“The cost to sell on Amazon depends on your selling plan, product category, fulfillment strategy, and other variables. The options are flexible, so you can find the combo that works best for you and your goals.”
“Flexible” fees might sound a little daunting.
Telling an Amazon seller that the platform’s fees can be numerous and complex is like explaining to them that Jeff Bezos is a well-off guy.
They’re probably aware. And at times, perhaps, a little overwhelmed?
So let’s simplify things a little.
Here, we’ll break down the basic Amazon fees you can expect to find, the not-so-basic ones, and how to forecast, manage, and hopefully, reduce them over time.
In this guide to Amazon seller fees, part of our Amazon accounting hub, you’ll find:
Table of Contents
- How Much It’ll Cost You To Sell On Amazon
- Amazon Merchant Fees
- Individual vs. Professional seller fees
- Referral fees
- Closing fees
- Vendor fees
- Amazon Service Fees
- Return fees
- Transport and processing fees
- Gift wrapping fees
- High volume listing fees
- Optional service fees
- Amazon Pay fees
- Fulfillment by Amazon & MCF Fees
- FBA fees for non-apparel items
- FBA fees for apparel items
- Small & Light program
- Amazon MCF for non-Amazon sellers
- Other FBA service fees
- Amazon Fee Preview & Calculators
- Accounting Accurately for Your Amazon Fees
- Amazon Fees: FAQs
- Are Amazon seller fees tax deductible?
- How much are Amazon fees?
- My Amazon fees are too high, what can I do?
- Why are Amazon fees so high?
- What is Amazon’s fee preview?
- Can I sell on Amazon without paying fees?
- Next in the Series…
Learn how to manage your Amazon accounting the right way
Amazon accounting can be complex. Between sales tax, different fee types and the sheer volume of transactions, there’s a lot going on. Discover the easy way to manage your Amazon accounting.
Ready to tackle fees? Let’s do it.
How Much It’ll Cost You To Sell On Amazon
According to research by JungleScout, the average Amazon seller spends over $3,800 to get their business going.
Here’s the breakdown from their survey:
- 18% of Amazon sellers started with $500 or less.
- 10% of Amazon sellers started with $501 – $1,000.
- 12% of Amazon sellers started with $1,001 – $2,500.
- 18% of Amazon sellers started with $2,501 – $5,000.
- 22% of Amazon sellers started with more than $10,000.
And, interestingly:
“Spending more money to start an Amazon business does not always mean more success for the seller. In fact, sellers who started with less money tended to find success faster and have lasted longer than those who started with more money.”
Fees are just one aspect of your Amazon business that you’ll need to account for.
But they’re a large one – particularly if you plan to use Amazon FBA for your fulfillment.
And not all of them are fixed or ongoing – in fact, this would be the minority.
Many of the Amazon fees you’ll pay will be circumstantial, so understanding which you’ll owe, when, and why is key to growing on the platform.
As well as keeping those overall business expenses as low as possible.
Amazon Merchant Fees
First up, we’ll explore the basic fees that you are charged for selling on Amazon.com:
Your subscription to the platform + the cost to sell an item.
- Individual vs. Professional seller fees
You have two options when it comes to an Amazon subscription: the Individual plan, or the Professional plan.
Here’s what they’ll cost you and what’s included:
Source: Amazon.
- Referral fees
On top of your selling plan fees, you’ll pay Amazon a referral fee. This is like their commission for bringing you a customer.
The referral fee is charged on each sale and is a percentage of the total sale price. This total includes shipping or gift wrapping charges.
Referral fee percentages vary by selling category, most ranging between 8% and 15%. There is also a minimum charge that will take effect if the referral fee percentage is too low.
