In brief. The Kobo Writing Life dashboard is a live estimate, not the figure Finance will pay. Book Sales shows estimated à la carte earnings for the last two months and does not include subscription money. Kobo Plus is a separate pane: estimated earnings for the last three months and year to date, updated monthly, with minutes in 300-minute increments. Promotional discounts, promo codes, refunds, OverDrive library sales and audiobook credit redemptions are left out. For the number that matches the bank transfer, use the monthly reports under My Account > Payment Information — uploaded on the 25th for the previous month, with Kobo Plus in a separate SUBS file.
Last reviewed by Robert Prime — 17 August 2026
The Kobo Writing Life dashboard is a live estimate of sales. It will not match the monthly payout CSV. Kobo’s help centre says so: use the dashboard for direction; use My Account > Payment Information for the figure that matches what you are paid.
Labels below are Kobo’s published names, taken from the Help Centre on 17 August 2026, especially Understanding Your New Dashboard. We have not sat inside a login-walled account for this rewrite, so we do not describe pixels we have not seen.
What Kobo Writing Life is
Kobo Writing Life is Rakuten Kobo’s free, direct platform for ebooks and audiobooks. The marketing page, fetched 17 August 2026, says Kobo will never ask for exclusivity. Kobo Plus — the subscription catalogue — is opt-in and also non-exclusive. That is the difference with Kindle Unlimited, which needs KDP Select.
Ebook royalties, from Zendesk’s What will my earnings be? (fetched 17 August 2026):
| Work and price | Royalty | Source, fetched 17 August 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Original work at or above the regional floor | 70% of list price (what the customer pays, not including taxes) | Zendesk earnings article |
| Original work below that floor | 45% | Same |
| Public-domain ebook | 20% | Same |
The UK floor for 70% is £1.99. The same article lists $2.99 USD, $2.99 CAD, $2.99 AUD, €1.99 EUR, and the other regional floors. A second test is easy to miss. The Terms of Service (last updated 29 May 2025; fetched 17 August 2026) also require the ebook to be priced at least 20% below the suggested retail price of any physical edition, if one exists, to keep 70%. Fail either test and the rate is 45%.
Payment is 45 days after month end. The KWL FAQ blog states a $50 USD minimum. The Terms of Service withhold payment until the total due is $50 CAD. Zendesk’s payment article, via search the same day, also says CAD $50. The currency of the threshold is unsettled; see What we could not verify.
Kobo is strong in Canada and meaningful in the UK, the Netherlands, France, Australia and New Zealand. We do not have a sourced market-share percentage, so we do not invent one.
How to sign in
Sign in from Kobo Writing Life. That URL loaded on 17 August 2026 with “Already have an account? Sign in.” The sign-in page that loaded the same day is writinglife.kobobooks.com — Rakuten Kobo login, plus Facebook, Google, Apple and partner-store options.
If a bookmark 404s, do not hunt for a third path. Use the marketing page or the help centre. Zendesk’s login article says to check the email, the sign-in method, and to reset the password on the same method you used to create the account. New accounts start on the marketing page. Publishing is free.
The two panes: Book Sales vs Kobo Plus
The dashboard article is explicit: “Your dashboard is broken into two sections, Book Sales and Kobo Plus.” They are not two views of the same pot.
| Book Sales | Kobo Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| What it estimates | À la carte book sales | Subscription reads and listens |
| Window | Last two months | Last three months and year to date |
| Subscription earnings | Not shown here | This pane |
| How often it updates | Live estimate | Monthly |
| Trend increments | Daily, weekly or monthly | Monthly only |
| Trend metric | Estimated revenue or units | Estimated revenue or minutes |
| Minutes | Not used | Reported in 300-minute increments |
| Totals Kobo names | Estimated eBooks Total; Estimated Audiobooks Total; Total Free Titles; Total Pre-Orders | Estimated eBook Total; Estimated Audiobook Total; eBook Minutes Consumed; Audiobook Minutes Consumed |
| CSV on this screen | Download CSV of the Book Titles results — a dashboard export, not the Finance payout file | Same titles-list export, if shown; still not the SUBS payout file |
Filters on both panes: Date (custom or defaults; up to two years at a time), Authors, Books, Regions. Kobo Plus dates still only resolve to months.
Kobo’s closing note: “The sales dashboard does not include promotional discounts or promo codes, refunds, library sales made via OverDrive or audiobook credit redemptions. Kobo Plus data is added on a monthly basis.”
How to read Book Sales
Book Sales is the retail pane. Estimated earnings cover the last two months. Subscription earnings are not shown here. The dashboard article’s warning sits at the top: “Your sales dashboard is intended to give a live estimate of sales. For definitive sales data, please refer to your monthly reports that can be found in the Payment Information section of your account.”
Default periods, as Kobo names them:
| Period | What it compares |
|---|---|
| Today | Versus yesterday |
| This Week | Monday–Sunday versus the previous week |
| This Month | Versus the previous calendar month |
| Last Month | Versus the month before that |
Trends switch between estimated revenue and units, in daily, weekly or monthly increments. Map view plots sales by country. Use it to see whether a title is moving in Canada, the UK or elsewhere — not to forecast a payout.
