Lulu vs Vellum Comparison 2026
Both cover self-publishing. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
Print and sell a book with no minimum order
Typeset a book that looks professionally made
At a glance
- Only Lulu has a free tier.
Side by side
Lulu | Vellum | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free | From $199.99 |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Free | One-time purchase |
| Free tier (they differ) | Yes | No |
| Billing (they differ) | Usage-based | One-time purchase |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Yes | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
| Runs on (they differ) | Web | macOS |
| Covers |
Shaded rows are where the two answers disagree and both listings have answered. A row where one side has not stated a fact is left plain, because silence is not a difference.
Lulu
Print and sell a book with no minimum order
Lulu prints one copy at a time and will drop-ship it under your own branding, so a creator can sell a workbook from their own site without holding stock or handing Amazon the customer. An API connects it to Shopify or a custom checkout. Print costs come out of your margin, and a colour interior turns a cheap book into an expensive one.
Our note
Choose Lulu over Amazon KDP when you want to sell direct and keep the buyer's email address, and KDP when you want to be found by people already shopping for books. Plenty of creators do both with the same file.
Only on this side
- Covers merch & print on demand
Vellum
Typeset a book that looks professionally made
Vellum does one thing: it turns a finished manuscript into ebook and print files that look like a publisher made them, with chapter headings, drop caps and ornaments that are already correct rather than waiting to be designed. Authors buy it the week they realise their own formatting looks amateur next to what is on the shelf. It runs on macOS only, which is a genuine barrier and the single most common reason people end up elsewhere.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.