Flipbooks AI vs Vellum: A Book File to Sell, or a Link to Share?

The Short Answer

Choose Flipbooks AI if the document is already designed and what you need now is for people to read it. You want a link rather than a file, opened in any browser on any device with no download and no app, keeping your layout exactly as you set it, with your logo and your brand colours around it on the paid plans and a password if it is not for everyone. You also want it to work from Windows, a Chromebook or a phone, because we run in a browser and there is nothing to install.

Choose Vellum if you are formatting a book and you own a Mac. It turns a manuscript into a properly typeset interior with the chapter openers, drop caps, ornaments and running heads that make a self published book look like a bought one, and it exports the print and ebook files retailers and printers expect. It is bought outright rather than subscribed to, which suits an author who publishes now and then. Flipbooks AI does none of that: we do not typeset, we do not produce EPUB, and we have no route to a storefront.

Flipbooks AI vs Vellum at a Glance

Flipbooks AI wins 7 of these 11 rows, ties 4 and loses none. They are rows we picked, so read them that way. The sections below say plainly where Vellum is the better buy.

Pricing Compared

The two products are sold in different shapes, and the shape matters more than any figure. Vellum is a one off purchase: you buy the software and you own that purchase, rather than paying every month for the right to keep using it. For an author who publishes a book a year, or two books and then a long silence, that is a genuinely better deal than any subscription, and it is one of the main reasons people choose it. Their pricing page is the place to check the current cost and what each purchase option covers, because these things change and we would rather send you there than quote a number that has moved.

Flipbooks AI is a subscription with a free tier under it. The free plan costs nothing and does not expire. Starter is $59 a year, sold annually only. Plus is $14 a month or $108 a year. Ultra is $29 a month or $228 a year. Those are US dollars, on one pricing page, at the same price wherever in the world you buy, and they were current in August 2026. What the money buys is how the flipbook looks and behaves for the reader, not storage and not seats.

There is a cost on the Vellum side that is easy to forget when comparing the two, which is the Mac. The software is macOS only, so if you are on Windows the real price of using it includes either a Mac or one of the remote Mac rental services authors use to get around this, and that is a decision worth making deliberately rather than discovering after you have paid. Nothing on our side has that problem, because a browser is a browser. Equally, nothing on our side gives you typesetting, so if what you need is a beautiful book interior then a Mac plus Vellum is money spent on the correct thing and our subscription is not a substitute for it.

What Each Free Plan Really Gives You

Vellum can be downloaded and used to build and preview your book before you pay anything, which is the sensible way to find out whether the styles suit your manuscript, and paying is what unlocks generating the finished files. That is a trial rather than a free plan, and it is the right model for a tool you buy once. Their site is the place to confirm exactly what the free stage covers today, because the details of trial behaviour are precisely the sort of thing that changes without anyone announcing it.

The Flipbooks AI free plan is a real plan rather than a trial, and nothing about it expires. It keeps three flipbooks live at a time on 1 GB of storage, with the magazine page turn effect and a small Flipbooks AI mark in the corner of the viewer. There is no page cap, so a three hundred page book goes up whole. No ads sit beside the reader, readers never need an account, the flipbook is never listed in a public directory, and one shared password is allowed. There is no inactivity rule either: a flipbook nobody opens stays live until you delete it.

The three flipbook allowance is a rolling one rather than a lifetime count. Delete one and the slot comes back immediately, so a free account can publish far more than three documents over a year provided three are live at any moment. What free does not include is your own logo, brand colours for the reader controls, the other page turn effects, the embed code, background music or per reader passwords. Each of those sits on a paid tier, and each of them is about the reading experience rather than about how much you are allowed to upload.

Branding and Watermarks

Vellum puts nothing of its own on your book. The files it exports are yours, with no watermark, no credit line and no maker mark, which is the normal and correct behaviour for software you buy outright and run on your own machine. What it does put on the book is design: chapter openers, ornaments, drop caps, running heads and a set of coherent styles, which is branding of a different and more valuable kind for a novel or a memoir. If your worry is that a tool will stamp something on your pages, Vellum is not the tool to worry about.

Flipbooks AI is a hosted viewer, so there is a mark. On the free plan a small Flipbooks AI mark sits in the corner of the viewer, never across your pages, and there are no ads anywhere. Every paid plan removes that mark or replaces it with your own logo, starting with Starter at $59 a year, and the same tier unlocks brand colours for the reader controls, so the interface around your pages carries your palette rather than ours.

The distinction worth holding onto is that the two tools brand different objects. Vellum shapes the inside of the book, and once the file is out in the world the retailer's app draws everything around it, so there is nothing of yours to brand at that layer. A flipbook is the whole reading surface, which means the corner logo, the control colours and the page turn are all things a reader notices within the first two seconds. If the document is a catalogue, a brochure or a report going out under a company name, that surface is worth $59 a year. If it is a novel heading to a store, it is irrelevant.

