Where the reports live
Sign in at kdp.amazon.com and open Reports in the top bar. The left-hand menu lists the views below. Each one has its own filters (marketplace, format, title, date range) and a download button that gives you a spreadsheet — and each one is answering a slightly different question, which is why authors who put two of them side by side conclude that KDP is broken. It isn’t. They measure different moments in the life of a sale.
Every KDP report, in one table
| Report | What it counts | When it updates | Use it for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sales Dashboard | Units ordered, free units, KENP read, estimated royalties — by day, marketplace, format and title. | Ebook orders appear within hours; print and KENP lag, and figures are revised for a few days. | Your daily and weekly pulse. Did the promo work? Did the new release move? |
| Orders | Every order at the moment it was placed, including ones later returned or cancelled. | Near real time. | Checking a single day or a single title in detail; spotting a spike the same day it happens. |
| KENP Read | Kindle Edition Normalized Pages read by Kindle Unlimited and Prime Reading members, per title and marketplace. | Daily, with lag; the per-page rate is published around the 15th of the following month. | Seeing whether readers actually finish your books — read-through, not just downloads. |
| Payments | Each payment KDP has made or scheduled, per marketplace and currency, with its status. | Monthly, about 60 days after the end of the month the royalties were earned. | Reconciling what hit your bank; answering “where is my money from June?” |
| Prior Months’ Royalties | The finalised royalty per title, format and marketplace for closed months — after returns, price changes and the KENP rate are settled. | Settled roughly mid-way through the following month. | The number you put in your accounts, your tax return, and your honest income tracking. |
| Promotions | Units given away on Free Book Promotions and units sold on Kindle Countdown Deals. | Daily during and after a promotion. | Judging a KDP Select promo: how many free downloads, and did paid sales follow? |
You will also see Ad Campaigns (which hands you over to the Amazon Ads console) and, on some accounts, older views such as Month-to-Date and Historical. They are windows onto the same data, not new data.
Why the numbers never match
Three things happen to a sale after the moment of purchase, and each report catches it at a different stage.
- Returns and cancellations. Orders counts a sale the instant it is placed. If the reader returns the ebook within Amazon’s return window, the Dashboard estimate drops and Prior Months’ Royalties never counts it at all. A burst of returns after a promo is normal; a steady return rate above a few percent is a blurb-or-category problem, not a reporting one.
- Print fulfilment. A paperback or hardcover order shows in Orders immediately but earns a royalty only when it ships. Print-on-demand fulfilment and expanded distribution add days or weeks, which is why print royalties trickle into the Dashboard long after the sale.
- The KENP rate. Kindle Unlimited pays from a monthly KDP Select Global Fund. Amazon announces the fund and the resulting per-page rate around the 15th of the following month. Until then, the Dashboard shows an estimated royalty for your page reads based on a placeholder rate. That estimate is the single biggest reason your Dashboard total and your final royalty disagree.
Reading the Sales Dashboard properly
The Dashboard opens on the last 30 days for all marketplaces and formats. Three habits make it useful rather than anxious:
- Filter to one marketplace first. Amazon.com behaves differently from .co.uk or .de; a blended view hides a collapse in one store behind growth in another.
- Separate units from KENP. A title with falling units and rising pages is being discovered inside Kindle Unlimited — a different (and healthy) pattern from one that is simply fading. The royalties tracking guide shows how to turn pages into money.
- Read the 90-day view weekly, not the 24-hour view hourly. Ebook figures are revised for several days; the daily bar you are staring at will change. The KDP sales dashboard guide covers the daily / weekly / monthly rhythm in full.
Understanding KENP Read
KENP stands for Kindle Edition Normalized Page. Amazon converts every book to a standard page length (the KENPC, shown on each title’s KDP page) so a 40,000-word novella and a 140,000-word epic are paid per equivalent page. Readers must actually turn the pages — borrows are not paid; reading is. Because the per-page rate is announced after the month ends, treat page reads as a volume signal during the month and as money only once the rate is published. Most months the rate sits in the region of half a cent per page, but it moves, so check the published figure rather than assuming.
Payments and Prior Months’ Royalties: the money that is real
KDP pays approximately 60 days after the end of the month in which royalties were earned, per marketplace and per currency. A September sale is paid at the end of November. The Payments report lists each payment with its status; Prior Months’ Royalties shows the settled figure that payment was built from. When those two agree for a month, that month is closed — and that settled figure, not the Dashboard’s, is what belongs in your bookkeeping.
Some currencies and payment methods carry a minimum threshold before KDP will send a payment; below it the balance rolls forward. If a marketplace seems to “owe” you small amounts for months, that is usually why.
The Promotions report
Free Book Promotion days and Kindle Countdown Deals (both KDP Select tools) report separately from paid sales. Free units do not earn a royalty and do not count toward paid rank, so a 3,000-download free run that produces no paid lift afterward is a free run that reached the wrong readers. Judge a promo by the paid units and KENP in the 7–14 days after it, not by the free count.
What to do with all this each month
- Daily (2 minutes): Dashboard, one marketplace at a time. Direction only.
- Weekly: Dashboard 90-day view per title — is each book holding, rising or fading? Fading backlist is a backlist marketing job.
- Mid-month: when the KENP rate is published, last month’s Prior Months’ Royalties settles. Record it.
- End of month: check Payments against your bank. A missing payment is almost always a threshold or a tax-interview issue, both fixable in Account settings.
Most authors do this in a spreadsheet. It works until the fourth title and the third marketplace, at which point the spreadsheet becomes the job. Tools like Book Report and BookBeam automate part of it; Perfect Year HQ’s Money tab syncs your real KDP units, page reads and royalties every hour and joins them to your plan, so the monthly reckoning happens without you building it.
Perfect Year HQ reads your KDP reports for you
The Money tab syncs your real KDP units, page reads and royalties automatically every hour — never a rank estimate — and shows profit & loss, promo ROI and income pace against your goal in one picture. Connect once with the one-click browser extension; no password is ever shared.
See the Perfect Year →Questions authors ask
Which KDP report shows my actual royalties?
Prior Months' Royalties. It is the finalised figure per title, format and marketplace after returns, price changes and the Kindle Unlimited per-page rate are settled, usually around the middle of the following month. The Sales Dashboard shows an estimate; Payments shows what was actually transferred to your bank.
Why doesn't my KDP Sales Dashboard match my Orders report?
Orders counts every order the instant it is placed, including orders later returned or cancelled and print orders not yet shipped. The Dashboard estimates royalties, which are only earned when an ebook is delivered and kept or a print book ships. Returns, print fulfilment lag and the estimated KENP rate account for nearly every difference.
When does KDP pay royalties?
Approximately 60 days after the end of the month in which the royalties were earned, paid separately for each marketplace and currency. A sale in March is paid at the end of May. The Payments report lists each payment and its status, and some currencies or payment methods have a minimum threshold below which the balance rolls forward.
What is KENP Read in KDP reports?
Kindle Edition Normalized Pages read by Kindle Unlimited and Prime Reading members. Amazon converts each book to a standard page count (its KENPC) and pays per page actually read from the monthly KDP Select Global Fund. The per-page rate is announced around the 15th of the following month, so mid-month royalty figures for page reads are estimates.
How long does the KDP Sales Dashboard take to update?
Ebook orders usually appear within a few hours. Print orders, Kindle Unlimited page reads and some marketplaces lag by a day or more, and figures are revised for several days as returns and fulfilment settle. Read the Dashboard for direction on the day and wait for Prior Months' Royalties for the settled amount.