Cover dimensions are the most unforgiving numbers in self-publishing. Interior formatting has wiggle room; a cover that's 0.1 inch off simply bounces at upload. Or worse, it prints with your title leaning into the spine fold. Here is every KDP cover measurement in one place, checked against KDP's own help pages in October 2026: the eBook image, the paperback full-wrap formula, spine width for every paper, bleed, the safe area, and the barcode.
Work out your exact size
Enter your trim size, page count and paper in our KDP cover calculator, and it gives you the spine width and the full-wrap size.
KDP eBook cover size (Kindle)
Your Kindle cover is just an image, with no bleed, no spine, and no wrap. KDP's specifications:
- Ideal size: 1,600 px wide by 2,560 px tall.
- Minimum: at least 625 px wide by 1,000 px tall.
- Maximum: no more than 10,000 px tall or 10,000 px wide.
- Shape: an ideal height-to-width ratio of at least 1.6:1, so 1,600 px of height for every 1,000 px of width.
- File: JPEG or TIFF, RGB, under 50 MB, saved with as little compression as you can.
An eBook cover has no inch size. KDP sets its limits in pixels, and each reader's screen decides how large it looks. Only the print cover is measured in inches.
If you reuse your paperback front for the eBook, check its shape. A 6 × 9 front is 1.5:1, a little wider than KDP's ideal, so at 2,560 px tall it comes out 1,707 px wide. To reach 1.6:1, crop the sides to 1,600 px.
The real test of an eBook cover isn't the pixel count. It's whether the title survives at thumbnail size, because that's how every reader first meets it in search results. Design at full size; judge at 80 pixels wide.
KDP paperback cover size: the full-wrap formula
Print covers are a single full-wrap PDF at 300 DPI: back cover, spine, and front cover as one image, wrapped around your book. The dimensions come from a formula, not a template guess:
| Measurement | Formula |
|---|---|
| Total width | 0.125″ bleed + back trim + spine + front trim + 0.125″ bleed |
| Total height | trim height + 0.25″ (0.125″ bleed top and bottom) |
| Spine, white paper | page count × 0.002252″ |
| Spine, cream paper | page count × 0.0025″ |
| Spine, groundwood paper (black and white only) | page count × 0.00235″ |
| Spine, standard color | page count × 0.002252″ |
| Spine, premium color | page count × 0.002347″ |
Groundwood is a KDP paper for black-and-white interiors only. KDP notes that moving a book of more than 350 pages from cream, or more than 525 pages from white, to groundwood changes the spine enough that the cover needs adjusting. Inkbound's Cover lab offers all five: white, cream and groundwood paper, and standard or premium color.
Here is a worked example for a 300-page, 6 × 9 novel on white paper: spine = 300 × 0.002252 = 0.6756″; total width = 0.125 + 6 + 0.6756 + 6 + 0.125 = 12.9256″; total height = 9 + 0.25 = 9.25″. Your cover file is 12.9256 × 9.25 inches, and every one of those digits matters.
Notice what this means in practice: you can't finish the cover before the interior, because page count sets the spine, and page count comes from your typeset interior. Trim size, font, leading, and word count all move it. Change any of them late and the wrap needs rebuilding.
File specs KDP checks
- One PDF with the back cover, spine, and front cover as one image.
- 300 DPI images at the final size, placed at 100%.
- CMYK images are recommended for print. Leave out color profiles and spot colors, and don't mix color spaces in one file.
- Under 650 MB, or the file won't convert. KDP recommends 40 MB or less, because large files slow down printing.
- No crop marks, color bars, or template text.
- Flattened transparencies and layers, with fonts embedded and no file security. Locked or encrypted files fail review.
Cover sizes for 5 × 8, 5.5 × 8.5, 6 × 9 and 8.5 × 11 books
Here are the numbers worked out for three common novel trims and the large 8.5 × 11 size. Every full-wrap size includes the 0.125″ bleed on all four outside edges, and pixel sizes are at 300 DPI. Trim size and page count both come from your interior: pick your trim from the full list of KDP trim sizes, then settle the pages with our guide on how to format a book for KDP.
