Net profit
The one number TrueRoyalties exists for — what goes into it, what stays out, and why royalties are shown before tax but profit after.
The formula
Net profit = Royalties kept − Ad spend (tax included)"Royalties kept" is your royalties after KDP withholding tax. Ad spend is what your ads really cost, VAT included.
What counts as royalties
Everything KDP pays you, in one figure:
- Paid sales — ebook, paperback, hardcover
- Kindle Unlimited pages read
- Expanded Distribution
The Royalties card shows the gross amount, before withholding tax. That is deliberate: it is the figure you can compare, line for line, with your KDP dashboard.
What counts as ad spend
All your Amazon Ads spend, including the part that cannot be tied to a specific book (Sponsored Brands, ads on ASINs outside your catalog). It is real money, so it belongs in the total.
Spend is counted with VAT or GST, at the rate you set per marketplace.
Where withholding tax appears
Only in net profit. So the two cards read differently on purpose:
| Card | Tax treatment |
|---|---|
| Royalties | Gross — matches KDP |
| Net profit | After withholding — matches your bank |
Per book, per marketplace, per day
The same calculation runs at every level. A book's net profit is its royalties minus the ad spend attributed to it; your total is the sum of everything, including unattributable spend.
That is why the sum of your books' net profit can be higher than your global net profit: brand campaigns count against the total, but belong to no single book.
Filters change the number
Every filter — date range, marketplace, book, format, distribution — recomputes net profit from the underlying daily data. Nothing is estimated from a total.
One exception worth knowing: selecting a distribution that has no ads (Expanded Distribution only) removes ad spend from the view, so ad-based metrics are hidden rather than shown as zero.
Next
- True ACOS — is a book's advertising paying for itself?
- Taxes and currencies — set your rates
- Why my numbers differ from KDP