---
title: TinyCat pricing - what does it actually cost?
Metadescription: A ~200-item volunteer library pays about $36 USD/year for TinyCat, but the price is metered by collection size and copies count as records.
Display description: A ~200-item volunteer library pays about $36 USD a year for TinyCat - the cheapest bracket, and lower than Your Book Nest's flat $60 USD. The catch is what that figure leaves out and how quickly the collection-size meter climbs.
author: Dan Edwards
author_role: Founder
author_url: https://danedwardsdeveloper.com
author_linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-edwards-developer
published: 2026-07-15
---

Token estimate: ~2,300

# TinyCat pricing - what does it actually cost?

By **[Dan Edwards](https://yourbooknest.com/contact)**, Founder.

A ~200-item volunteer library pays about US$36 (source) - £27 | €31 | CA$51 | A$52 | NZ$63 a year for TinyCat - US$3 (source) - £2 | €3 | CA$4 | A$4 | NZ$5 a month, the cheapest bracket. That figure is genuinely lower than Your Book Nest's flat £45 | US$60 | €50 | CA$85 | A$85 | NZ$100 a year.

The number is hard to find because TinyCat's pricing page doesn't lay it out as a table you can scan, and the figure moves on two axes at once: what kind of library you are, and how big your collection is.

## What the $36 actually buys

TinyCat prices on two axes. The first is library type. A "volunteer library" - no paid library staff and no regular acquisitions budget over $1,000 - starts at US$3 (source) - £2 | €3 | CA$4 | A$4 | NZ$5 a month. A paid-staff library starts at US$10 (source) - £8 | €9 | CA$14 | A$14 | NZ$18 a month for the same small collection, so the moment you pay anyone or spend past that budget line, the entry price roughly triples (all figures USD).

The second axis is collection size. The US$3 (source) - £2 | €3 | CA$4 | A$4 | NZ$5 rate covers a volunteer collection up to 500 items. Past that it steps to US$4 (source) - £3 | €3 | CA$6 | A$6 | NZ$7 a month up to 1,000 items, and keeps climbing toward the top of the small-library range at about US$35 (source) - £26 | €30 | CA$50 | A$50 | NZ$62 a month for the largest collections.

So a ~200-item [church or community library](/articles/tinycat-alternative-for-church-and-community-libraries), run by volunteers, sits firmly in the US$3 (source) - £2 | €3 | CA$4 | A$4 | NZ$5 bracket. That is the US$36 (source) - £27 | €31 | CA$51 | A$52 | NZ$63 a year. It is real, and it is cheap.

## Where the meter climbs

The collection-size meter is the part worth watching, because of how TinyCat counts.

TinyCat has no [copies management](/articles/tinycat-multiple-copies-of-a-book). Each physical copy of a book is its own catalogue record, so three copies of a popular title are three records, not one title with three copies. Every one of those duplicate records counts toward your collection-size bracket. A library with 400 distinct titles but a healthy number of duplicates can cross the 500-item line and move from US$3 (source) - £2 | €3 | CA$4 | A$4 | NZ$5 to US$4 (source) - £3 | €3 | CA$6 | A$6 | NZ$7 a month without adding a single new title. The structure that avoids this - one title, many copies under it - is in how to track multiple copies of the same book.

That is the quiet cost. The sticker price is metered by a number your duplicates inflate, so the price you pay tracks your shelves less than it tracks how your catalogue happens to be structured.

## The costs the subscription doesn't cover

The subscription is not the whole spend.

TinyCat has no built-in barcode label printing. It sells pre-printed label sheets in the LibraryThing Store, or expects you to export your catalogue and run a mail-merge through something like Avery Design & Print. Either way, labels are a separate, recurring supply cost on top of the subscription. A USB barcode scanner is an optional extra purchase too, if you want to scan rather than type.

There is no hardware server to buy - TinyCat is cloud software - but the label and scanner spend is real, and the vendor's own price page won't total it for you. For the wider version of this, [what library software really costs](/articles/what-library-software-really-costs) walks through the add-ons that rarely make the headline figure.