Spine width by page count
| Pages | White or standard color | Cream | Groundwood | Premium color |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | 0.225″ | 0.250″ | 0.235″ | 0.235″ |
| 200 | 0.450″ | 0.500″ | 0.470″ | 0.469″ |
| 300 | 0.676″ | 0.750″ | 0.705″ | 0.704″ |
| 400 | 0.901″ | 1.000″ | 0.940″ | 0.939″ |
Full-wrap size with bleed
| Book | White paper | Cream paper |
|---|---|---|
| 5 × 8, 100 pages | 10.475 × 8.25″ 3,143 × 2,475 px | 10.500 × 8.25″ 3,150 × 2,475 px |
| 5 × 8, 200 pages | 10.700 × 8.25″ 3,210 × 2,475 px | 10.750 × 8.25″ 3,225 × 2,475 px |
| 5 × 8, 300 pages | 10.926 × 8.25″ 3,278 × 2,475 px | 11.000 × 8.25″ 3,300 × 2,475 px |
| 5 × 8, 400 pages | 11.151 × 8.25″ 3,345 × 2,475 px | 11.250 × 8.25″ 3,375 × 2,475 px |
| 5.5 × 8.5, 100 pages | 11.475 × 8.75″ 3,443 × 2,625 px | 11.500 × 8.75″ 3,450 × 2,625 px |
| 5.5 × 8.5, 200 pages | 11.700 × 8.75″ 3,510 × 2,625 px | 11.750 × 8.75″ 3,525 × 2,625 px |
| 5.5 × 8.5, 300 pages | 11.926 × 8.75″ 3,578 × 2,625 px | 12.000 × 8.75″ 3,600 × 2,625 px |
| 5.5 × 8.5, 400 pages | 12.151 × 8.75″ 3,645 × 2,625 px | 12.250 × 8.75″ 3,675 × 2,625 px |
| 6 × 9, 100 pages | 12.475 × 9.25″ 3,743 × 2,775 px | 12.500 × 9.25″ 3,750 × 2,775 px |
| 6 × 9, 200 pages | 12.700 × 9.25″ 3,810 × 2,775 px | 12.750 × 9.25″ 3,825 × 2,775 px |
| 6 × 9, 300 pages | 12.926 × 9.25″ 3,878 × 2,775 px | 13.000 × 9.25″ 3,900 × 2,775 px |
| 6 × 9, 400 pages | 13.151 × 9.25″ 3,945 × 2,775 px | 13.250 × 9.25″ 3,975 × 2,775 px |
| 8.5 × 11, 100 pages | 17.475 × 11.25″ 5,243 × 3,375 px | 17.500 × 11.25″ 5,250 × 3,375 px |
| 8.5 × 11, 200 pages | 17.700 × 11.25″ 5,310 × 3,375 px | 17.750 × 11.25″ 5,325 × 3,375 px |
Page limits differ by trim. KDP caps an 8.5 × 11 paperback at 590 pages on white paper and 550 on cream, against 828 and 776 for the three novel trims above.
Work out your exact size. For any other trim, page count or paper, our calculator works out your full cover size.
Check it against KDP's Cover Calculator before you upload. These tables are for planning. KDP's Cover Calculator takes your binding, interior, paper, trim size and page count, then gives you the exact dimensions and a template to download as a PDF or PNG. Use that template as the final check on your file.
Bleed, safe area, and the barcode
- Bleed: extend background art and images 0.125″ past the trim on the top, bottom, and outside edges, so no white edge shows after trimming.
- Safe area: keep text at least 0.125″ inside the trim lines, KDP's minimum, and keep front and back text out of the spine. For extra breathing room, 0.25″ is a comfortable margin. KDP also asks for text of at least 7 points.
- Spine text: KDP's pages word the minimum three ways: at least 79 pages, more than 79 pages, and 80 pages for Cover Creator. 80 pages or more satisfies all three. Keep at least 0.0625″ between the text and each edge of the spine, because every book binds slightly differently. On thinner books, leave the spine blank.
