cannot list it for sale through any other platform.
ACX Royalties are explained here.
ACX Royalties
ACX Royalty Rates 2026
Under the new royalty model, ACX has increased its standard rates for all creators.
Being “ACX exclusive” means that your audiobook will be distributed through Amazon and will only be available on Audible, Amazon, and Apple. The exclusive agreement is valid for a 90-day minimum. You must contact support to get out of the exclusivity agreement. You may opt out of or opt into ACX exclusivity once. After that, approval is at ACX’s discretion. Note that it can take up to 30 days for your decision to go into effect.
ACX Exclusive Distribution: You earn a 50% royalty rate. Your audiobook will be available only on Audible, Amazon, and Apple.
ACX Non-Exclusive Distribution: You earn a 30% royalty rate. This allows you to sell your audiobook on other platforms simultaneously.
How Royalties Are Calculated
The new model expands your earning potential beyond traditional unit sales and credit redemptions. You now earn from all membership listening engagement, including the All-You-Can-Listen (AYCL) catalog.
Member Value: This is a new metric representing the value of a member's listening behavior. It is calculated by taking a member’s monthly subscription revenue (minus taxes and fees) and dividing it proportionally among the titles they engaged with, based on the a la carte price of those titles.
Qualified Listens: For titles in the AYCL offering, you earn royalties when a listener reaches a specific threshold of the book, triggered as a “Qualified Listen.”
Total Royalties: Your royalty for membership offerings equals the Member Value multiplied by your contractual royalty rate (50% or 30%).
New Creator Tools
Enrolling in the new model provides access to additional features to manage your earnings:
Suggested Pricing: Creators can now suggest a price for each of their enrolled titles. (“Audible [still] determines your title’s price and reserves the right to adjust it at any time based on multiple factors. Your suggested price is one factor we consider. The price at which we sell your title may not always match your suggested price. For instance, we might sell your title at a lower price during a sale or promotion, or to match a third party's price.”)
Enhanced Insights: New reporting tools provide details on how royalties connect with listener engagement and monthly membership plan values
Narrative Voice Replicas
Also in 2024, ACX rolled out, by invite only to select ACX rights holders, Narrative Voice Replicas.
Narrative Voice Replicas (as of spring 2026) is still in beta.
Joining means you’ll be able to audition participating narrators offering voice replica narration (of their own voice).
Options include:
“Royalty Share productions where you will be entitled to 30% of audible net sales receipts. Narrators will be entitled to 10%.”
(For participating narrators), “compensation in the form of a per-finished-hour fee or blended payment structure, including a per-finished hour fee in addition to a share of royalties.”
The program offers an ever-growing selection of participating narrators to choose from. You can view the full roster of narrators offering voice replicas and their live narration offerings and make direct offers to either, skipping the audition phase.
ACX Non-Exclusive Royalties
ACX offers a 30% royalty for non-exclusive audiobooks as discussed earlier.
How do you get paid on ACX? And what are some ACX royalty examples?
Royalties are paid monthly, usually “in the last week of the month following the end of the billing period.”
So if you sell books on July 1, 3, and 5, you’ll get paid in late August.
Payment is by direct deposit or paper check.
There is a $10 minimum monthly threshold. “Audible will only send payment if your earnings for that month exceed $10. If the total earned is less than $10, the balance will carry over to the following month. If, in the following month, you make less than $10, it carries over as well, until you have earned more than $10 in a month or more than $50 total.
As ACX notes, “your payments will come directly from Audible in the local currency of your region (USD, GBP, EUR, CAD).”
You will not earn a royalty for qualified returns made within 7 days of purchase.
You will not earn a royalty for promo codes that are redeemed.
ACX exclusive authors get up to 25 free promo codes that can be redeemed by listeners in the US and UK retail marketplaces. Promo codes can be used to generate reviews, for publicity purposes, or as giveaways to fans and followers. If certain conditions are met, more promo codes can be had.
You can also get bounty referral links through ACX. In short, you make $50 if someone clicks on the link you share with them and signs up for an Audible membership, buys your book, and is still an Audible member 61 days later.
And yes, the income is taxable.
ACX Audiobook Pricing
Traditionally, here’s how ACX sets the price of your audiobook:
For audiobooks under 1 hour, your audiobook price will be less than $7.40.
For books of 1 to 3 hours, your audiobook price will be $5.55 to $13.20.
For books of 3 to 5 hours, your audiobook price will be $7.55 to $15.55.
For books of 5 to 10 hours, your audiobook price will be $11.15 to $20.65.
For books of 10 to 20 hours, your audiobook price will be $12.95 to $24.90.
For books of 20 to 30 hours, your audiobook price will be $16.40 to $32.95.
