Galleyo vs. Vellum: Which Is Right for Your KDP Book?

Vellum is Mac-only desktop software that costs $249.99 once and requires you to learn its formatting tools and build your book's interior yourself. Galleyo is a web-based service that costs $14.99–19.99 per book, runs on any operating system, and formats a KDP-ready print PDF and EPUB automatically — no software to install or learn. Which one is actually right for you depends on how many books you're formatting and how much control you want over the process.

Galleyo vs. Vellum at a glance

Where Vellum still wins

Vellum has earned its reputation for a reason. It gives you granular, hands-on control over your book's typography — chapter ornaments, drop caps, spacing, and layout choices you adjust yourself in a live preview, not a preset. If you're a prolific author who's going to format many books over the years, the $249.99 is a one-time cost that gets cheaper per book the more you use it, and you keep full control of the file forever. It's also the long-established name in this space, with a large community of tutorials and an active user base — if you want to actually learn book design as a skill, Vellum is a legitimate way to do that.

Where Galleyo wins

If you don't want to learn formatting software at all, Galleyo is built for that. Upload your manuscript, pick a trim size and style, and get back validated, KDP-ready files in minutes — no design decisions required. It costs a fraction of Vellum's price for a single book, and because it's web-based, it works for Windows and Linux authors that Vellum's Mac-only requirement locks out entirely (this is consistently the single most common complaint about Vellum across author forums and review sites). There's also nothing to install, update, or keep working across macOS versions.

Who should pick which