# Pressbooks review (2026): is it worth $12 a month, billed yearly? > Book publishing platform that exports EPUB, PDF and web books Checked Nov 12, 2026 ยท graded Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA. Pressbooks is a book-publishing system built on WordPress Multisite. Authors write or import content, organize it into parts and chapters, and export to EPUB, PDF and XML or publish on the web. It is sold as hosted monthly plans per book, as enterprise networks for institutions, or as free open-source software to host yourself. - **Category:** Writing Tools - **Made by:** Pressbooks - **Website:** https://pressbooks.com - **Runs on:** Web - **Who should skip it:** Pricey if you write several books, since each needs its own subscription. - **Facts last checked:** Nov 12, 2026 ## Pricing As of Nov 12, 2026, Pressbooks is a paid product with a free trial, starting at $12 per book / month ($120 billed yearly). - **Pricing model:** Free trial - **Free plan:** None. - **Free trial:** Free 7-day trial for each new book. | Plan | Price | What you get | | --- | --- | --- | | Single Author | $12 per book / month, or $120 per year | One author, 250 MB of media storage, EPUB and PDF exports without watermarks, 20+ themes and custom CSS. | | Collaboration | $40 per book / month, or $400 per year | Unlimited collaborators, 1 GB of media storage, plus H5P quizzes and interactive activities. | Read from https://dev.pressbooks.com/self-publisher-plans/ on Nov 12, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Pressbooks before buying. ## Ways to pay less - **Yearly billing: $120 or $400 a year** (Annual discount): The plans page lists Single Author at $12 a month or $120 a year, and Collaboration at $40 a month or $400 a year. Source: https://dev.pressbooks.com/self-publisher-plans/ ## Key features - **Write, import and clone:** Write original content, import from sources such as Google Docs, or clone and adapt openly licensed books. - **Export formats:** Produces digital and print-ready PDFs, EPUB, XML, XHTML and Common Cartridge files. - **Web publishing:** Make all or part of a book public on the web and list it in the Pressbooks Directory. - **Accessibility:** The vendor says books can be published as fully accessible (WCAG 2.2 compliant) digital books. - **H5P and annotation:** Embed H5P quizzes and interactive activities on the Collaboration plan, and allow social annotation through Hypothes.is. - **Themes and custom CSS:** Choose from 20+ themes and add custom CSS to change how the web book, EPUB and PDF look. ## Good for - Authors who want print-ready PDFs and EPUBs from one source - Teachers and teams building open textbooks - Institutions that want to run their own publishing network ## Worth knowing - Each book needs its own subscription, and editing stops if the subscription lapses, though openly licensed books stay hosted. - Media storage is 250 MB on Single Author and 1 GB on Collaboration, with large video expected to be embedded from elsewhere. - There are no sales or monetization tools: you export files and sell them yourself, and ISBNs are your responsibility. - Whole-organization use is sold separately as Enterprise Networks; hosting the open-source software yourself means managing a server and its updates. ## ToolGPA grades **GPA: 2.2 out of 4**, graded Nov 12, 2026. Pressbooks is a web tool for writing and publishing books, with export formats and web publishing. It charges per book, $12 a month for Single Author, and each book needs its own subscription. It has no sales tools, and we could not read its pricing page. - **Value for money: C.** $12 a book a month, or $120 yearly, near the dearer quarter of writing tools. Collaboration is $40 a book a month. - **Free plan and trial: C.** A free 7-day trial for each new book. No free plan, and the listing doesn't say if a card is needed. - **Features: C.** Writing, import, cloning, exports, web publishing, accessibility, H5P and themes. There are no sales tools, and storage is 250 MB on Single Author. - **Ease of use: C.** No store rating on record. You set up a book, a theme and exports. - **Platforms and integrations: B.** A web platform with Google Docs, Hypothes.is and H5P. No desktop or phone app is listed. These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Pressbooks's own pages on 12 November 2026. Its pricing page would not load when we re-checked it. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. ## Where it stands among writing tools - Pressbooks's GPA of 2.2 is higher than 23 of the 100 other writing tools we grade, and level with 15. - It stands best on platforms and integrations (B, above 51 of 100) and worst on features (C, above 0). - Its paid plans start at $12 a month, against a middle price of $8.33 for the category: 42 of the 62 others that charge start lower. - On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.3 out of 4. 26 tools score higher and cost less. The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/writing ## Keep it, or make your own? **Your call.** A writing app at its plainest is a page that saves what you type. You could make the core of Pressbooks for yourself: long-form writing. What you would give up is listed below. Whether that is worth the price is your call. It costs $144 a year. Pressbooks is open source, so there is a third way: take its code and run it yourself. - You could make: Long-form writing: an app builder makes this well. - You could make: It runs in a browser, which is where something home-made would run too. - You could not: Several people working in it at the same moment. A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it. ## Works with Google Docs, Hypothes.is, H5P **Tags:** Open source, Self-hostable, Long-form writing, Real-time collaboration ## Alternatives - [Atticus](https://toolgpa.com/tools/atticus): Book writing and formatting app for ebooks and print. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/atticus-vs-pressbooks) - [Vellum](https://toolgpa.com/tools/vellum): Mac app for formatting ebooks and print books. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/pressbooks-vs-vellum) - [Reedsy Studio](https://toolgpa.com/tools/reedsy-studio): Browser-based book writing app with free EPUB and PDF typesetting. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/pressbooks-vs-reedsy-studio) - [Sigil](https://toolgpa.com/tools/sigil): Free open-source EPUB ebook editor for Windows, Mac and Linux. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/pressbooks-vs-sigil) - [Scrivener](https://toolgpa.com/tools/scrivener): Manuscript writing app with a binder, corkboard and outliner. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/pressbooks-vs-scrivener) ## Sources The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 12, 2026: - https://dev.pressbooks.com/self-publisher-plans/ - https://pressbooks.org/ Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/pressbooks Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).