Why does the calculator give a tiny price for my e-book that costs nothing to produce per copy?

The calculator is honest, but answers a different question

The Selling-price calculator formula divides your costs by the share of the price left after fees and margin. When a copy costs nothing, the only costs are the payment fees per sale. So the tool returns a price that covers those fees and puts your margin on top of them, which is naturally a very small number.

This is cost-plus pricing, and it works well for physical goods. A digital product's value does not come from the cost of a copy, though, but from what the buyer gets out of it and what people pay for similar products.

What the tool shows exactly

So how do you use it?

1. Solve the floor with a zero margin to know the lowest price that does not lose money on each sale.
2. Pick your price from the market: look at what similar books or courses on your topic, and of similar length, sell for.
3. If you sell through a platform taking a large share, enter it to confirm your chosen price leaves what you expect.

The limits of margin here

You might think of typing a very high margin to get closer to a sensible price. With a 90% margin and the same fees the price comes out at 20. At 95%, though, the tool refuses, because margin plus the 5% fee makes 100% and nothing is left of the price to cover the fixed fee. That works as arithmetic but says nothing about your book's value. It is clearer to choose the price from the market and then check its margin.

Costs worth counting

Your book costs nothing per copy, but it cost you writing and design time, and maybe ads. If you want each sale to recover part of that, estimate the copies you expect to sell, divide the cost by that number, and enter the result as the cost per copy. To review the profit on a price you chose, use the Profit margin calculator.