ACX Royalty Rates: How Much Do You Get Paid on ACX?
Let’s use an example of one of my clients’ books:
It’s 61,000 words, 5 hours and 47 minutes (5.8 hours), and it retails for $19.95 on Amazon.com.
With ACX, you don’t necessarily make 50% or 30% of your audiobook’s list price. In fact, more often than not, you’ll make less.
Here’s why:
With ACX, each sale will fall into one of the following categories:
1. ALC—An a la carte purchase made by a non-member at Audible, Amazon, or Apple Books for the regular list price. You get 50% or 30% royalties, depending on whether your book is exclusive or non-exclusive.
For an ACX-exclusive book with 50% royalties, she’d make $9.98 per ALC sale.
For a royalty share agreement, she’d make $4.99 per ALC sale.
For a non-exclusive book with 30% royalties, she’d make about 5.99 per ALC sale.
If she were to upload the book through another distributor, she’d either have to pay a monthly distribution fee, or she’d make 80% of the 30% ($4.79), or less than that, per ALC sale.
2. ALOP—A cash purchase made by an Audible member at a 30% discount of the regular price or when there’s an exclusive sale. “Royalties are based on the amount the member paid.”
Hm. For our $19.95 book marked down to $13.97,
An ACX-exclusive book makes $5.59, and she makes $2.79 with the ACX royalty share.
A non-exclusive book makes $3.49, but if another distributor is used, she again must either pay a monthly distribution fee or take 80% of the 30% royalty ($2.79) or less.
Are there exclusive sales where the price is more than 30% off? That I don’t know.
3. AL—“A purchase made by an Audible member using a membership credit that they receive on a monthly basis for a fee. Since credits can be used to purchase audiobooks of any price, they are valued differently than cash payments. Audible uses an allocation factor to determine the value for the credit each month.”
This is where the largest portion of sales are made—through Audible members redeeming their credits.
In ACX’s own words, “Historically, this has meant that the royalty payment for a member sale tends to be about one-half of the royalty payment for cash a la carte sales to non-members.”
Under Audible’s new royalty model, effective in 2026…
“Audible takes a member’s plan value (Plus or Premium Plus) and adds the value of any additional credits used, then divides that value among the titles the member listened to over the course of the month. That figure, multiplied by the contractual royalty rate, comprises a creator’s royalty payment.
Once I get further details on that, I’ll update this article.
I don’t have statistics for you, but authors report that a large portion of sales come from Audible members who are not paying the list price.
Many audiobook listeners, unless they have a strong connection to an author, think, “Why pay $19.95 for an a la carte audiobook purchase on Amazon.com when I could wait until the audiobook is on sale? I use my Audible membership (or even get an Audible membership), buy the same audiobook for $9.95 from Barnes & Noble or Kobo, or borrow the audiobook for free from my library (if my library has it)?” Under all of these scenarios, the author makes significantly less money per book sold.
Calculate how many audiobooks you would have to sell to break even and to remember that “50% royalty” or “30% royalty” is misleading.
Bottom line is this: Even if 100 people listen to your $19.95 audiobook on Amazon.com and your book is exclusive, you’re not going to make $798. You’re going to make less than that. And it may not be enough to recoup your production costs.
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Is ACX worth it?
That depends on your location, your budget, your audience, your goals, and other factors such as the length of your book.
Don’t underestimate the power of a large online following, email list, or active marketing strategy in selling books.
Ever seen someone dip their toes in the pool ever so gingerly because the water is ice cold? Maybe eventually they take the full plunge, but it’s not like they’re doing that running cannonball right from the get-go!
If you expect to have high upfront costs, don’t jump in hastily. You may want to leap, or inch your way in, after preparing yourself more fully.
If your book is really short, it might be less likely to be redeemed with Audible credits, and if your book is really long, it might be less likely to be purchased a la carte. Anecdotal evidence on Reddit suggests that 6–8 hours is the sweet spot for Audible sales.
You might see more sales per book once you have a series on Audible vs. one standalone novel, so it might make sense to wait or to be patient as you add titles over time.
Non-exclusivity has its benefits, especially as a North American author, now that audiobook sales are booming. It might make sense to be non-exclusive and to try for library sales (too), which you can’t get through ACX.
You might distribute your book to Spotify (through Spotify for Authors) or Google Play Books (through the Google Play Partner Center). You might opt with a distributor that reaches libraries and retailers, such as PublishDrive, StreetLib, Voices by INaudio, or Author’s Republic.
Considering that ACX, with distribution to Audible, Amazon, and Apple, has such a large portion of the market share, it will continue to be a viable option for authors and rights holders of audiobooks. Let’s just hope for fair, transparent, and continued improvements in royalty payments in the future.
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