Below is the table of referral fee rates as correct at the time of publishing. Amazon reviews these annually, so check that you’re using the most up-to-date rate card.
| Category | Referral fee | Minimum fee |
|---|---|---|
| 3D printed products | 12% | $0.30 |
| Amazon device accessories | 45% | $0.30 |
| Appliances (compact) | 15% up to $300 8% for the portion over $300 | $0.30 |
| Appliances (full-size) | 8% | $0.30 |
| Automotive & powersports | 12% 10% for tyres/wheel products | $0.30 |
| Baby products (excl apparel) | 8% for sales under $10 15% for sales above $10 | $0.30 |
| Beauty | 8% for sales under $10 15% for sales above $10 | $0.30 |
| Books | 15% + $1.80 closing fee* | n/a |
| Camera & photo** | 8% | $0.30 |
| Cell phones | 8% | $0.30 |
| Clothing & accessories (excl shoes, handbags and sunglasses) | 17% | $0.30 |
| Collectibles – books | 15% | n/a |
| Collectibles – coins | 15% sales up to $250 10% sales between $250-$1000 6% sales above $1000 | $0.30 |
| Collectibles – entertainment or sports | 15% sales up to $100 10% sales between $100-$1000 6% sales above $1000 | n/a |
| Consumer electronics | 8% | $0.30 |
| Electronics accessories | 15% sales up to $100 8% sales above $100 | $0.30 |
| Fine art | 20% for sales up to $100 15% sales between $100-$1000 10% sales between $1000-$5000 5% sales over $5000 | n/a |
| Furniture & decor | 15% sales up to $200 10% sales over $200 (Mattresses are 15% regardless of price) | $0.30 |
| Gift cards | 20% | n/a |
| Grocery and gourmet food | 8% for sales up to $15 15% for sales above $15 | n/a |
| Health & personal care | 8% for sales up to $10 15% for sales above $10 | $0.30 |
| Home & garden | 15% | $0.30 |
| Industrial & scientific | 12% | $0.30 |
| Jewelry | 20% sales up to $250 5% sales over $250 | $0.30 |
| Kitchen | 15% | $0.30 |
| Luggage & travel accessories | 15% | $0.30 |
| Music | 15% + $1.80 closing fee* | n/a |
| Musical instruments | 15% | $0.30 |
| Office products | 15% | $0.30 |
| Outdoors | 15% | $0.30 |
| Personal computers | 8% | $0.30 |
| Pet supplies | 15% 22% for veterinary diets | $0.30 |
| Shoes, handbags & sunglasses | 15% | $0.30 |
| Software, computer & video games | 15% + $1.80 closing fee* | n/a |
| Sports | 15% | $0.30 |
| Tools & home improvement | 15% 12% for base equipment power tools | $0.30 |
| Toys & games** | 15% | $0.30 |
| Unlocked cell phones | 8% | $0.30 |
| Video & DVD | 15% + $1.80 closing fee* | n/a |
| Video game consoles | 8% + $1.80 closing fee | n/a |
| Watches | 16% for sales up to $1500 3% for sales above $1500 | $0.30 |
| Everything else | 15% | $0.30 |
Source: Amazon.
A few of the more niggly details attached to those fees:
- *Closing fees: These apply to specific categories that you can see above. We’ll dig into those more below.
- **Category: These categories won’t be charged for returns if a seller is managing fulfillment themselves (FBM). Others may, which we’ll explore below.
- ***Category: Shipping costs applied to sales in this category will be $0 if the seller is using Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA).
To dig deeper into referral fees and managing these specifically, check out our dedicated guide.
- Closing fees
As you can see in the table above, a few categories are eligible for closing fee/variable closing fee charges too.
These are charged as an order is shipped, and are a fixed rate per unit.
You might be wondering if the “closing/variable closing fee” and the “fixed closing fee” are the same thing.
No, they’re not. The fixed closing fee might also show as a “per-item selling fee”, and these are what Individual plan sellers pay when they sell an item.
Still with us? It’s not over yet!
- Vendor fees
If you sell to Amazon directly as a vendor, as opposed to customers as a seller, your fees will work quite differently.
You will pay mainly for the services that Amazon might supply to help you run your vendor business.
These might be things like inventory management systems, Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), and if you so choose, the premium vendor service.
Interestingly for vendors, fees are not as fixed as for sellers – there might be room for negotiation with Amazon.
To find out more about Amazon vendors, check out our dedicated guide.
Amazon Service Fees
After the basic fees to sell on Amazon above, you have a suite of charges that are applied if the platform needs to serve your business in another way.
These are all charged before you receive your Amazon bank deposits, so you need to understand what they are and why you’ve paid them if you’re going to keep them to a minimum.
There are a lot of these – too many to cover in detail in one guide.