Totals Kobo publishes for this pane:
- Estimated eBooks Total
- Estimated Audiobooks Total — does not include books redeemed by subscription tokens
- Total Free Titles
- Total Pre-Orders — unpaid pre-orders; stops updating once the title is released
The Book Titles list can be downloaded as a CSV. That file is a dump of the dashboard filter in front of you. It is not the monthly Finance report, and it will not reconcile to the bank transfer. If Book Sales looks busy and Kobo Plus looks empty, that is the design: Plus only moves once a month.
How to read Kobo Plus
Kobo Plus is the subscription pane. Estimated earnings cover the last three months and year to date. Stats update monthly. Trends exist only in monthly increments, as estimated revenue or minutes.
Minutes “are reported in 300 minute increments.” A title read for 200 minutes this month will not yet show as a 300-minute block. The Terms of Service (section 4.5) say Kobo accrues minutes until a title reaches one standard unit, then carries the leftover into the next month. A quiet Plus pane mid-month is not proof that nobody is reading.
Kobo Plus totals, as named: Estimated eBook Total, Estimated Audiobook Total, eBook Minutes Consumed, Audiobook Minutes Consumed.
The payout formula is not on the dashboard. Zendesk’s Plus sales-report article defines Value Per Minute as Monthly Kobo Plus Revenue divided by Minutes Consumed. The Terms of Service pay that value, times your title’s minutes, times 60%. The rate moves with the pool. We do not invent a typical figure. Trial-period reads are unpaid.
On the monthly SUBS report, Read Threshold (%) and “Revenue earned per title” appear as 0 from 1 April, on Kobo’s current help page. The page does not restate the year.
Plus does not require exclusivity. A title can sit in Plus and still sell à la carte on Kobo and everywhere else. It cannot sit in Kindle Unlimited at the same time: KDP Select forbids other ebook stores. See KDP Select vs wide.
Why the dashboard does not match the monthly payout CSV
Kobo’s Why Doesn’t My Payment/Sales Report Match my Dashboard? (fetched 17 August 2026) says the dashboard is “a simple and high level overview of estimated earnings, which currently does not take into account coupon codes, purchasing discounts, refunds, or any other variations that might have occurred at the transaction level.” The monthly reports at My Account > Payment Information “come from our Finance department” and “are accurate and match the payments that you receive.”
Two Kobo pages now disagree about Plus. The mismatch article still says the dashboard “does not track Kobo Plus or OverDrive sales.” The newer dashboard article describes a Kobo Plus section and says Plus data is added monthly. We treat the dashboard article as current for the panes, and the mismatch article as current for coupons, discounts, refunds and other transaction-level gaps. OverDrive stays off the dashboard in the dashboard article’s closing note. Plus is on the dashboard as an estimate, and in Finance as a separate file.
| Source | What it is for | When it lands |
|---|---|---|
| Dashboard Book Sales | Live estimate of à la carte sales | Ongoing; last two months |
| Dashboard Kobo Plus | Monthly estimate of subscription earnings | Updated monthly; last three months and YTD |
| Dashboard Book Titles CSV | Export of the filtered titles list | Whenever you download it |
| Monthly sales report (Finance) | Itemised à la carte sales that match payment | 25th of the month, for the previous month |
| SUBS report (Finance) | Itemised Kobo Plus earnings | Uploaded with the regular monthly report |
| Credit memo | Finance note when a promotion discounted a sale | With that month’s pack, if you were in a promo |
Reports are uploaded on the 25th of each month for the previous month. Zendesk’s example: January’s report by 25 February. Find them under My Account > Payment Information. Kobo Plus arrives in a separate report marked SUBS, uploaded with the regular file. Adding the two dashboard panes and comparing that sum to one CSV compares two estimates to half a payout pack.
The FAQ blog adds one more gap: if a promotion discounted the price, Finance issues a credit memo. The payment then matches the sales-report total minus the credit memo, not the dashboard.
Reconcile in this order: wait for the 25th, download the regular report and the SUBS file, subtract any credit memo, then compare that net to the bank credit 45 days after month end. Do not reconcile a Tuesday dashboard to last month’s payment.
Direct KWL vs Draft2Digital
You can reach Kobo by uploading to Kobo Writing Life, or by ticking Kobo inside Draft2Digital. Direct KWL pays Kobo’s published rate to you and gives you this dashboard, the Payment Information reports, and Kobo’s promo tools. D2D keeps a share of the retailer royalty and gives you one upload to Apple, Kobo, Google Play and library platforms — and one set of numbers that is not Kobo’s Finance CSV.
If Kobo is a market you will actually watch — Canada, or a UK or European readership that already uses Kobo — go direct. If Kobo is a tick-box on a wide list, D2D is the cleaner job. Do not send the same ebook to Kobo twice. If the title is in KDP Select, it cannot be on Kobo at all until you leave Select.
Who should skip KWL, and who it is for
Skip a direct KWL account if the ebook is in KDP Select. Exclusivity is global. Paperback is a separate question and is not this dashboard.
