How Much Does a Book Cover Cost?

DIY cover design

At the lowest end of the spectrum, some authors build their own cover using free or low-cost tools, combining a stock image, a chosen typeface and simple layout software. The direct cash cost can be very low or close to zero if you already own the software and source your own imagery carefully, but the trade-off is time, and the risk that the result reads as amateur to a browsing reader, particularly at thumbnail size.

DIY can work reasonably well for very simple, type-driven genres where the convention is minimal and typographic, but it is a harder route in genres where readers expect a particular visual language, because getting that language right without design training is genuinely difficult.

Template-based design

Pre-made cover templates, sold by independent designers or marketplaces, sit between DIY and fully bespoke work. A template gives you a professionally composed starting layout that you or a designer then customise with your title, author name and sometimes a swapped image, which keeps cost down because the heavy design decisions have already been made once and reused across buyers.

The limitation is exclusivity and fit: a template is rarely one-of-a-kind, and it may not match your book’s specific tone as closely as a cover built from scratch around your manuscript.

A professional cover designer

A bespoke design commissioned from a professional designer typically involves a brief, one or more initial concepts, a revision round or two, and final delivery of print- and ebook-ready files. Cost here scales with the designer’s experience and reputation, the number of concepts offered, how many rounds of revision are included, and how much original composition work (as opposed to stock assembly) the brief requires.

Because these variables differ enormously between designers and briefs, we deliberately do not quote a market rate here; the honest answer is to gather a small number of comparable quotes for your specific scope and compare what each one actually includes, not just the headline price.

Illustrated covers

A fully illustrated cover, where an artist creates original artwork rather than assembling stock photography or type, is generally a larger undertaking than a photographic or typographic cover, because it involves original creative work commissioned specifically for your book rather than reused or licensed assets. Illustration is common in children’s books, certain fantasy and romance conventions, and some literary non-fiction, and it is usually the most bespoke, and often the most costly, category of cover work.

If a cover brief calls for character illustration, a fully painted scene, or a distinctive illustrated style, it is worth treating that as a separate specialist commission from general cover layout, and briefing it accordingly. See our guide on what makes a good book cover for how illustration fits into an overall cover strategy.

Photography and image licensing

Many covers use photography rather than illustration, either from stock libraries or commissioned specifically for the book. Stock imagery is usually the cheaper route, but licence terms vary: some stock licences are exclusive-use only within certain limits, others allow the same image to appear on multiple unrelated covers, which occasionally causes unwanted overlap between two books using the same photograph. Commissioned photography, shot specifically for your cover, is a larger undertaking and typically involves its own separate cost and scheduling, similar to a bespoke illustration commission.

Whichever route you take, check exactly what licence you are being given: whether it covers commercial use, whether it is exclusive, and whether it extends to merchandise or promotional use beyond the book cover itself, since these terms affect what you can legally do with the finished design later.

Ebook front cover only

An ebook-only cover is generally the smallest design job, because it involves designing a single front-facing image at a fixed aspect ratio, with no spine, back-cover copy area or print bleed to account for. This is often the starting point for authors publishing digitally first, and it is usually less costly than a full print package because there is less to design and fewer production constraints to satisfy.

Full paperback wrap

A paperback cover for print is a single continuous wraparound file covering the back cover, spine and front cover, sized precisely to the book’s trim size and page count, because the spine width changes with the number of pages. This is a more technical job than an ebook front alone, since it must account for print bleed, safe margins, barcode placement and back-cover copy layout, in addition to the same creative decisions as the front image.

Hardcover and dust jackets

A hardcover with a printed dust jacket, or a hardcover with case-wrap printed directly onto the boards, involves additional production considerations beyond a paperback wrap, including jacket flaps where used and different print specifications from your printer or print-on-demand provider. This additional technical complexity is generally reflected in a larger design and production scope than a straightforward paperback cover.

Series design

Designing a cover for a single standalone book is a different brief from designing a cover system intended to extend across a series, where later titles need to feel consistent with the first while still being individually distinguishable. A series template, once established, can sometimes make later covers in the same series faster and less costly to produce than the first, because many of the layout and typographic decisions have already been made; agree this upfront with a designer if you are planning more than one book.

Revisions

Most professional cover briefs include a defined number of revision rounds, after which further changes may be billed separately. Before commissioning any cover work, confirm exactly how many rounds are included, what counts as a "round" (a set of notes, versus unlimited small tweaks), and what happens if you want to go back to an earlier concept, since these details affect both cost and how smoothly the process runs.

Source files and editability

Ask whether the final delivery includes only flattened, print-ready files, or also the original layered design files (such as an editable design-software document). Owning the source files matters if you later want to make small text changes, produce a new edition, or adapt the design for merchandise, and not every quote includes this by default, so it is worth confirming explicitly rather than assuming.

Rights to the finished design

A quote should be explicit about what rights you receive in the finished cover design: whether you own it outright, whether the designer retains any rights to reuse elements of it, and whether any licensed stock imagery or fonts within the design carry their own separate usage restrictions that continue to apply after the project ends. This is a reasonable, ordinary question to ask any designer before commissioning work, not an unusual demand.

What a proper quote should include

A clear cover-design quote should set out, in writing: the number of initial concepts, the number of revision rounds included, which formats are covered (ebook front only, paperback wrap, hardcover, or a combination), what final file formats will be delivered, whether source files are included, what rights you are granted, and the expected timeline. A quote that only states a single price without any of this detail is much harder to compare against another designer’s offer, because you cannot tell whether you are comparing equivalent scopes of work.

Cheap versus expensive: what the difference usually reflects

A lower price generally reflects some combination of less original composition work, fewer concepts and revisions, more reliance on stock assets rather than bespoke illustration or photography, and a less experienced designer. A higher price generally reflects more original creative work, more iteration, more technical complexity (illustration, custom photography, hardcover production) and, often, a more experienced designer with a stronger track record in book covers specifically. Neither extreme is automatically right for every book; a straightforward genre novel does not necessarily need the same scope as a heavily illustrated gift book.

Rather than treating price as a proxy for quality on its own, compare quotes on scope, and look at each designer’s existing book-cover portfolio to judge whether their style and technical competence fit what your book needs.

What Quill & Reed includes

Professional cover design is included as part of every Quill & Reed publishing package, covering the standard design work needed to produce an ebook and print-ready cover for your book. Where an author wants bespoke original illustration beyond standard cover design, that illustration work is scoped and quoted separately, because it is a genuinely different, more specialist piece of work with its own timeline and creative process. This keeps the core package predictable while still allowing for a fully illustrated cover where a book calls for one.

Common mistakes

• Comparing headline prices without comparing scope. A cheaper quote covering fewer concepts, revisions or formats is not necessarily cheaper once you compare it against a fuller quote on equal terms.
• Assuming stock imagery is always risk-free. Non-exclusive stock licences can occasionally result in the same image appearing on unrelated covers; check the licence terms before relying on a particular image being unique.
• Not confirming what files you will receive. Authors who assume they will get editable source files sometimes find out too late that only a flattened, uneditable file was delivered.
• Treating illustration and layout design as the same job. Original illustration is typically a separate, more specialist commission from general cover layout, and pricing and timelines should reflect that.
• Skipping revision-round terms upfront. Not agreeing how many rounds of feedback are included before work begins can lead to unexpected additional costs or a rushed final round.

Frequently asked questions