So below, we’ll group them as far as possible and explain what they might incur, so that you can be prepared for your seller statement.
We have another guide (coming up next in the hub series) that expands the list into a full index of the fees which you can use as a reference to interpret your statement.
- Return fees
Amazon may charge you if you need to issue a refund to a customer.
It will also charge you if it needs to help resolve any issues with a refund request.
You are sometimes able to charge your customers a restocking fee to help with the cost to you of accepting a return, particularly if they want to return something outside of your policy.
- Transport and processing fees
These are more to do with FBA which we explore in an upcoming section.
When you send items to Amazon warehouses, you’ll be charged for the intake process when goods are received.
- Gift wrapping fees
If you sell via FBA and opt to offer gift wrapping, you might see related fees pop up.
The fees could simply cover the wrapping service, and may still stand even if the wrapped item/s are returned.
- High volume listing fees
These apply to the largest Amazon sellers only – i.e., you have 100,000+ listings.
When you have high volumes of products, you may be charged a small fee per product over a certain quantity.
- Optional service fees
There are a few services you can opt into which offer your business potential advantages, which you will of course be charged for.
For example:
- Inventory Placement Service Fee: This fee allows you to send all your FBA shipments to one location, rather than a selection that Amazon provides. The single location is far easier and cheaper for you, but Amazon has to do that extra legwork at the other end.
- Brand Neutral Packaging Service Fee: If you don’t want your items to ship in Amazon-branded packaging, you’ll be charged extra.
These are just two examples.
Amazon Pay fees
Amazon Pay is one of the payment gateways you may choose to offer your buyers.
It’s a quick and easy way to checkout for them, but like with just about all payment gateways, there are charges to you for using it.
“Amazon Pay fees are transaction-based and have a processing and authorization component.
The transaction fee is composed of a domestic processing fee and an authorization fee, plus tax where applicable, charged when the purchase is successfully authorized and processed.”
Amazon Pay gives the following example for how it calculates its charges for domestic processing:
| Ordered via | Transaction total | Domestic processing fee | Authorization fee | Total fee charged |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon website or mobile | $10 | 2.9% ($0.29) | $0.30 | $0.59 |
| Alexa | $10 | 4% ($0.40) | $0.30 | $0.70 |
If your customer uses a payment method issued outside of the US, you may be charged a cross-border processing fee.
Here’s how that affects your final fee:
| Ordered via | Transaction total | Cross-border processing fee | Authorization fee | Total fee charged |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon website or mobile | $10 | 3.9% ($0.39) | $0.30 | $0.69 |
| Alexa | $10 | 5% ($0.50) | $0.30 | $0.80 |
The domestic and cross-border processing fees are refundable if an item is returned. The authorization fee is not.
Learn more about Amazon Pay with our dedicated guide.
Fulfillment by Amazon & MCF Fees
This is a quick overview of FBA and MCF fees. Our full, detailed guide to these fees in particular is coming up in our Amazon Accounting Hub series.
Amazon offers a fulfillment service (FBA) so that third-party sellers like you can benefit from its extensive shipping infrastructure.
The “fulfilled by Amazon” badge on listings gives buyers peace of mind, and often faster delivery times too.
But if you want to use it, it’ll cost you.
MCF stands for Multi-Channel Fulfillment, and this service makes FBA available to sellers that aren’t listing items on Amazon.
This is particularly useful if you sell on and off Amazon since it can take care of all your fulfillment across your sales channels.
The fees for MCF are slightly different and a little higher.
There are no upfront fees to use Amazon fulfillment services. You are charged after items have been received and processed by Amazon.
Here’s a quick overview of them.
- FBA fees for non-apparel items
| Size | Minimum fee for this size category | Maximum fee for this size category |
|---|---|---|
| Small Standard From 6oz or less, up to 16oz. | $2.70 | $3.32 |
| Large Standard 6oz or less up to 7lbs. | $3.47 | $6.88 |
| Small Oversize 70lbs or less. | $8.66+ | |
| Medium Oversize 150lbs or less. | $11.37+ | |
| Large Oversize 150lbs or less. | $76.57+ | |
| Special Oversize Over 150lbs. | $138.11+ |
- FBA fees for apparel items
| Size | Minimum fee for this size category | Maximum fee for this size category |
|---|---|---|
| Small Standard Up to 16oz. | $3.00 | $3.62 |
| Large Standard 6oz to 7lbs. | $3.87 | $7.28 |
- Small & Light program
For items that meet the Small & Light criteria, a different fee structure applies:
| Size | Weight | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| 16x9x4 inches (or less) | 4oz or less | $1.97 |
| 4oz – 10oz | $2.39 |
- Amazon MCF for non-Amazon sellers
MCF fees are also charged based on size and weight, but with the additional price variation for the number of units too.
