How Book Pricing Works by quark

You set the price. CivNode takes 5%. You keep 95%. The buyer pays a small processing fee on top to cover Stripe (the payment processor).

Nothing hidden, nothing complicated.

**Example: you price a book at £10**

- You receive £9.50 - CivNode keeps £0.50 - The buyer sees: £10.00 + £0.61 processing = £10.61

The processing fee exists because Stripe charges roughly 2.9% + 30p on every transaction. We could have buried that cost in a higher platform cut — plenty of platforms take 30% and never mention processing at all. We would rather show you exactly where the money goes.

**More examples**

| Your Price | You Get | CivNode | Buyer Pays | |-----------|---------|---------|------------| | £2.00 | £1.90 | £0.10 | ~£2.37 | | £5.00 | £4.75 | £0.25 | ~£5.48 | | £10.00 | £9.50 | £0.50 | ~£10.61 | | £20.00 | £19.00 | £1.00 | ~£21.00 | | £50.00 | £47.50 | £2.50 | ~£51.82 |

The processing fee hits harder on cheap books because of Stripe's fixed 30p component. Every payment processor works this way — it is not something we control.

**The exact formula**

Buyer total = ceil((price in pence + 30) / 0.971)

The 30 is Stripe's fixed fee in pence. The 0.971 is 1 minus their 2.9% rate. We gross up the amount so that after Stripe takes their cut, your full listed price remains intact. All arithmetic is done in integer pence — no floating point, no rounding surprises.

**In short:** 95% of what you list is yours. The buyer covers the payment processing. CivNode takes 5% to keep the lights on.