LEX

Pricing, honestly

How much does audiobook production cost?

A human-narrated novel runs $2,400 to $5,850. Royalty share costs nothing today and seven years of exclusivity. Lex produces the same book for $49 to $99 and hands you the files.

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Verified September 2026

Three ways to pay for an audiobook.

Figures are for a typical 75,000-word novel, about 8 finished hours.

Human studioACX Royalty ShareLex
Upfront cost, typical novel$2,400 to $5,850$0$49 narration, $99 fully scored, for 10 finished hours
What that buysNarration at $200 to $400 per finished hour, plus editing, proofing, and masteringA narrator working for half your royaltiesCasting, direction, pronunciation review, score and mix, mastering, retail QC
Long-term costNone. The fee is the fee20% royalty for 7 years, usually several times a flat fee if the book sellsNone. No royalty split on the production
Exclusivity7 years on ACX's exclusive tier; none if you produce direct7 years, Audible, Amazon, and iTunes onlyNone
TurnaroundWeeks to monthsWeeks to months, plus finding a narrator who will take the dealFree first chapter in about a day, full book in days
Files you ownYesYes, but distribution is locked to Audible for the termYes, mastered chapter files with a commercial license

The human invoice

Where $2,400 to $5,850 actually goes.

Narration is the headline number, not the total. A retail-ready production is four line items.

  1. 1

    Narration: $200 to $400 per finished hour.

    A finished hour is one hour of edited, ready-to-publish audio, roughly 9,300 words, and it takes a narrator two to four hours in the booth. A 75,000-word novel is about 8 finished hours, so narration alone lands between $1,600 and $3,200.

  2. 2

    Editing, proofing, and mastering: $75 to $150 per finished hour.

    Someone has to cut breaths and retakes, listen against the manuscript for dropped or misread lines, and master to retailer loudness and peak specs. On an 8-hour book that is another $600 to $1,200.

  3. 3

    QC and retail file prep: a few hundred dollars.

    Head and tail silence, per-chapter file structure, a retail sample, a credits track, metadata. This is the step that gets projects rejected when it is skipped.

  4. 4

    Corrections: budget for one round.

    Names pronounced three ways, a scene read in the wrong register. On a human production, fixes mean rebooking the narrator.

What Lex charges

Flat, per book, paid once.

$49, ten finished hours, narration.

Expressive narration, character casting, pronunciation review, production editing, store-safe loudness and peak limiting, mastered chapter files, and an author feedback round. Extra hours are billed at a flat per-hour rate.

$99, ten finished hours, fully scored.

Everything above plus licensed music, ambience, and sound effects, placed where the text earns them and mixed under the voice rather than over it.

Publisher: production plus done-for-you distribution.

A full cast, store-ready delivery, and publishing everywhere with disclosure handled. You keep 100% of net, with the only fee being 20% of net on Audible, Apple Books, and library channels.

US checkout offers Klarna Pay in 4. If you are weighing the cheaper checkbox routes instead, see Amazon Virtual Voice and producing it yourself in ElevenLabs.

Audiobook cost questions

How much does it cost to produce an audiobook in 2026?
A human-narrated novel of about 75,000 words costs $2,400 to $5,850 produced: $200 to $400 per finished hour for narration, $75 to $150 per finished hour for editing, proofing, and mastering, plus a few hundred dollars of QC and retail file prep. A 150,000-word book roughly doubles that.
What is a finished hour?
One hour of final, edited, ready-to-publish audio, which is roughly 9,300 words of prose. It is the unit every narrator and studio prices in, and it takes two to four hours of studio time to produce one.
Is ACX Royalty Share actually free?
No. It costs $0 upfront and half your royalties for seven years, which drops you to 20% of retail on the exclusive tier, with the title locked to Audible, Amazon, and iTunes for the whole term. A book earning a modest $30 a month pays the narrator roughly $1,260 over the term, and a book that performs well pays several times a flat fee.
How much does Lex cost?
$49 for narration or $99 fully scored, one time, covering 10 finished hours, with extra hours at a flat per-hour rate. The Publisher package adds a full cast and done-for-you distribution and is quoted per book. The first chapter is free.
Why is AI production so much cheaper than a human narrator?
Because the booth time is the expensive part of a human production, and it scales with the length of the book. The producing work, casting, direction, pronunciation, score, mix, and QC, is what you are paying Lex for, and it does not require anyone to read 75,000 words out loud twice.

Price the decision on your own book.

One chapter, cast, directed, and scored, back in about a day. Free, no card, yours to keep.

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