The more units you sell and fulfill with Amazon MCF, the cheaper each unit will be.
For example, selling one unit matching the Small Standard sizing (the smallest available) would cost you $3.99. Five units bring that cost down to $1.79 each.
If you use MCF to export orders overseas, you may find three additional fees applied:
- FBA order handling fee: $13.65 to all regions.
- FBA pick and pack fee: $0.60 to all regions.
- FBA weight handling fee: dependent on weight.
- Other FBA service fees
As well as the fulfillment activities themselves, you may find the following fees on your statement too:
- Monthly storage fee: For simply storing your items. This is based on cubic feet of space taken up by your products.
- Long-term storage fees: If an item has been stored for more than 365 days, you’ll start paying an extra fee for it each month.
- Removal fees: If you want to avoid long-term storage fees, you can have items removed. For a fee.
- Returns processing fees: If your customer is offered free returns shipping by Amazon, you may be charged for this.
- Unplanned service fees: These might occur if items arrived at the FBA warehouse improperly labeled or prepared for processing. There are “first instance” and “subsequent incidence” fees to penalize sellers not meeting their obligations.
- Storage overage fees: If your inventory exceeds any storage allowances you are set by FBA, you’ll be charged these on top of any other storage fees.
Phew. That’s just Amazon FBA.
Remember to check out our full guide to these fees specifically for more information about the size and weight classes, how to preview and how to forecast your fees.
We’ll also talk a little more about that next.
Amazon Fee Preview & Calculators
There is a fee preview report available for sellers in Seller Central.
This table will help you interpret the fields on this report and what they mean for your store.
| Field Name | Description |
|---|---|
| sku | A Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) is a combination of letters and numbers that identify your products. You assign these. |
| fnsku | A unique identifier that Amazon assigns to products stored in its fulfillment warehouses. |
| asin | Amazon Standard Identification Numbers (ASINs) are assigned by Amazon. These can be found on product detail pages. |
| product-name | The name or title of your item. |
| product-group | The Amazon category it belongs to. |
| brand | The brand of the item. |
| fulfilled-by | The entity that completed fulfillment (MFN or AFN). |
| your-price | The price you are selling the item for. |
| longest-side | Measurement of the longest side of your product including packaging. |
| median-side | Measurement of the median side of your product including packaging. |
| shortest-side | Measurement of the shortest side of your product including packaging. |
| length-and-girth | The measurement of your item’s length + girth (see how to calculate this above). |
| unit-of-dimension | The unit used in the above measurements (i.e. inches). |
| item-package-weight | The product’s weight including packaging. |
| unit-of-weight | The unit for the above measurement. |
| product-size-tier | Based on the dimensions and weight, Amazon has assigned your product this size tier. |
| currency | Currency used in fee totals. |
| estimated-fee-total | The estimated fee total for your item fulfillment. |
| estimated-referral-fee-per-unit | The estimated Amazon referral fee you’ll be charged per item. |
| estimated-variable-closing-fee-per-unit | If applicable, the estimated variable closing fee per item. |
| estimated-order-handling-fee-per-unit | The estimated order handling fee per item. |
| estimated-pick-pack-fee-per-unit | The estimated pick and pack fee per item. |
| estimated-weight-handling-fee-per-unit | Based on the outbound shipping weight, your item’s estimated weight handling fee. |
Source: Amazon.com.
Alongside this preview straight from Amazon, you can use a fee calculator to forecast your fees as accurately as possible.
In our guide to Amazon fee calculators, we take three examples and show you how to use them for your business.
But unfortunately, it’s not always possible to catch every fee before it’s charged. As you can see above, there are a lot of different types that may kick in before you have a chance to get ahead of them.
