ISBN barcode with a price

To draw one now, the EAN-13 generator draws the ISBN and its price add-on together, and a price in dollars can be turned into the add-on there.

Two symbols, one number

The main barcode is an EAN-13 carrying the ISBN with its hyphens removed. Every ISBN begins with 978 or 979, which are GS1 prefixes allocated to the International ISBN Agency. That is why a book scans at a supermarket checkout like any other product. The hyphenated ISBN prints above the bars, preceded by the word ISBN, in type of 9 points or larger. The plain 13 digits print below the bars as on any EAN.

To the right sits a smaller symbol of 5 digits, the add-on. GS1 designed it for books and magazines and leaves its meaning to the publisher. So the price rule comes from the book trade rather than from GS1. The add-on uses the same bar width as the main symbol and sits no more than 12 modules away. Its bars line up with the bottom of the main guard bars. Its own digits print above it rather than below.

An older 10 digit ISBN becomes the 13 digit form by putting 978 in front and recalculating the last digit. ISBNs have been issued as 13 digits since 1 January 2007, and numbers that start 979 have no 10 digit form at all.

What the 5 digit price add-on says

In the United States, the Book Industry Study Group sets the meaning of the digits. The ISBN Users' Manual says the price add-on is for the US and Canada and should not be used for prices elsewhere.

What the first digit of the price add-on means

Add-on	Meaning
50001 to 59998	A US dollar price from $0.01 to $99.98, read as dollars and cents after the 5. A $16.95 book is 51695
59999	The price is not encoded and is above $99.98
10000 to 49999	Prices from $100.00 to $499.99, read as significant digits with the leading 5 dropped
90000	No price encoded, and the code BISG recommends when there is no cover price
90001 to 98999	Reserved; the Users' Manual allows a publisher to use codes starting 9 in-house, for example on returns
99990 and 99991	Assigned to college bookstores: 99990 for used books and 99991 for desk copies

A price of $99.99 cannot be encoded under this table, which is why 59999 exists. Some pages add first digits for other currencies, such as 6 for Canadian dollars or 0 and 1 for pounds. BISG assigns no such meanings, and its codes for $100 and up reuse 1 to 4. Treat anything but the US dollar rule as advice from a seller rather than a standard.

Who asks for the price in the barcode

BISG says most retailers refuse books with no barcode, and that some publishers and retailers require the price extension on books they accept. IngramSpark says bookstores such as Barnes & Noble increasingly require a price-specific barcode. KDP's rule is short: if a price code is included, it must match the list price. IngramSpark prints a 90000 add-on by default when no price is given.

The trade-off is that a price in the barcode fixes the price on the cover. Changing it later means a new cover file, which IngramSpark charges for as a revision, even though the ISBN itself stays the same.

Sizes and where it goes

GS1's EAN-13 at full size is 37.29 mm wide with bars 22.85 mm tall. With the 5 digit add-on the whole symbol runs 165 modules. Anything from 80 percent to 200 percent of that size is allowed. Leave 11 modules of clear space on the left of the main symbol and 5 to the right of the add-on. Draw no border around either.

KDP suggests a barcode 2 by 1.2 inches, or 50.8 by 30.5 mm, and accepts nothing smaller than 1.4 by 0.8 inches. It wants the barcode at least 0.25 inches from the spine and the trim. It also wants solid black on a white background, as a vector or at 300 pixels per inch. If you leave the space empty, KDP places its own barcode and rejects covers with text or images in that spot. IngramSpark reserves a white box 1.75 by 1 inch for the barcode on its cover template.

Both the Users' Manual and GS1 put the symbol in the lower right of the back cover, near the spine. BISG adds that the bottom of the symbol sits a quarter of an inch above the bottom edge of the cover.

Where the ISBN itself comes from

The number is issued by the ISBN agency for the country where the publisher is based, whatever platform prints the book. The International ISBN Agency lists the United States agency as R.R. Bowker, at isbn.org, and leaves each agency to set its fees. Bowker's own page, in a copy from January 2026, listed one ISBN with a barcode at $150 and 10 ISBNs with a barcode at $320. Check the current price before you buy.

The Manual is strict about ownership. A publisher cannot resell, transfer or split its ISBNs, and an ISBN is never reused for another book. When a service provider assigns one of its own numbers, that provider is likely to be listed as the publisher. KDP offers a free ISBN for paperbacks and hardcovers, but it works only on KDP and shows the imprint as Independently published. A bought ISBN can be used on other printing services as well, and KDP says e-books need no ISBN at all.

GS1 adds one rule of its own: an ISBN goes on books only, never on a mug or a T-shirt sold alongside one.

Checking the last digit

The ISBN-13 check digit uses weights of 1 and 3 and the same sum as a retail EAN. The Manual's example is 978-92-95055-12-4. The first 12 digits weighted alternately by 1 and 3 add up to 126. The remainder on dividing by 10 is 6, and the check digit is 4. The calculator's ISBN mode shows those steps for your own number, and it also converts a 10 digit ISBN.

Making the barcode

The EAN-13 generator draws the main symbol from your 13 digit ISBN at any size in GS1's range, as SVG, PNG or PDF. Type the 5 digit price code in its add-on field and it draws that too. For anything that is not a book, how to make a barcode compares the routes, and the barcode generator draws the same EAN-13 among its 10 formats. The digits sit above the add-on bars, as the book trade prints them. Draw this ISBN with its price add-on in the EAN-13 generator. KDP's Cover Creator and IngramSpark's cover template also add the price add-on from the list price you enter. A cover made there needs no file from here. If a designer builds the cover, give them the ISBN, the add-on code from the price table and the sizes KDP or IngramSpark require. Ask for a vector file.

An ISBN is a GTIN-13 in GS1's terms, which what a GTIN is explains. For a product that is not a book the licensing route is in how to get a UPC code. A finished book's barcode follows the placement rules in where the UPC code is on a product.