Publishing · pricing
Pressbooks pricing
Pressbooks publishes a single tier. Below is what it costs, what it covers, and how that compares with the publishing tools listed alongside it.
As of 31 August 2026, Pressbooks pricing is free. Figures are the vendor's list prices as recorded on this page's last check; the vendor's site is the final word.
- Entry price
- Free
- Model
- Open source, no licence fee
- Tiers
- 1
- Free tier
- Yes
Pressbooks plans, side by side
Every published tier in ascending order of price, with the number of features each one lists. An absence here means the record does not itemise it, not that the tier lacks it.
| Plan | Price | Features listed | Step up from the tier below |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pressbooks | Free | 4 | Entry tier |
Where Pressbooks stops being free
Pressbooks, Free
- GPL licensed, self-hostable with no software fee
- WordPress multisite administration is your responsibility
- Print PDF export depends on a separately licensed rendering engine
- Hosted institutional networks quoted per organisation
No paid tier on record
Pressbooks lists a free tier and no priced tier above it in the record we hold.
What the product covers
The full Pressbooks feature record, grouped as the catalogue groups it. This is the product as a whole; the record does not map every feature onto a specific tier.
Other
- Single source, three outputs
- Cloning and adaptation
- H5P interactive content
- LMS integration
- Open source under the GPL
- Accessibility tooling
People bring Pressbooks in for a university library replacing a commercial textbook by adapting an existing open textbook rather than commissioning a new one, a course team that wants readings delivered inside canvas or moodle with embedded exercises rather than as a static pdf, a research institute publishing reports that must exist as a web page, an epub and a printable document without maintaining three files, a consortium standardising open textbook production across several institutions with a shared catalogue of adaptable titles. If that is not the job you are buying for, the alternatives to Pressbooks are worth a look before you commit to a tier.
How that compares in Publishing
Too few publishing tools in this directory publish a starting price to quote a meaningful median, so the table below is a like-for-like list rather than a ranking.
| Tool | Entry price | Model | Rated | Head to head |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pressbooks (this page) | Free | Open source, no licence fee | - | |
| Everand | $11.99/month | Per user per month, unlimited | - | vs Pressbooks |
| Kobo | Free | Free store and app; hardware sold separately; optional subscription | - | vs Pressbooks |
| Scrivener | On request | One-time purchase | - | vs Pressbooks |
| PublishDrive | Free | Flat-fee subscription, no commission on paid plans | - | vs Pressbooks |
| BookBaby | On request | One-time purchase per project | - | vs Pressbooks |
| Kindle | Free | Free app, revenue from book purchases and optional subscription | - | vs Pressbooks |
Ratings are aggregated from third-party sources and imported with each catalogue entry, they are not reviews hosted on Softwr. How each figure is used is set out on the Pressbooks badges page.
Before you pay for Pressbooks
Three things this page cannot tell you, and all three change the bill. The record carries a price and a billing period but not the unit - per-seat and flat-rate pricing are indistinguishable in this data, so a five-person team may be looking at five times the figure above. It carries no annual rate, so any discount for paying yearly is not something this page can quote. And it carries no trial length.
What it can tell you is the shape of the ladder: a single tier at Free. Because there is a free tier, the cheapest way to answer the rest is to use it before paying anything.
Pressbooks runs on web, self-hosted, and is published by Book Oven Inc. of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The full record is on the Pressbooks review, and the rest of the category is under best publishing tools.
Pressbooks pricing questions
- How much does Pressbooks cost?
- Pressbooks publishes a single tier, Pressbooks, at Free.
- Does Pressbooks have a free plan?
- Yes. The Pressbooks tier costs nothing and covers gpl licensed, self-hostable with no software fee, wordpress multisite administration is your responsibility, print pdf export depends on a separately licensed rendering engine.
- Which publishing tools can I use without paying?
- 5 of the 8 publishing tools listed alongside Pressbooks have a free tier: Kobo, PublishDrive, Kindle, Wattpad, Webtoon.
- What am I actually paying for with Pressbooks?
- The record lists 6 features across 1 area: other. In practice it is brought in for a university library replacing a commercial textbook by adapting an existing open textbook rather than commissioning a new one, a course team that wants readings delivered inside canvas or moodle with embedded exercises rather than as a static pdf, a research institute publishing reports that must exist as a web page, an epub and a printable document without maintaining three files.
- Does Pressbooks charge per user?
- The record carries a price and a billing period for each of its 1 tiers, but not the unit that price is charged in. Per-seat and flat-rate billing look identical in this data, so check the vendor's page before budgeting for a team.
- Are these Pressbooks prices current?
- They are what the catalogue entry holds, refreshed when the entry is. Vendors change pricing without notice and nobody at Softwr re-verifies each tier by hand, so treat this as a structured summary and the vendor's own pricing page as the authority.
- What should I compare Pressbooks against before paying?
- The closest publishing tools in this directory are Everand, Kobo, Scrivener, PublishDrive. Each has a side-by-side comparison with Pressbooks covering price, platforms and features.