Key Takeaways
- Two fees apply to almost every sale. Amazon charges a selling plan fee ($39.99 a month on the Professional plan, or $0.99 per item on the Individual plan) plus a referral fee on each item sold.
- Referral fees depend on category. Amazon charges a percentage of the total sales price or a per-item minimum, whichever is greater, and its published category rates run from 5% to 45%.
- FBA adds a second layer. Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) charges a fulfillment fee per unit plus monthly storage, and can add aged inventory, inbound placement, returns processing and removal fees.
- Amazon changes fees often. Use the numbers here to understand how each fee works, then confirm your exact rates in Seller Central, the Revenue Calculator and your Fee Preview report.
- Fees are a per-product decision. The same fee stack can be fine on a small fast seller and ruinous on a large slow one, so model every product on its own.
Amazon seller fees in 2026 start with a selling plan (the Professional plan is $39.99 a month; the Individual plan is $0.99 per item sold) and a referral fee on every sale, which Amazon sets by category. If you use Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), you also pay a fulfillment fee per unit and monthly storage. Advertising and optional programs sit on top.
This guide walks through every fee type a brand is likely to meet on Amazon.com, what triggers it, and where to find your real number. Where Amazon publishes an amount on its own selling fees page, we quote it and say so. Where Amazon only publishes the amount inside Seller Central, or changes it during the year, we describe how the fee works and tell you where to check. We manage Amazon for product brands and run our own 3PL warehouse in Kansas City, so we see these fees from both the marketplace side and the warehouse side every week.
What fees does Amazon charge sellers in 2026?
Every Amazon seller pays some combination of the fees below. The first two apply to everyone. The rest depend on how you fulfill orders and which programs you use.
| Fee | Who pays it | How it is charged | 2026 amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Selling plan fee | Every seller | Monthly subscription (Professional) or per item sold (Individual) | $39.99 a month, or $0.99 per item (Amazon selling fees page) |
| Referral fee | Every seller | Percentage of the total sales price, or a per-item minimum, whichever is greater | Varies by category; published rates run from 5% to 45%, with a $0.30 minimum in most categories |
| Closing fee | Media sellers (books, music, video, software and similar) | Flat amount per media item sold, on top of the referral fee | $1.80 per item (Amazon selling fees page) |
| FBA fulfillment fee | Sellers using FBA | Per unit shipped, based on size, weight and price | Check the Revenue Calculator or Fee Preview report |
| Monthly storage fee | Sellers using FBA | Per cubic foot of your daily average inventory volume | Check Seller Central; rates differ by size and season |
| Other FBA fees | Sellers using FBA, when triggered | Aged inventory, inbound placement, returns processing, removal, disposal and liquidation | Check Seller Central |
| Advertising | Sellers who run Amazon Ads | Cost per click set by auction, within budgets you control | You set the budget |
| Optional program fees | Sellers who opt in | Per enrollment, per redemption or per event | Check Seller Central for each program |
Sources: amounts marked "Amazon selling fees page" come from sell.amazon.com/pricing, checked September 25, 2026. Everything else is described from Amazon's program pages, which name the fee types but send sellers to Seller Central for current rates.
How much does an Amazon seller account cost?
Amazon offers two selling plans. The choice is simple for a brand: if you expect to sell more than about 40 units a month, the Professional plan costs less than paying $0.99 on every item, and it unlocks the tools a brand needs.
| Individual plan | Professional plan | |
|---|---|---|
| Plan fee | $0.99 per item sold | $39.99 per month |
| Referral fees and other selling fees | Yes | Yes |
| Amazon Ads (Sponsored Products and more) | No | Yes |
| Bulk listing and reporting tools | Limited | Yes |
| Best for | Testing with a handful of sales | Any brand selling seriously |
The break-even math: $39.99 divided by $0.99 is about 40 items a month. Past that, Professional is cheaper, and in practice every brand we work with is on Professional because advertising and Amazon Brand Registry tools depend on it.
