What a cover actually costs
Everybody asks this first, and every honest answer starts by refusing to give a number. Rates vary enormously by country, by the designer's experience, and above all by what is actually included — a figure that is normal in one market is a fraction of it in another, and a quote for a front panel is not comparable to a quote for a printed wrap.
So instead of a number, here is the structure underneath it: what you are paying for in each of the four routes, what makes one quote several times another, and which costs land after the work looks finished.
The four routes, and what the money buys
A premade cover. A designer makes a cover speculatively, in a genre they know, and sells it with your title dropped in. It is the fastest and the cheapest, and the work is genuinely designed rather than assembled. The trade is exclusivity: depending on the seller, that layout — sometimes that exact art — may have been sold before or may be sold again, and in a small subgenre you can meet your own cover on the same category page. Ask what the license says about resale, and whether you get a full print wrap or only the ebook front.
A custom cover from a designer. You are paying for a process, not a file: a brief, a first round of concepts, your notes, revisions inside an agreed number, and a finished wrap built to one printer's geometry at one trim size. Most of the spread between quotes lives in that process — how many concepts, how many revision rounds, whether the spine and back are included, whether the source files come with it.
A designer plus commissioned or licensed art. Two costs, because they are two jobs. The picture is one piece of work; the cover — type, hierarchy, the wrap, the way it reads at thumbnail size — is another, and an illustrator is not automatically a cover designer. Character illustration for fantasy or romance is where this route is normal, and where the art can easily be the larger of the two figures. A stock license is the cheap version of the same split.
Doing it yourself. Your time, plus whatever the art costs — a stock license, a commissioned illustration, a render you have the rights to use, or nothing at all for a type-led cover. The hours are real and not free, but they buy something the other routes do not: you can change the cover later without an invoice. Whether that is the right trade is a separate question, covered in Hire a cover designer, or do it yourself?.
In the Cover Maker. Whichever route you take, the mechanical half is not the part you pay for here: live trim, bleed and safe-area guides, a spine computed from your real page count, paper and printer, and one design re-cut for four printers and three bindings. Start your cover → · about the Cover Maker
The costs that arrive later
These are the ones that surprise people, because none of them are visible when the cover is approved.
Stock licenses. The photograph under the cover has terms, and those terms may exclude merchandise, advertising, or print runs above some quantity. If your designer licensed it on your behalf, the license may be in their name. Find out at the start, not when a promotion needs a banner. See Stock images: what the license actually lets you do.
The other shapes of the same cover. The ebook is 1600 × 2560 pixels, which is a taller proportion than a 6 × 9 front — cropping to it loses about six percent of the width, three percent from each side, and a title set to the edges will not survive that. The audiobook is a square, which is a bigger change again. Both may be quoted as extras.
A wrap per binding. A paperback, a hardcover and a dust jacket are three different geometries, with three different spine widths and, for the jacket, flaps to fill. If you commission a paperback wrap and later add a hardcover, that is usually new work. One cover, many formats covers what actually changes.
Revisions past the agreed number. Every custom quote has a limit, stated or not. Exceeding it is normal and billable, and the way to avoid it is a brief good enough that round one is close. Writing a cover brief, for a designer or for yourself.
A redesign in a couple of years. Covers date, categories move, and a book that keeps selling eventually earns a refresh. Budget for it as a probability, not a surprise. When to redo a cover, and when to leave it alone.
Judging value instead of comparing prices
Two quotes are only comparable when you know these four things about each. Ask, in writing, before you agree to anything.
The full wrap or only the front. Back cover, spine, bleed, safe area and barcode space, at your trim size and your real page count. A cheap front-only quote becomes an expensive cover the day you need a spine.
Source files, or a flat export. If you get a flattened image, every future change — a new page count, a different printer, a second edition — goes back through the designer.
How many revision rounds, and what counts as one.
Which formats. Print wrap, ebook, audiobook square, social crops. Name them individually.
A designer charging more for all four is often cheaper in the end than the low quote that covers one.
What is free here, and what is not
Our tools are free to use for as long as you like: build the cover, place your art, see the whole wrap, check it at thumbnail size, export previews without limit. Previews carry a watermark. You pay once, at the end, only when you want the files without it — and if you would rather hand the whole book to us, Concierge is the done-for-you service.
The honest summary is not that one route wins. A careful do-it-yourself cover beats a cheap commissioned one made carelessly. A good designer beats both, if the budget exists. What loses in every version is spending money without knowing which of the jobs above you just bought.
Make your cover
The Cover Maker is free to use: name your book, bring your artwork, and it draws the full wrap — front, spine and back — to your printer's own measurements. You only pay when you want the files without the preview watermark.
Next: Hire a cover designer, or do it yourself? · More: Writing a cover brief, for a designer or for yourself · One cover, many formats · How a cover actually gets made, start to finish