Cosmos Verlag

What Cosmos Verlag does

Cosmos-Verlag AG is a privately held, family-owned Swiss publishing company headquartered in Bern (Weltpoststrasse 5) and operating exclusively within the Swiss market. Founded over 100 years ago, the firm employs between 11 and 50 people and is led by Geschäftsführer Marc Aeberli. It is a member of the Schweizer Buchhandels- und Verlags-Verband (SBVV), the national book trade and publishing association.

The company operates two product divisions. The Fachmedien & Bildung division publishes professional journals, books, e-books, and events covering Swiss tax law, corporate governance, business management, and related fields — with over 149 titles in tax alone and flagship references such as the Handbuch für den Verwaltungsrat (third edition) and Die Stempelabgaben in zehn Stunden priced up to CHF 498. The Belletristik division publishes novels, crime fiction, and Swiss German dialect literature, including works by Stef Stauffer, Pedro Lenz, and Ernst Burren. Digital infrastructure includes the cosmosverlag.ch e-commerce storefront (hosted by Cyon in Basel), e-book delivery via the Edubase-Reader platform, the steuerportal.ch digital tax-portal, and MailChimp newsletters.

Cosmos generates revenue through five streams: one-time sales of physical books, one-time sales of e-book codes (valid for one year, optionally bundled with print), annual subscriptions for journals, attendance-based professional events, and licensing-based corporate Firmenlizenzen with custom pricing for 2–200 users. Distribution is exclusively direct-to-consumer via the company's own website; the company does not use third-party retailers and ships only within Switzerland. All prices are quoted in CHF inclusive of VAT, and the customer base spans tax and legal professionals, SME corporate management, individual fiction readers, and organizations requiring multi-user content access.

Name

Cosmos Verlag

Legal name

Cosmos-Verlag AG

Website

https://cosmosverlag.ch

Company type

Private

Founded year

1923

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Cosmos-Verlag AG is a family-owned Swiss publishing company based in Bern that publishes professional books, journals, and e-books on Swiss tax, law, and business, alongside novels and German-Swiss dialect literature, selling exclusively direct-to-consumer within Switzerland.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Book Publishing

NAICS

Book Publishers (513130), Periodical Publishers (513120), Newspaper, Periodical, Book, and Directory Publishers (5131)

SIC

Books: Publishing Or Publishing & Printing (2731), Periodicals: Publishing Or Publishing & Printing (2721), Miscellaneous Publishing (2741)

akta.pro primary industry

Legal & Regulatory Publishing (Case Law, Statutes, Treatises) (MPAJACAA)

akta.pro secondary industries

Academic & Scholarly Journals Publishing (Peer-Reviewed) (MPAJABAC), Genre & Category Publishing (Romance, Mystery/Thriller, Sci‑Fi/Fantasy, etc.) (MPAJAAAB), Business, Personal Finance & Careers Trade Publishing (MPAJAAAK)

Keywords

• Professional book publishing
• Swiss tax publications
• Corporate governance books
• Swiss dialect literature
• E-book and journal subscriptions

Headquarters

HQ city

Muri

HQ country

Switzerland

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Supply Chain

Revenue model

1. Physical Book Sales: Sale of printed books including professional Fachmedien (tax, law, business) and Belletristik (fiction, dialect literature). Products sold individually at various price points.
2. E-Book Sales: Digital products including E-Book codes for single-user access and firm licenses for organizational use. E-books can be purchased separately or bundled with print products.
3. Journal Subscriptions: Annual subscriptions for journals and periodicals with automatic renewal unless cancelled one month before expiry.
4. Event/Veranstaltungen: Professional events including seminars and educational programs with attendance-based pricing and quantity discounts for multiple participants.
5. Firm Lizenzen (Corporate Licenses): Organizational licenses for professional content allowing multi-user access with custom pricing based on organization size and content selection.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels2 records

Core offering

Cosmos Verlag is a Swiss publishing house that publishes professional books, journals, and e-books on Swiss tax law, corporate governance, and business management under its Fachmedien & Bildung division, and publishes novels, crime fiction, and Swiss German dialect literature under its Belletristik division. Products are sold directly through the company's own e-commerce website to individual readers in Switzerland, with separate firm licensing arrangements for organizational multi-user access.

