Understanding Kobo Writing Life's Reporting — Why the Dashboard and Your Monthly Report Show Different Numbers
The most confusing thing about Kobo Writing Life's reporting: the live dashboard and the official monthly reports frequently show different numbers. Here's why — and which one to trust for which purpose.
Platform: Kobo Writing Life — Reporting and Payment Information
Difficulty: Beginner-friendly
Time to Fix: Understanding only — 15 minutes to read
Best For: Authors who publish on Kobo and are confused by the discrepancy between their live dashboard numbers and their monthly report figures, or who can't find their Kobo Plus earnings.
The Dashboard vs. The Monthly Report — Why They're Different
Kobo Writing Life's FAQ explicitly acknowledges this confusion in their own documentation: 'The Kobo Writing Life dashboard is a simple and high-level overview of estimated earnings, which currently does not take into account coupon codes, purchasing discounts, refunds, or any other variations that might have occurred at the transaction level. Kobo Plus earnings are also not currently displayed on the dashboard.'
In other words: the live dashboard is an estimate. The monthly report is the accurate record. Use the dashboard for trend monitoring and rough estimates. Use the monthly report for actual income figures.
Finding Your Monthly Reports
Monthly sales reports are uploaded by Kobo on the 25th of each month for the previous month's sales. January's sales report is available by February 25th.
Log into your KWL dashboard
Click 'My Account' in the top navigation
Select 'Payment Information' from the dropdown
Scroll down to find your sales report history
Download individual monthly reports or download your complete history as a batch
Reports are provided as CSV files that open in Excel, Google Sheets, or any spreadsheet application. The report shows: units sold, list price, royalty earned, currency, marketplace, and date — one row per transaction.
Kobo Plus Reporting — The Separate Stream
Kobo Plus (subscription) earnings are reported separately from regular sales. They appear in a distinct report labelled 'SUBS' which is uploaded alongside your regular monthly sales report.
Kobo Plus earnings are based on 'minutes read' — the amount of time Kobo Plus subscribers spend reading your book. The per-minute rate varies by market. Your SUBS report shows the total minutes read and the calculated earnings for each title enrolled in Kobo Plus.
📋 NOTE: The Kobo Plus dashboard section shows estimated Kobo Plus stats updated monthly. These are estimates for trend monitoring — the SUBS monthly report is the accurate figure for your records. Like the regular sales dashboard, the Kobo Plus dashboard does not show final accounting numbers.
Promotional Adjustments and Credit Memos
If Kobo runs a promotion that provides discounts to readers (such as Kobo Cash promotional events or site-wide coupon codes), authors receive a credit memo in addition to their monthly sales report. The credit memo shows the promotional discount amount that reduces your royalty for that month.
This means: your payment for a month where a major Kobo promotion occurred may be lower than the monthly report suggests — because the credit memo is subtracted from the total. Kobo explicitly notes this in their FAQ, but many authors are surprised by it the first time it occurs.
💡 TIP: If your Kobo payment is significantly lower than your monthly sales report suggests, check whether you received a credit memo for that month. Credit memos are listed separately in your Payment Information section, below your regular sales reports.
Payment Timing and Threshold
Kobo pays royalties 45 days after the end of each monthly period, provided the balance meets the minimum threshold of $50 USD (or currency equivalent). Sales from all countries are combined to reach this threshold.
If your balance is below $50 in a given month, the balance carries over and accumulates until it reaches the threshold — at which point Kobo pays the accumulated total in the following month.
Payment is via EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer) directly to your bank account. Kobo requires your banking details to be completed in your account settings before payment can be initiated.
How ScribeCount Helps
The discrepancy between KWL's live dashboard and its monthly reports is one of the main reasons authors use ScribeCount — the live dashboard is too imprecise for financial tracking, and the monthly report is a download-only file requiring manual processing. ScribeCount pulls your Kobo data and presents it in a consistent, comparable format alongside all your other platforms, with historical trend tracking that makes month-over-month Kobo performance visible at a glance.