Reedsyvs
Vellum
Vellum: If you only need book formatting and want more control over the finished interior, as a one-off purchase
Reedsy
Vetted marketplace of publishing freelancers with free writing and formatting tools attached
As of 31 August 2026, Reedsy is free to use. A London marketplace where authors hire editors, designers and marketers who have been screened before being listed, plus a free manuscript editor that exports print-ready PDF and EPUB. Softwr lists it under Publishing. Reedsy is available on Web.
Overview
What Reedsy does
Reedsy connects independent authors with freelance publishing professionals: developmental and copy editors, proofreaders, cover designers, typesetters, ghostwriters, translators and publicists. What distinguishes it from a general freelance marketplace is the screening. Applicants are assessed on professional publishing experience before being listed, and the majority are turned away, so the pool is smaller and considerably more expensive than an open bidding site. Around the marketplace sits a set of free tools that would be paid products elsewhere: a browser-based manuscript editor with collaboration and tracked changes, one-click export to print-ready PDF and EPUB in a handful of typeset templates, free publishing courses, and a review submission service. These exist to bring authors into the marketplace, which is where the money is made. Reedsy earns a commission on the work you commission, folded into the quotes rather than billed to you separately, and its terms require the relationship and payment to stay on the platform. The practical consequence is that Reedsy is a hiring and production tool, not a publishing route. It will not distribute your book, sell it, assign an ISBN or take a royalty, and once the files are finished you take them to a distributor yourself. It suits authors who have a budget and want to reduce the risk of hiring badly, and suits poorly anyone whose problem is money rather than vetting, since the same work is available cheaper elsewhere from people whose credentials you will have to check yourself.
What people use it for
- A first-time author who can afford professional editing but has no way to judge whether a freelancer has genuine publishing experience
- A writer who wants a print-ready interior and EPUB without buying formatting software or learning typesetting
- An author needing a specialist such as a translator or a genre-specific cover designer that a general marketplace would bury
- A small press wanting overflow editorial capacity from screened professionals without running its own recruitment
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Reedsy.
- It is a marketplace, so the outcome depends entirely on the individual you hire, and Reedsy vets credentials rather than guaranteeing the quality of any specific engagement.
- The terms require you to keep communication and payment on the platform, so a professional you want to work with repeatedly stays inside a system that takes a commission on every project.
- Vetting narrows the pool and raises prices, so authors on a small budget will find the same categories of work available for far less on open marketplaces.
- The free editor offers only a handful of interior templates with little typographic control, so anyone who wants a specific look still needs a designer or a page layout application.
- There is no distribution, no ISBN and no sales channel, so Reedsy solves the production half of publishing and leaves the entire commercial half to you.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Reedsy
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- ReedsyvsAdobe InDesign
Adobe InDesign: For full typographic control on complex or illustrated books, at the cost of a subscription and a learning curve
Pricing
What Reedsy costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Reedsy
Free
- Manuscript editor, collaboration and typeset export at no cost
- Freelance work quoted individually by each professional
- Reedsy commission built into the quoted price
- Review submissions to Reedsy Discovery charged separately
Capabilities
Features
Vetted marketplace
Editors, designers, marketers and translators screened on publishing experience before listing
Quote and compare
Send a brief to several professionals and compare quotes, samples and availability in one place
Reedsy Studio
A free browser-based manuscript editor with collaboration, comments and version history
Typeset export
One-click print-ready PDF and EPUB output using a small set of professional templates
Reedsy Discovery
A paid submission route to reviewers for pre-launch reviews
Free courses
Structured publishing and marketing courses delivered by email
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
What does Reedsy charge me?
Nothing directly for the tools. The commission on freelance work is included in the quote you are given, so the price you see is the price you pay.
Can I hire someone I found on Reedsy and pay them privately?
It is against the terms while the relationship originated on the platform, and you lose the payment protection and dispute process. Professionals risk removal from the marketplace for agreeing to it.
Is the free formatting tool good enough to publish with?
For standard prose fiction and most non-fiction, yes. For anything with complex layout, images, tables or a distinctive typographic identity, it is not.
Keep looking
Where to go from Reedsy
- Reedsy alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Reedsy pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Reedsy badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Publishing softwareThe full category
- Best Publishing softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Publishing software for
Compare Reedsy with
- Adobe InDesign
- Kobo Writing Life
- Atticus
- Draft2Digital
- Kindle Direct Publishing
- PublishDrive
- BookBaby
- IngramSpark
- Kotobee
- Scrivener
- Sigil
- GIMP
- QuarkXPress
- Wattpad
- Webtoon
- Goodreads
- PublishDrive
- BookBaby
Other Publishing software
Rakuten Kobo self-publishing platform paying a 70% royalty with no delivery fee deduction and no upper price cap, a materially different structure from Amazon KDP
Free plan11 researched notesOne-time-purchase writing and book formatting that runs on Windows and Linux, not just Mac
From $147/one-time11 researched notesEbook and print distribution aggregator that takes a percentage instead of a fee
Free plan10 researched notesAmazon self-publishing platform that is free to use, earning Amazon a royalty cut instead of a fee, with a hard price band and per-megabyte delivery cost governing the 70% rate
Free plan11 researched notesEbook distribution aggregator that moved from a royalty-share model to flat-fee subscription pricing, so authors now keep 100% of the store royalty rather than splitting it with the platform
Free plan11 researched notesPay-per-book self-publishing service for ebook conversion, print on demand and distribution
11 researched notesPrint-on-demand and distribution into the wholesale catalogue that bookshops order from
10 researched notesInteractive EPUB authoring that also exports native mobile apps and hosted libraries
Free plan10 researched notesLong-form writing and manuscript organisation software sold as a one-time purchase per platform, with no subscription at any tier
11 researched notesOpen source EPUB editor for working directly on the file, not generating it
Open source10 researched notesUser-generated fiction publishing and reading app, owned by Naver alongside Webtoon
Free plan9 researched notesNaver-owned vertical-scroll digital comics platform with a paid-early-access coin system
Free plan9 researched notesEbook distribution aggregator that moved from a royalty-share model to flat-fee subscription pricing, so authors now keep 100% of the store royalty rather than splitting it with the platform
Free plan11 researched notesPay-per-book self-publishing service for ebook conversion, print on demand and distribution
11 researched notes
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Reedsy, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Reedsy
Reedsy alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Reedsy pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Reedsy
Put it head to head with anything we hold
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Best Publishing software alternatives
Amazon self-publishing platform that is free to use, earning Amazon a royalty cut instead of a fee, with a hard price band and per-megabyte delivery cost governing the 70% rate
Free to publish; Amazon earns a royalty share rather than a fee
Rakuten e-reader hardware, app and ebook store, the reader-facing side of the Kobo ecosystem
Free store and app; hardware sold separately; optional subscription
Audiobook subscription that splits revenue with an independent bookstore of your choice
Per credit per month, credits never expire
Unlimited ebook, audiobook, magazine and sheet music subscription, the consumer reading service formerly called Scribd
Per user per month, unlimitedAmazon-owned book cataloguing, review and recommendation app
Free, no subscription or in-app purchases; funded by Amazon as a commerce and data feederPay-per-book self-publishing service for ebook conversion, print on demand and distribution
One-time purchase per project
Amazon's consumer e-book reading app, distinct from Kindle Direct Publishing, the author-facing service
Free app, revenue from book purchases and optional subscriptionRakuten Kobo self-publishing platform paying a 70% royalty with no delivery fee deduction and no upper price cap, a materially different structure from Amazon KDP
Free to publish; Kobo earns a royalty share rather than a fee