Smashwords vs Kindle+

This is the oldest choice in digital reading, put to two services that have each changed shape recently. Smashwords stopped being a publishing platform in January 2026 and is now a store only, owned by Draft2Digital since their 2022 merger. Kindle Unlimited became Kindle+ in Amazon's own article updated on 22 October 2026, which our note on the rename records. One sells you a file; the other rents you a shelf. We subscribed to neither, so this reads their published pages as they stood in October 2026.

"Not confirmed" means the pages we read are silent, not that the answer is no. Two rows need a reading note. Smashwords' price rows are empty because every title is priced on its own and no single figure exists, and its age-rating row is empty because it has no store listing to be rated in.

What each actually costs

Kindle+ is one number: $11.99 a month plus taxes in the US, which is $143.88 a year before tax by our arithmetic. New subscribers who have not tried it get a 30-day free trial. Cancelling leaves the subscription active until the next billing date, and Amazon states plainly that you will not receive a refund of any subscription fees paid. Local prices outside the US were not recorded, and memberships are available in more than 30 countries and regions. The cost per book at one, two, four and eight titles a month is worked out on our Kindle+ cost page.

Smashwords has no single number at all, and we are not going to invent one. There is no subscription and no credit system; books are priced individually, and no average or typical title price appears anywhere in our records. That means there is no break-even point to publish here. Any "Kindle+ pays for itself after N books" figure you see for this pair was not derived from Smashwords' own pages, and we will not add one to the pile. What we can say is the shape of the decision: the subscription is cheaper per title the more you read and costs you everything you borrowed the moment you stop, while the store costs more per title and costs you nothing once you have bought.

There is one free route that is genuinely large. Smashwords' About page claims nearly 100,000 priced every day at free out of over one million DRM-free ebooks, and browsing is open to guests even though buying needs an account. Kindle+ has no free catalogue, only the trial. Our page on how to find free erotica covers the services with a standing free selection.

Own the file, or borrow it

Smashwords makes the point itself: DRM-free ebooks means you can enjoy your book your way on any e-reading device or app. You download a file, it carries no lock, and it does not depend on the store still existing or on your card still working. There is no Smashwords app: we searched both stores on 27 October 2026 and found only an unrelated word game, so the reading happens in whatever app you already use.

Kindle+ runs the other way. Up to 20 titles sit in your library at a time with no due dates, magazine issues counting toward the 20, and the titles leave when the subscription ends at the next billing date. Audio narration is available for thousands of titles, thousands of ebooks include companion audiobooks at no extra cost, and downloads work offline on Kindle devices and in the Kindle app. In exchange for the convenience you are renting access, and the catalogue is Amazon's to change. The services that document downloads either way are listed on our offline reading page.

The erotica rules: one dated policy against none

This is the dimension where the two records differ in kind, and it is worth reading carefully.

Smashwords publishes a dedicated Erotica Content Guidelines page, dated 10 March 2026, and it is specific. Erotica is words-only, and Pornography has never been allowed at Smashwords. Covers and interiors may not carry graphic nudity or sex acts, and cover models must be adults. Taboo themes are carried but must be declared through what Smashwords calls its Erotica Certification System, so that readers can make an informed choice, and a publisher who mislabels erotica risks removal, reversed sales, forfeited earnings and a terminated account. Some categories are refused outright, among them scat, snuff and necrophilia, and erotica involving characters under 18 is barred under what the page calls a zero-tolerance policy. Those guidelines sit on top of the content rules of Draft2Digital, its distributor and parent.

The filter is the other half of it. The store's default state is no erotica at all: before erotica appears in home page merchandising or in search results, a reader must be registered and must ask for it, choosing either mainstream erotica or mainstream plus taboo. That is unusual, and it cuts both ways. A reader who wants the catalogue has to create an account and change a setting, and a reader who does not want it never sees it.

Kindle+ has no equivalent page. Erotica is not a labelled part of the subscription on anything we read, the genres Amazon names as examples are mystery and thrillers, romance, science fiction and fantasy, and the only relevant text is Amazon's publishing guideline for the Kindle Store as a whole: We don't sell certain content including content that we determine is hate speech, promotes the abuse or sexual exploitation of children, contains pornography, glorifies rape or pedophilia, advocates terrorism, or other material we deem inappropriate or offensive. That is not a Kindle+ policy, and "pornography" is not defined. Whether erotic titles sit in the Kindle+ catalogue, or can earn from it, is not stated either way. The neighbouring store rules are explained in why erotica apps disappear from the app store.

Age, and what neither one says

Smashwords sets a floor in writing. Its Terms, updated 10 March 2026, say you may not use the site if you are under the age of 18, and the erotica filter adds a second gate on top of that. No document check is described, and because there is no app there is no store rating to set against the terms.

Kindle+ states no minimum age on any page we read: not the explainer, not the FAQ, not the help page, not the KDP guidelines. Amazon's Conditions of Use were not among the pages we read. The Kindle app you read it in is rated 13+ on the App Store and sits in Google Play's 13+ tier, and no adult gating inside the app is confirmed. Neither service states that all characters in its catalogue are adults; Smashwords comes closest with a rule for erotica specifically, which is a prohibition rather than a statement about every title, and we have audited neither catalogue.

For writers: percentages against a fund

Smashwords no longer takes authors directly, and says so: former Smashwords authors now manage publishing through Draft2Digital. For sales on Smashwords.com the Draft2Digital terms, effective 14 April 2026, set two bands: 75% of List Price for Work sales of $2.99 or more; 40% of List Price for Work sales under $2.99. Price a title at $2.99 and the writer takes $2.24. Price it at $2.98 and the writer takes $1.19. One cent off the cover price costs the author about $1.05 a copy, which is the single most useful piece of arithmetic on this page for anyone publishing short erotica, where prices cluster below $3.00. The account carries a $20 activation fee and then $12 a year unless it earned $100 or more in the previous twelve months, payouts go by check, PayPal, Payoneer or bank transfer with minimums from $10 to $100, and no exclusivity is required.

Kindle+ pays from a pool instead. Enrolment is through KDP Select, which Amazon calls a free 90-day programme, and earnings come from the KDP Select Global Fund based on Kindle Edition Normalized Pages read, paid the first time a subscriber reads a given page. The fund's size is announced monthly and there is no fixed per-page rate in the documentation, so a writer cannot calculate the income in advance. The ebook must be exclusive to the Kindle Store for each 90-day enrolment, though print and other formats may be sold elsewhere, and there are three days from the start of an enrolment to cancel it. So one service publishes exact percentages and asks for nothing exclusive, and the other asks for exclusivity and publishes no rate. The wider picture is on how erotica platforms pay writers and subscription against pay per story.

Which one should you pick?

If a flat fee is what you want and the comparison is really between two subscriptions, read Everand against Kindle+ instead. For the other side of buying a title outright, Apple Books against Google Play Books covers the two phone bookstores. The Smashwords change of role is explained in its move to a store only, the shortlist is at Kindle+ alternatives, and the full records are in our Smashwords review and the Kindle+ review. Every pair is in the erotica app comparisons hub.

Final verdict