Skip it if you will never open a second retailer login and you are already wide through Draft2Digital. You lose Book Sales versus Kobo Plus, and Kobo’s self-serve promo tools.
Open the account if you are wide, you have readers in Canada or the other Kobo-strong territories, or you want subscription income that does not require Amazon exclusivity. Read Book Sales for this week’s direction. Read Kobo Plus after the monthly refresh. Believe the Payment Information reports.
We format KDP paperbacks and Kindle files from £69. That is a production job, not a Kobo setup job. A clean EPUB is what you upload; it does not teach you this dashboard. If the file still fails KDP or you have never made a print edition, formatting is the earlier step. If the book is already live and readable, skip it.
What we could not verify
- The live, login-walled dashboard. We have not photographed a signed-in account. Layout, colours and control placement are not described. Only Zendesk’s published labels are used.
- Whether the older mismatch article (“does not track Kobo Plus or OverDrive”) has been updated. It still said that on 17 August 2026. The newer dashboard article describes a Kobo Plus section. We report both.
- The currency of the payment threshold. FAQ blog: $50 USD. Terms of Service and Zendesk payment copy: $50 CAD.
- The year attached to “from April 1st” on Read Threshold (%) and “Revenue earned per title”. Kobo’s current help page does not restate it.
- A typical Kobo Plus payment, a typical Book Sales day, or any Canada / UK market-share percentage.
- Whether the dashboard Book Titles CSV uses the same columns as the Finance payout CSV. Kobo describes them as different jobs. We have not compared files.
- The exact post-click path from the marketing “Sign in” button. The marketing page and writinglife.kobobooks.com both loaded on 17 August 2026. We did not invent a third login URL.
Related guides
- Draft2Digital vs KDP
- KDP Select vs wide
- ISBN requirements UK
- Library distribution: BorrowBox, Libby, OverDrive
- Book formatting
External references
All fetched 17 August 2026 unless noted.
- Kobo Writing Life — marketing — no exclusivity; Plus is non-exclusive. Same content at kobo.com/writinglife.
- Kobo Writing Life sign-in — sign-in page that loaded 17 August 2026.
- Kobo Writing Life Help Centre
- Understanding Your New Dashboard — Book Sales vs Plus; periods; filters; totals; 300-minute increments; exclusions. Cloudflare blocked a full-page fetch; labels are from Kobo’s published article text as captured 17 August 2026.
- Why Doesn’t My Payment/Sales Report Match my Dashboard? — estimates vs Finance; older “does not track Kobo Plus or OverDrive” wording.
- Understanding Your Kobo Plus Sales Report — SUBS file; Value Per Minute; Read Threshold and revenue-per-title at 0 from 1 April on the current page.
- Where Can I Find my Sales Report, and When Can I Expect One? — uploaded on the 25th for the previous month.
- What will my earnings be? — 70% / 45% / 20%; regional floors; OverDrive 50% of library price.
- Kobo Writing Life Terms of Service — 20% below physical SRP for 70%; Plus at 60% of value per minute; $50 CAD withhold; last updated 29 May 2025.
- Kobo Writing Life FAQ blog — 45 days; $50 USD minimum; credit memos on discounted promos.
Frequently asked questions
Why doesn’t the Kobo Writing Life dashboard match my payment report?
Because the dashboard is a live estimate. It ignores coupon codes, purchasing discounts, refunds and other transaction-level changes, and it does not include OverDrive library sales or audiobook credit redemptions. The monthly reports under My Account > Payment Information come from Finance and match the payment.
How do I sign in to the Kobo Writing Life dashboard?
Sign in from Kobo Writing Life, or use writinglife.kobobooks.com. If a URL fails, use the marketing page or the help centre rather than a guessed path.
What is the difference between Book Sales and Kobo Plus on the dashboard?
Book Sales estimates à la carte earnings for the last two months and does not show subscription money. Kobo Plus estimates subscription earnings for the last three months and year to date, updates monthly, and reports minutes in 300-minute increments.
When does Kobo upload the monthly sales report?
On the 25th of each month, for the previous month. January’s report is due by 25 February. Kobo Plus arrives as a separate SUBS file in the same Payment Information list.
What royalty does Kobo Writing Life pay on ebooks?
70% of list price (customer pays, not including taxes) on original works at or above the regional floor — £1.99 in the UK — and 45% below it. Public-domain ebooks pay 20%. The Terms of Service also require the ebook to be at least 20% below the SRP of any physical edition to keep 70%.
Do I have to be exclusive to use Kobo Plus?
No. Kobo’s marketing page states it will never ask for exclusivity, and Kobo Plus is a non-exclusive subscription catalogue. You cannot enrol the same ebook in KDP Select, which forbids other stores.
Should I publish direct to Kobo Writing Life or via Draft2Digital?
Direct, if Kobo is a market you will actually watch: you keep the published royalty, this dashboard, and Kobo’s promo tools. Via Draft2Digital, if you want one wide upload and you will not log in to Kobo. Do not send the same ebook both ways.