Amazon also advertises new seller incentives for brands, including 10% back on the first $50,000 in branded sales for eligible new sellers enrolled in Brand Registry. Read the eligibility terms in Seller Central before you count on it.
How do Amazon referral fees work?
The referral fee is Amazon's commission on each sale. Amazon charges a percentage of the total sales price, which includes the item price plus any shipping or gift wrap the buyer pays, or a minimum per item, whichever is greater. The percentage depends on the product category.
Examples from Amazon's published rate table
- Computers: 8%, with a $0.30 minimum per item.
- Clothing and Accessories: tiered by price, from 5% on items with a total sales price of $15.00 or less up to 17% on items over $20.00.
- Amazon Device Accessories: 45%, the highest rate on the table.
- Media: 15%, plus the $1.80 closing fee per item.
Some categories, like clothing, use price tiers, so a small price change can move a product into a different rate. When you price near a tier boundary, check which side of it you land on. The full, current table lives on Amazon's selling fees page and in Seller Central; always look up your exact category rather than using an average.
What a referral fee looks like on one product
A $30.00 product in a category that charges 15% pays a $4.50 referral fee. The same product in an 8% category pays $2.40. A $1.50 product in an 8% category would owe $0.12 on the percentage, so the $0.30 minimum applies instead. That is why very low-priced items lose a much larger share of revenue to fees.
What are the Amazon FBA fees in 2026?
With FBA, Amazon stores your inventory, then picks, packs and ships each order and handles customer service and returns. Amazon describes the costs in two main buckets, fulfillment and storage, plus several fees that apply only when triggered. Amazon publishes the fee types on its FBA pages and points sellers to the Revenue Calculator and Seller Central for current rates, because the amounts depend on each product's size, weight and price. Our FBA and fulfillment hub covers the operating side.
| FBA fee | What triggers it | What drives the amount |
|---|---|---|
| Fulfillment fee | Every unit Amazon ships | Product size tier, shipping weight and price |
| Monthly storage | Inventory held in Amazon's network | Daily average volume in cubic feet, size tier and time of year |
| Aged inventory fees | Units stored 181 days or more | How long units have been in storage and how much space they take |
| Inbound placement | Sending inventory to Amazon | How you split and route shipments into Amazon's network |
| Low inventory level fee | Running too little stock relative to your sales | Your days of supply against Amazon's threshold |
| Returns processing | Customer returns in certain categories or on products with high return rates | Product size and return volume |
| Removal, disposal and liquidation | Asking Amazon to send back, dispose of or liquidate units | Per unit, by size and weight |
Fulfillment fee
This is the main FBA charge: a per-unit fee that covers picking, packing, shipping, customer service and returns handling. Amazon sets it by size tier and shipping weight, and it also varies with price. Packaging dimensions matter as much as weight. A product that sits a fraction of an inch over a size tier boundary can pay a noticeably higher fee on every unit, which is why we check packaging before a product launches. Our guide to FBA size tiers and fee optimization goes deeper.
Monthly storage and aged inventory
Amazon charges storage every month based on the space your inventory occupies, calculated from your daily average volume in cubic feet. Amazon has historically charged higher rates from October through December, so fourth-quarter storage needs its own line in your plan. Units that sit 181 days or more also pick up aged inventory fees. Slow sellers pay storage again and again, which is the most common way we see FBA quietly erase a product's margin. Good inventory management is the fix.
Inbound placement and capacity
Amazon charges an inbound placement service fee tied to how your shipments are split across its fulfillment centers. Fewer, larger shipments to fewer locations usually cost more in placement fees than letting Amazon split them, so compare the options Amazon shows you when you build a shipment. Amazon also sets capacity limits on how much you can send in; our guide to planning around FBA capacity limits explains how brands handle them.