## Billing in practice

A few mechanics that shape the true cost. Annual billing is exactly twelve times the monthly rate - there is no annual discount, so US$3 (source) - £2 | €3 | CA$4 | A$4 | NZ$5 a month is US$36 (source) - £27 | €31 | CA$51 | A$52 | NZ$63 a year and nothing less. Billing runs in US dollars through PayPal, so a library outside the US pays currency conversion on top and can't pay in its own currency. An account left unpaid for 30 days is auto-disabled; monthly plans cancel any time with no minimum term.

TinyCat also rides LibraryThing. You need a (free) LibraryThing account, and editing catalogue or patron records bounces you out to LibraryThing's own site to do it. That is not a fee, but it is part of what you are signing up to.

## Who should stay with TinyCat

If your library leans on LibraryThing's catalogue depth - series, disambiguated editions, reviews, awards data, Z39.50 and MARC import - TinyCat is built on exactly that, and at US$36 (source) - £27 | €31 | CA$51 | A$52 | NZ$63 a year for a small volunteer collection it is inexpensive for what it gives you. If you want a public catalogue your patrons can browse (an OPAC), patron self-service accounts, or a holds queue, TinyCat has all three and Your Book Nest does not. For those libraries, the US$36 (source) - £27 | €31 | CA$51 | A$52 | NZ$63 is money well spent.

If you're weighing TinyCat as a lending tool more broadly, whether [you can use LibraryThing to lend books](/articles/can-i-use-librarything-to-lend-books) covers the wider fit, and why library software gets expensive explains what usually drives the price up.

## How Your Book Nest compares

Your Book Nest is a flat £45 | US$60 | €50 | CA$85 | A$85 | NZ$100 a year, full stop. Not metered by collection size, not stepped by how many items you hold, and the same whether you run one shelf or five thousand books. At the very bottom of the range TinyCat's US$36 (source) - £27 | €31 | CA$51 | A$52 | NZ$63 undercuts that. What the flat price buys is predictability: the figure you pay this year is the figure you pay next year, and copies never nudge you toward a higher bracket.

That last point is the structural difference. Your Book Nest stores every physical copy as its own record under one title, so a donated third copy is one line, not a re-catalogued duplicate, and it doesn't inflate any meter. Every copy gets a generated three-word code printed on its label - read it off the cover and type it, no scanner to buy - and label printing is built in and free on blank Avery 5162 stock, so there is no pre-printed-label supply line.

The home page is a live demo with no signup and no LibraryThing account - add a book, give it two copies, and lend them to two people to see the whole thing work. If you're comparing more broadly, the Librarika vs Your Book Nest comparison sets out the same flat-price case against another close competitor.

## Q&A

**Q: How much does TinyCat cost per year for a small library?**
A: A small volunteer-run library with a couple of hundred items sits in TinyCat’s cheapest bracket, which works out to a low annual figure billed as a small monthly rate times twelve. A paid-staff library, or one with a larger acquisitions budget, starts several times higher for the same collection size.

**Q: Does TinyCat have a free plan?**
A: There is a free 30-day trial with no card required, and a free personal version of LibraryThing for cataloguing your own books. The lending and patron features (TinyCat’s organisation side) are paid. There is no permanent free tier for a lending library.

**Q: Why is TinyCat's price hard to find?**
A: The pricing moves on two axes - whether your library is volunteer-run or paid-staff, and how big your collection is - and the vendor’s page doesn’t lay it out as a simple grid. Directory listings quote only a wide monthly range, so most searchers can’t tell what their own size actually costs.

**Q: Do extra copies of a book cost more on TinyCat?**
A: Indirectly, yes. TinyCat catalogues each physical copy as a separate record, and those records count toward your collection-size price bracket. A library with many duplicates reaches the next price step sooner than its number of distinct titles would suggest.

**Q: Are there hidden costs beyond the TinyCat subscription?**
A: Barcode labels and a scanner are the main ones. TinyCat has no built-in label printing, so you either buy pre-printed label sheets or export and mail-merge your own, and a barcode scanner is an optional extra purchase. Neither is included in the subscription figure.

**Q: Is Your Book Nest cheaper than TinyCat?**
A: Not at the very bottom of TinyCat’s range, where the smallest volunteer library pays less than Your Book Nest’s flat annual fee. Your Book Nest wins on predictability rather than sticker price - one flat fee regardless of collection size, copies that never inflate a meter, and free built-in label printing with no scanner or label-sheet supply cost.