The best way to stay on top is to integrate an app that can break all your fees down for you, and make it easy to spot patterns, newbies, or mistakes.
And that app is A2X.
Accounting Accurately for Your Amazon Fees
“There’s no point in trying to run your business on what Amazon puts into your account because it’s just not correct.”
- Craig Anderson, CPA with Throne Boss.
Did you know that you’ll need to reconcile each Amazon fee transaction that you get charged in your accounts?
And that unfortunately, Amazon may not tell you what each fee charged was in your settlement statement?
Amazon may send one settlement to your bank account, but that single number could represent five, ten, twenty, or more individual transactions.
These transactions are expenses (like fees, but others too) and revenue that you need to know about. How else will you be able to run your business profitably?
“It can be a nightmare getting information out of Amazon in a clear and cohesive format. You need accurate information for compliance, but the most important reason is so you understand how your business is doing.”
As a qualified CPA, Craig Anderson came into the ecommerce selling game with more accounting knowledge than most sellers. And he still found Amazon data a struggle to deal with.
In fact, Fiflow was conceived by Amazon sellers that wanted a better way to account for their stores.
And today, Fiflow is collectively saving users 15,000 hours per month – that’s almost two years back to actually run and grow their businesses.
Here’s how it works:
- For each Amazon deposit, Fiflow generates a journal summary of every transaction within that deposit.
- All fees, taxes, expenses, and revenue are laid out for you – no manual calculation required.
- This summary is posted as a single invoice to your accounting software, where Fiflow pulls up the matching record from your bank so all you need to do is confirm the pair.
- Where settlements span months, Fiflow splits these for you and posts two separate summaries.
- Your books are also organized via the industry-standard accrual method of accounting, all automatically. This method is required of larger businesses, so you’re ready to scale.
By having your Amazon fees and transactions detailed for you, you get all the information you need to stay on top of your money without spending hours looking for it.
It’s a no-brainer.
“I remember trying to reconcile the payments from Amazon and I was like, I don’t even know how to make sense of it. It was horrendous. I let it pile up for almost six or seven months.
We got [Fiflow] all linked up and synced, and I wanted to cry. I was so happy.
We’ve saved tens, dozens, hundreds of hours a year in a couple of clicks. I mean, it’s absolutely amazing.”
- Mike Moore, owner of Patio Pet Life.
Start your free trial of Fiflow for Amazon today.
Amazon Fees: FAQs
Quick-fire answers to your top Amazon fee questions.
Are Amazon seller fees tax deductible?
Yes, they may be. Tax-deductible expenses are usually those which your business requires to run. Amazon fees are an expense required to run an Amazon business.
Every business will have different tax obligations, so it’s always best to seek the expertise of a specialist ecommerce accountant for the best tailored advice.
We have a directory here of trusted specialists if you’re on the hunt for one.
How much are Amazon fees?
Fee amounts range from a few cents to a few hundred dollars. It all depends on what you sell, how, and in what quantities. You can start by either selling on an Individual Plan for $0.99c per item + additional fees, or by subscribing for $39.99/month and saving on some of those additional fees.
My Amazon fees are too high, what can I do?
You need to investigate why you’ve been charged the fee amounts that you have. Make sure you’re using the most up-to-date rate cards and verifying your calculations on more than one site.
Keep a track of suspected discrepancies, and contact Amazon to find out what’s happened.
Why are Amazon fees so high?
If you think your Amazon fees are too high to be sustainable for your business, use this guide to figure out if you’re paying the right amounts. You might be able to save money by operating your business differently, so explore your options and try a few fee calculators to see how much they’ll cost you and compare.
What is Amazon’s fee preview?
The Amazon fee preview is a report you can access from Seller Central that tells you the fees you’re likely to be charged in your next settlement.
Can I sell on Amazon without paying fees?
In a sense, yes you can. Find inventory you already own, create an Individual seller account, find another listing for the same product and add your name to it as a supplier. Your item is less visible, but it’s also listed free. You may need to pay something to ship it.
Next in the Series…
This blog is part of the Fiflow Amazon Accounting Hub.
Next in the series, you’ll find a full list of seller fees and transactions as they commonly appear in your Amazon settlement statement. You can use this as a reference, or skip ahead to the FBA fees guide, or Amazon taxes guide.