Privacy and Who Can Find Your Flipbook

Vellum is a desktop application, so your manuscript sits on your Mac and the work happens there. That is the strongest privacy story available in this comparison and it comes for free with the category: an unpublished manuscript, a client's confidential document or anything under embargo never has to touch a server at all. If your requirement is that the file does not leave your machine until you decide it does, a local tool is the right answer and a hosted service is not.

Flipbooks AI keeps a flipbook private by link. It is never listed in any public directory, we never submit it to search engines, and readers never need an account to open it. The free plan allows one shared password, and Ultra at $228 a year gives each reader a separate password, which is the useful version when you are sending a document to a named list of people and want to know who let it travel.

One caveat should be stated plainly, and it is about our product rather than theirs. A shared link is a public URL, and a URL that ends up somewhere crawlable can be found. On Flipbooks AI a password gates the reader interface rather than the file behind it, so a document that genuinely must not leak needs a system with real access control rather than a flipbook. Advance review copies and manuscripts under embargo are exactly the case where this matters. If that describes your document, keep it as a file you hand over deliberately, which is what Vellum produces anyway.

Embedding and Sharing

Vellum hands you files, and sharing means moving them. A print interior PDF goes to a printer or to a print on demand service, and the ebook files go to retailers or to a reader's device. That is precisely what an author needs, because the distribution is done by the store, but it means there is no link of yours, nothing that opens in a browser and nothing that can sit inside a web page. The reader also needs the right app to open an ebook file, and what they see is decided by that app rather than by you.

Flipbooks AI shares a link and nothing else. A reader taps it, the flipbook opens in their browser at whatever size their screen is, the pages turn and nothing is downloaded or installed. On Plus, $14 a month or $108 a year, you also get the embed code and an allowed domain list, so the flipbook can live inside your own site and you can control which other sites are permitted to frame it. There is no equivalent to any of that in a file, which is not a criticism of files.

The practical consequence for an author is that these two solve different halves of a launch. The book itself belongs in the store, formatted by something like Vellum. The sample chapter, the press kit, the media pack, the book club guide, the workbook and the proof for a reviewer are all things you want someone to open in one tap without installing anything, and that is a link. Running both is common and sensible, and it costs nothing extra to try, since our free plan will carry three of those at a time.

Ease of Use and What Each Tool Is For

Vellum is admired precisely because it makes a hard thing easy. Typesetting a book is a real craft, and the reason authors talk about this software the way they do is that it produces interiors that look professionally set without asking you to learn typography, choose fonts or fight with a layout program. You pour in a manuscript, pick a style, and the chapter openers, drop caps, running heads and ornaments come out consistent. It also produces print and ebook output from the same source, so one edit updates every format. That is a genuinely excellent product doing a genuinely difficult job, and no page comparing it to a flipbook host should pretend otherwise.

Flipbooks AI is deliberately narrow and it is easier to describe by what it lacks. There is no template gallery, no in tool page editor, no typesetting, no custom domains, no team seats, no API, no reader analytics, no lead capture forms and no e commerce. You upload a finished PDF, choose a page turn effect, set a password if it is private, add your logo and colours if you are paying, and share the link. The design work happened wherever you made the PDF, and for a book that place might very well be Vellum.

So the two sit next to each other in the chain rather than opposite each other. Vellum is where a manuscript becomes a designed book. Flipbooks AI is where a designed document becomes something a stranger can read in one tap. The one place a decision is genuinely forced is the operating system: if you are not on a Mac, Vellum is not available to you and the alternatives are a Mac, a rented one, or different formatting software entirely, while a flipbook works from whatever you already own. Pick by the stage you are at, and by the machine you have.

Who Should Choose Which

Choose Flipbooks AI if

• You are not on a Mac and want something that runs in the browser you already have
• The document is finished and what you need now is a link, not a file someone must open in an app
• You want your own logo and brand colours around the reading experience, from $59 a year
• You want the document embedded on your own site with control over which sites may frame it

Choose Vellum if

• You are formatting a book and want a professionally typeset interior without learning typography
• You need print and ebook files from one source, for a printer or for retailers
• You would rather buy software once than pay a subscription every month
• You already work on macOS, where the software runs natively and the whole workflow stays local

How to Switch from Vellum to Flipbooks AI

There is no import step, because a flipbook is always generated from a source document, and in most cases this is not a switch at all. Vellum makes the file and Flipbooks AI publishes one, so the realistic move is to keep formatting where you format and add a link for the version people read in a browser.

1. Pick the document that should be a link. The full book usually belongs in a store, so choose the thing you actually want opened in one tap: a sample chapter, a press kit, a book club guide, a workbook, a catalogue or a proof for a reviewer. Everything else in this list follows from that choice.
2. Export a PDF rather than converting an ebook file. Use the print or PDF output from your formatting tool, not a conversion of an EPUB, because an ebook reflows and has no fixed pages so any PDF made from one paginates unpredictably. A proper export keeps the type sharp, the images at full resolution and the internal links working.
3. Check the pages read as spreads. A flipbook shows two pages side by side on a wide screen, so confirm the cover is the first page, that facing pages line up the way you intended and that nothing important sits in the trim or gutter area. This takes two minutes and saves republishing later.
4. Upload the PDF to Flipbooks AI and set it up. Drop the file on the create page, choose a page turn effect, add a password if the document is not for everyone, and set your own logo and brand colours if you are on a paid plan. Preview before publishing, and remember the free plan keeps three flipbooks live at a time with the magazine effect.
5. Put the link where the file used to go. Replace the attachment in your review requests, your newsletter and your author site with the flipbook URL, and use a QR code on anything printed. If it is going on your own site, embedding arrives with Plus along with the allowed domain list, so only the sites you name can frame it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Vellum have a free plan?

