Vellum
Vellum is a Mac-only book formatter known for polished ebook and print output, sold for a one-time price.
At a glance
- Price
- $199.99 one-time (Vellum Ebooks $199.99 (unlimited ebooks); Vellum Press $249.99 (unlimited ebooks and paperbacks). Price excludes tax.)
- Platforms
- Mac
- Outputs KDP-ready files
- Yes
- Touches your KDP account
- No
- Categories
- Writing & Formatting
- Last checked
- 2026-11-09
Price history
- 2026-11-09: Corrected from a third-party estimate ($199-249) to the vendor store prices: Vellum Ebooks $199.99, Vellum Press $249.99.
All changes across the directory: price and plan changes.
Summary
Vellum formats manuscripts into ebook and print-ready files and is widely treated as the benchmark for fiction formatting. It only runs on Mac. Two one-time licenses are sold: Vellum Ebooks for unlimited ebooks and Vellum Press for unlimited ebooks plus paperbacks and hardcovers, with 24 trim sizes and PDF/X-1a print output.
Pros
- One payment, unlimited books
- Clean, consistent ebook and print styles
Cons
- Mac only
- Limited layout control compared with InDesign
In our guides
- Vellum vs Atticus
- Best free and one-time KDP tools: no subscriptions
- Best KDP tools for romance and fiction authors
Alternatives
- Atticus: Atticus is a cross-platform book writing and formatting app that exports print-ready PDF and EPUB, sold for a one-time price.
- Reedsy Studio: Reedsy Studio is a free browser-based writing and formatting tool that exports EPUB and print-ready PDF, with real-time collaboration.
- Draft2Digital: Draft2Digital is an ebook and print-on-demand distribution service for publishing wide that also formats Word manuscripts into EPUB and print PDF.
Sources
Facts on this page come from the vendor and these pages. Prices change; confirm on the vendor site.
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