Low inventory, returns and removals
Amazon applies a low inventory level fee to some products when stock runs thin compared with recent sales, so running very lean to save on storage can backfire. Returns processing fees apply in certain categories and to products with high return rates. Removal and disposal orders are charged per unit. Check the current thresholds and rates in Seller Central, because Amazon adjusts these more often than the headline fees.
Prep and labeling
Amazon has stopped offering its own prep and labeling services to sellers in the US, so items that need poly bags, bubble wrap or labels have to arrive ready. That work now happens at your own facility or a 3PL, and it belongs in your per-unit cost. Our Kansas City warehouse does FBA prep for brands that would rather not do it in-house.
What do you pay if you ship your own orders?
With Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM), you or your 3PL store and ship orders. Amazon still charges the selling plan and referral fees, but not FBA fulfillment or storage fees. Your costs move to your warehouse: storage, labor, packaging, postage, returns and customer service.
Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) is FBM with the Prime badge. You ship from your own warehouse or a 3PL, but your account must pass a trial and keep meeting Amazon's standards for on-time delivery, valid tracking, cancellations and weekend shipping. Faster delivery usually means higher postage than standard FBM, and Amazon may apply program fees; check the SFP page in Seller Central. Our guide to Seller Fulfilled Prime with a 3PL covers the requirements.
Which one costs less depends on the product. To compare profit per unit for FBA, FBM and SFP side by side with your own numbers, use our FBA vs FBM vs Seller Fulfilled Prime profit calculator. For the decision itself, read our FBA vs FBM decision framework.
Not sure your fees are where they should be? Our Growth Diagnostic is a full audit across Amazon, your own site, TikTok Shop and other marketplaces. It covers fees, fulfillment method and advertising product by product, and ends with a 90-day roadmap. Its cost is credited to your first month if you work with us. Start with a strategy call.
What does advertising on Amazon cost?
Amazon Ads has no fixed fee. Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display charge per click, with the price set in an auction, and you control daily budgets and bids. Amazon DSP, its programmatic display and video platform, works differently and is usually bought with larger budgets.
Ad spend is often the second-largest cost after the product itself, so treat it as a fee per unit sold, not just a marketing line. The two measures to know are ACoS (advertising cost of sale: ad spend divided by ad-attributed sales) and TACoS (total advertising cost of sale: ad spend divided by all sales). Our guide to TACoS vs ACoS explains which one to manage to, and our PPC advertising hub covers campaign structure.
What optional program fees should brands budget for?
These fees only apply if you use the program. Amazon publishes current amounts in Seller Central and changes them from time to time.
| Program | How it is charged | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon Brand Registry | No Amazon enrollment fee | Requires a registered or pending trademark; unlocks A+ Content, Brand Stores, Sponsored Brands and brand protection tools |
| Amazon Vine | Enrollment fee per parent product | Gets early reviews from invited reviewers on eligible new products |
| Coupons | A fee per redemption plus the discount | Budget both the discount and the fee |
| Deals and Prime-exclusive promotions | A fee per deal or event plus the discount | Event fees can be significant during Prime Day and the fourth quarter |
| Refund administration fee | Charged when you refund an order | Amazon keeps part of the referral fee on refunded orders |
| High-volume listing fee | Monthly, on very large catalogs | Applies to sellers with a very large number of eligible listings that rarely sell |
How do you calculate your total Amazon fees per unit?
The fee that matters is not any single line. It is the full cost of getting one unit sold and delivered. Work it out per product in five steps:
- Start with the referral fee. Multiply the total sales price by your category's rate, and check it is above the per-item minimum.
- Add fulfillment. For FBA, use the fulfillment fee from your Fee Preview report. For FBM or SFP, use your warehouse or 3PL cost per order including postage.
- Add storage for the time a unit really sits. Monthly storage per unit times the months it takes to sell, with a higher rate for fourth-quarter inventory.
- Add inbound and prep, returns, and advertising per unit. Divide your monthly ad spend by units sold to get ad cost per unit.