- Barcode: if you don't add your own, KDP places an ISBN barcode on the back cover, at the lower right on a left-to-right book, and rejects covers with images or text in that spot. If you supply your own, KDP suggests 2 × 1.2″ (minimum 1.4 × 0.8″), at least 0.25″ from the spine and the trim, in 100% black on a solid white background.
Build the file in five steps
- Finish the interior first. Settle the trim size and the final page count, because the spine comes from both.
- Work out the size. Spine = page count × your paper's figure; full wrap = bleed + back + spine + front + bleed. Then download KDP's template for your trim, paper, and page count.
- Set up the canvas. Make it the full-wrap size at 300 DPI, and place KDP's template on its own locked layer as a guide.
- Design one continuous image. Back, spine, and front run as one piece of art, centered on the spine, with the background in the bleed, text inside the safe area, and the barcode corner clear. Keep the back-cover copy short enough to clear the barcode; here is how to write a back cover blurb that fits.
- Export and check. Hide the guide layer, flatten, embed your fonts, and export one PDF. Upload it and look it over in KDP's Print Previewer, which stops a file whose size doesn't match your book.
If an AI tool made any of the cover art, KDP requires you to say so when you publish, because its content guidelines say AI-generated images include cover images and artwork. Here is what KDP asks you to disclose.
Hardcover is a different animal
KDP case-wrap hardcovers use different geometry, with art that folds around the case boards and a hinge beside the spine, so a paperback template can't be reused. KDP's hardcover help gives no spine formula. Its Cover Calculator makes the template instead: choose Hardcover as the binding, then Hardcover or Dust Jacket as the cover type, and build to the template for your trim size and page count. (Inkbound's KDP book cover maker, the Cover lab, computes the paperback wrap from your book's page count, with spine math, bleed, and safe zones included. For hardcover, Inkbound estimates the spine and lets you enter the exact width from your KDP cover template.)
A cover file isn't artwork with a size. It's math with artwork on top.
Eight mistakes that bounce a KDP cover
- Building the cover at trim size and forgetting the bleed.
- Using an estimated page count for the spine, then editing the interior.
- Sizing the cover for one paper and printing on another. Cream is thicker than white, so a wrap built for white paper comes out too narrow on cream, and KDP's Print Previewer stops a file whose size doesn't match.
- Putting spine text on a thin book. Under 79 pages, KDP's fix is to remove it. At 80 pages or more, every KDP rule is met.
- Text drifting into the spine fold on the front or back panels.
- A 72-DPI file scaled up to size, when KDP wants 300 DPI at final dimensions.
- Leaving art or text in the barcode area when KDP is placing the barcode. KDP rejects those covers.
- Leaving crop marks, color bars, or template text in the PDF. KDP wants the file at the full cover size, with no crop marks or white space around it.
Every one of these is avoidable if the cover is generated from the finished book instead of assembled beside it. That's the whole argument for doing covers inside your author studio rather than in a separate design app: the spine can't be wrong when it's computed from the pages it will actually hold. And if you're budgeting the whole project, covers are one of the bigger line items a good tool absorbs.
In Inkbound, Publish checks that the cover's page count still matches your manuscript, then exports each edition. Downloading the print cover PDF and eBook cover unlocks with your first $14.99 month, right away with Start my month now, or with Lifetime. It isn't part of the $1 week.
Quick reference
eBook: 1,600 px wide by 2,560 px tall, JPEG or TIFF, RGB · Paperback: one full-wrap PDF at 300 DPI, width = bleed + back + spine + front + bleed, height = trim + 0.25″ · Spine: pages × 0.002252″ (white or standard color), 0.0025″ (cream), 0.00235″ (groundwood) or 0.002347″ (premium color) · Spine text: 80 pages or more · Bleed: 0.125″ · Safe area: text 0.125″ inside the trim · Barcode: 2 × 1.2″, lower right of the back cover. Print them on a sticky note, or use a tool where they're already built in.
Once the cover is sized, the rest of the upload is in our step-by-step guide on how to self-publish a book on Amazon.