Not a free plan in the subscription sense. It is software you buy once, and you can download it and build and preview your book before paying, with payment being what unlocks generating the finished files. That is a trial, and it is the right shape for a tool you own rather than rent. Their site is where to confirm what the free stage covers today. Flipbooks AI works the other way round: the free plan is permanent, keeping three flipbooks live at a time on 1 GB with the magazine page turn effect and a small corner mark, and paying changes how the flipbook looks rather than whether you may publish.

Does Vellum run on Windows?

No. Vellum is macOS software, and that is the single most important structural fact in this comparison. Authors on Windows either buy a Mac, rent a remote one from one of the services that exist for exactly this reason, or use different formatting software. It is worth deciding that deliberately rather than after you have paid for anything. Flipbooks AI runs in a browser, so Windows, macOS, Linux, a Chromebook, a tablet or a phone all work identically, and there is nothing to install on either your machine or your reader's.

Can Vellum make a flipbook or host my book online?

No, and it is not trying to. Vellum produces files: a print ready interior and ebook formats you send to a printer or upload to retailers. There is no hosting, no link, no viewer and no page turn animation, because none of that is what a formatting tool does. Flipbooks AI does that half: you upload a finished PDF and get a hosted flipbook anyone opens in a browser. The two run together happily, which is why most authors who use both keep formatting where it is and publish the sharing copy here.

Is Flipbooks AI a replacement for book formatting software?

No, and it would be a bad one. We do not typeset, we have no template gallery and no in tool page editor, we do not produce EPUB or MOBI, and we have no route to Kindle Direct Publishing, Apple Books, Kobo or a print on demand service. All the design work happens before you get to us. What we replace is the step where you email someone a PDF and hope they open it, or where you ask a reader to download a file to see your catalogue. If your book needs typesetting, buy something that typesets.

Which one should my sample chapter live in?

The flipbook, almost always. A sample chapter is read once, by someone deciding whether to care, usually on a phone, often from a link in an email or a social post. Asking that person to download a file is where you lose them. A flipbook opens in their browser in one tap, keeps your typography exactly as Vellum set it, turns pages like a book and carries your logo if you are on a paid plan. Format the chapter in your usual tool, export the PDF, upload it, share the URL.

Does Flipbooks AI put a watermark on my book?

Not a watermark, and never across your pages. On the free plan there is a small Flipbooks AI mark in the corner of the viewer, and no ads anywhere on any plan. Every paid plan removes that mark or swaps in your own logo, starting with Starter at $59 a year, which also unlocks brand colours for the reader controls so the interface around your pages matches your palette. Vellum, being software you run on your own Mac, adds nothing of its own to the files it exports.

Which one is more private?

Vellum, by construction rather than by policy. It is a desktop application, so an unpublished manuscript sits on your Mac and never touches a server unless you send it somewhere. Flipbooks AI keeps a flipbook private by link, never lists it publicly and never submits it to search, with one shared password on the free plan and a separate password per reader on Ultra. But a link is a public URL and our password gates the reader interface rather than the file behind it, so anything under embargo needs real access control instead of a flipbook.

Can I send review copies as a flipbook?

Yes, and it is one of the better uses for one, with a caveat. A reviewer taps a link and reads immediately with no file to manage, and on Ultra at $228 a year you can give each reviewer their own password, so a leaked link points at a specific person. What you cannot do is stop a determined reader from getting at the underlying file, because our password gates the interface rather than the document behind it. For a book where a leak would be genuinely damaging, use a service built for secured advance copies.

What does Flipbooks AI cost, and what do the paid plans add?

The free plan costs nothing and does not expire: three flipbooks live at a time, 1 GB of storage, no page cap, no ads and one shared password. Starter is $59 a year, annual only, and removes the corner mark or swaps in your own logo, unlocks brand colours for the reader controls and opens the page turn effects the free plan does not carry. Plus is $14 a month or $108 a year and adds the embed code with an allowed domain list. Ultra is $29 a month or $228 a year and adds background music and a separate password for each reader. Those prices were current in August 2026.

Is Vellum a good tool?

Yes, and it has the reputation it has for good reasons. It makes something genuinely difficult look easy, turning a plain manuscript into an interior with consistent chapter openers, drop caps, running heads and ornaments that would otherwise take real typographic skill, and it produces print and ebook output from one source so a single correction updates every format. Buying it once rather than renting it suits how most authors actually publish. The only real caution is the one it states itself, that it runs on macOS, and the honest split is that Vellum builds the book while Flipbooks AI publishes a finished PDF at a link.