- Divide profit by price. Price minus product cost minus every fee above is your contribution per unit. Compare the margin across products, not just the dollar amount.
Amazon's own Revenue Calculator estimates the Amazon side of this for any listed product. Our FBA fee calculator gives a quick estimate from size and weight, and the FBA vs FBM vs SFP profit calculator runs the full stack for all three fulfillment methods at once.
How can brands lower Amazon fees without hurting sales?
- Fix packaging before launch. Size tier drives the fulfillment fee on every unit. Trimming a box to drop a tier can matter more than any negotiation.
- Match inventory to sell-through. Send enough to avoid low inventory fees and stockouts, but not so much that units age past 181 days.
- Move the wrong products off FBA. Oversized, heavy, slow or custom products often keep more margin on FBM or Seller Fulfilled Prime.
- Check price tiers. In tiered categories, a price just over a boundary can raise the referral rate on the whole sale.
- Reconcile what you were charged. Compare the fees Amazon actually charged with your Fee Preview report. Wrong dimensions on file are a common and fixable source of overcharges, and lost or damaged FBA inventory can be eligible for reimbursement.
- Treat ad spend as a fee. Watch TACoS by product so advertising does not grow faster than the sales it creates.
What should manufacturers and CPG brands know about Amazon fees?
Manufacturers and consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands often come to Amazon from wholesale and retail, where the costs look different.
- Vendor Central is a different fee model. If you sell to Amazon as a first-party (1P) vendor, Amazon buys your inventory and the costs show up as negotiated terms, allowances and co-op rather than referral and FBA fees. The fees in this guide apply to Seller Central, the third-party (3P) model.
- Retail case packs rarely fit FBA economics. Budget for breaking cases, prep and labeling, and check how your packaging lands in Amazon's size tiers.
- Low-price, heavy items are the hardest to make work. Grocery and household products with a low price and a high weight feel referral minimums and fulfillment fees the most. Bundles and multipacks often fix the math.
- One inventory pool can cost less. If you also sell on Walmart Marketplace, TikTok Shop and your own Shopify site, a 3PL that serves every channel can reduce storage split across programs. See how we run multiple marketplaces as one team.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost to sell on Amazon in 2026?
At minimum, you pay a selling plan fee ($39.99 a month on the Professional plan or $0.99 per item on the Individual plan) and a referral fee on each sale, set by category. FBA sellers also pay a fulfillment fee per unit and monthly storage. Advertising and optional programs are extra.
What is the Amazon referral fee?
The referral fee is Amazon's commission on each item sold. It is a percentage of the total sales price or a per-item minimum, whichever is greater. Amazon's published category rates run from 5% to 45%, and the minimum is $0.30 in most categories.
How much are Amazon FBA fees?
FBA fees depend on each product's size tier, shipping weight and price, so there is no single number. The main charges are a per-unit fulfillment fee and monthly storage per cubic foot, plus aged inventory, inbound placement, low inventory, returns and removal fees when triggered. Use Amazon's Revenue Calculator or your Fee Preview report for your exact amounts.
Is the Amazon Professional plan worth it?
For a brand, yes. At $39.99 a month it costs less than the Individual plan's $0.99 per item once you sell about 40 units a month, and it is required for Amazon Ads and most brand tools.
Are FBM or Seller Fulfilled Prime cheaper than FBA?
Sometimes. They avoid FBA fulfillment and storage fees but add your own warehouse, labor and postage costs, and FBM gives up the Prime badge. Oversized, heavy, high-value and slow-moving products are where FBM and Seller Fulfilled Prime most often win. Compare them per product with a calculator and your real costs.
Where can I see the fees Amazon will charge me?
Seller Central shows your fees in the Fee Preview report, in the payments and transaction reports, and through the Revenue Calculator for any listed product. Amazon's public selling fees page lists the plan fees and the category referral table.