Product overview

Cosmos Verlag operates as a Swiss publishing company with two main product divisions: Fachmedien & Bildung (Professional Media & Education) and Belletristik (Fiction). The Fachmedien division encompasses journals, specialized professional books, e-books, e-books via Edubase platform, corporate licensing (Firmenlizenz), and events/conferences covering Swiss tax, law, and economics topics. The Belletristik division publishes novels, crime fiction, and Swiss German dialect literature. Key products include the Handbuch für den Verwaltungsrat (board member handbook), tax-related publications like Die Stempelabgaben in zehn Stunden, fiction works such as Gisch was hesch and Nach oben und von dort über die Dächer, and dialect literature by authors like Christian Schmid and Pedro Lenz. Digital offerings include e-book codes with download access, the steuerportal.ch platform, and corporate licensing solutions for organizations. The company also publishes over 149 titles in the tax law category alone.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered minor.

• Cyon (Basel)minorOthersCyon based in Basel hosts the Cosmos Verlag website in Switzerland. They provide server infrastructure and hosting services for the company's online presence and e-commerce operations.
• MailChimp (Rocket Science Group, LLC / Intuit Inc)minorOthersMailChimp is used for newsletter and notification delivery. Cosmos uses the platform to communicate with customers about products and updates, with double opt-in verification for subscriber lists.
• Schweizer Buchhandels- und Verlags-Verband (SBVV)minorOthersCosmos-Verlag AG is a member of the Swiss Book Trade and Publishing Association (SBVV), the industry association for Swiss publishers and booksellers.

Scale indicators2 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Regional players

• Manz Verlag: Manz is Austria's leading legal and business publisher, producing tax and corporate law titles for the DACH market. It is directly comparable to Cosmos on content category but serves Austria rather than Switzerland.

Broad incumbents

• Wolters Kluwer: Wolters Kluwer is a global information services company dominating legal, tax, and regulatory information products across multiple jurisdictions. It represents the digital-first, scaled end of the same content category that Cosmos addresses in the Swiss market.
• C.H.Beck: C.H.Beck is Germany's largest legal publisher with comprehensive tax, law, and economics catalogs. It competes for the broader DACH professional audience and represents a scaled reference point for Cosmos's Fachmedien ambitions.
• Orell Füssli: Orell Füssli is one of Switzerland's largest and oldest publishers, with a much broader catalog spanning books, education, and security printing. It overlaps with Cosmos in Swiss professional and trade publishing but at significantly larger scale.

Direct peers

• Stämpfli Verlag: Stämpfli is a long-established Swiss publishing house also based in Bern, publishing legal, tax, business, and notarial titles. Like Cosmos, it serves Swiss practitioners with professional books and journals — making it the closest direct competitor in the Swiss Fachmedien space.
• Schwabe Verlag: Schwabe is a Basel-based Swiss academic and professional publisher with strengths in humanities, law, and medicine. It overlaps with Cosmos's professional publishing, particularly on Swiss academic and regulatory titles.
• Helbing Lichtenhahn Verlag: Helbing Lichtenhahn is a Basel-based Swiss legal publisher specializing in law, taxation, and public administration references. It directly competes with Cosmos in the Swiss legal and tax Fachmedien category.
• Schulthess Verlag: Schulthess is a Swiss publisher focused on legal, economic, and social sciences titles. Its catalog overlaps directly with Cosmos's Fachmedien division on Swiss tax, business law, and regulatory content.
• Beobachter Edition: Beobachter Edition is the publishing arm of the Swiss consumer magazine Beobachter, producing consumer-facing guides on legal, financial, and lifestyle topics for Swiss readers — overlapping with both Cosmos's consumer and professional-adjacent publishing.
• NZZ Libro: NZZ Libro is the book-publishing arm of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung group, publishing business, economics, and current-affairs titles for Swiss readers. It overlaps with Cosmos's professional non-fiction publishing, particularly in business and management.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/cosmosverlag
• Facebookfacebook.com/cosmosverlag
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/cosmos-verlag-ag

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Cosmos Verlag