Hamsterra vs NetGalley

100 readers per campaign, 100 invitation emails in any 30 days, 500 MiB of files, 1 pen name. No time limit.

Every listing is paid, per title or by subscription. Members who request books use NetGalley free; that is reader access, not an author plan.

No trial: the Free plan has no end date.

No trial or free first listing found on the order page. Discounted add-ons with a first order are add-on prices, not a trial.

Subscription: Stash €8 a month before VAT (UK consumers: €9.60 including 20% VAT), Hoard €15 a month before VAT (UK consumers: €18 including 20% VAT). No per-book or per-reader fees.

Pay-Per-Title: $575 per title for six months from payment (US, taxes excluded, non-refundable). Subscription: a 12-month term, from approximately $6,000 a year; individual quotes apply.

Open sign-up after email verification. No book approval before publishing.

Open checkout for indie authors. ISBN-13 required; EPUB (preferred) or PDF, supplied within six months of payment.

Invitations to readers who opted in on Hamsterra, counted against the invitation limit. No import of an existing contact list.

Pre-approved invitation links and widgets for the author’s own contacts, within a paid listing.

Published campaigns appear in the public ARC catalogue while eligible for listing. No paid promotion.

Members find and request listed titles; featured placements cost extra. According to netgalley.com, “hundreds of thousands of members”.

No private, link-only or invite-only campaign setting.

A title can be set to Private / Invite Only: members see it only through a widget invitation or a wish link.

The author approves or declines each application, manually or automatically, with an optional form.

The author approves or declines each request, or uses Read Now or an auto-approved list. Member type, profile and feedback ratio are shown.

Contacts with consent history and tags; CSV export of eligible contacts who opted into the author’s reader list; blocked readers. No contact import or notes.

An auto-approved list of trusted members exists; tags, notes, contact import and export are not publicly confirmed.

EPUB and PDF download. No browser reading, no Send to Kindle, no audiobooks.

Part of a paid listing. Readers use the Shelf app, browser reader, Kindle, Kobo or download, as enabled per title; audiobooks only in Shelf.

Readers add up to 10 review links; reminder rules. Self-reported, not checked on review sites.

Members send feedback on NetGalley and are asked to add links to reviews elsewhere (self-reported); a feedback report collects them.

Up to 5,000 characters with any result.

The Give Feedback form has a Notes section seen only by the publisher, separate from the public review.

1 open magnet on Free; 5 or 20 on paid plans.

No author list-building feature found. Booktrovert, a separate paid product, runs giveaways; author newsletter opt-in there is not stated.

5 giveaways at a time on Free; on paid plans the limit follows the giveaway rating.

Booktrovert campaigns can include several books. Giveaways organised by several independent authors are not publicly confirmed.

Each campaign copy shows the reader’s name and a Copy ID; a free-book copy shows the reader’s email. Not DRM.

Files are described as protected; a visible watermark or reader details in the copy are not stated.

Last 30 days on Free; 12 months, sources and CSV export on paid plans.

Pay-Per-Title listings get the standard reports; extra dashboards and tools belong to the Subscription service.