Amazon fee calculator

How Amazon fees actually stack

On the default sale above — a $30 item, no shipping charged, $8 of goods, a $3.50 fulfillment fee, $1 of other cost, 15% referral, Professional plan at 100 orders a month — the referral fee and the plan fee take $4.90 ($4.50 referral plus $0.40 of the subscription), your own costs including fulfillment are $12.50, and you keep $12.60 per sale. At 100 orders that is $1,260.01 a month, and you need to charge at least $15.18 before the sale stops losing money.

1. Referral fee — usually 15%

Charged on the total sales price: the item price and any shipping the buyer pays. That last part is why "free shipping" is not free if you charge for it — the percentage follows the shipping too. The rate depends on the category you list in, from about 8% on some electronics to 45% on Amazon device accessories, with a minimum referral fee of $0.30 in the US. Enter your own rate above.

2. Amazon fulfillment fee — FBA, per unit

If Amazon stores, picks, packs and ships the unit, you pay a fulfillment fee set by size and weight tier, plus monthly storage and (for standard-size stock) an inbound placement fee. The $3.50 default is only an example for a small standard-size unit; it is not a quote. Selling merchant-fulfilled instead? Put your own postage and packing in that field — it is counted under "your costs" here, whichever way you ship.

3. The subscription — $39.99 a month, or $0.99 a sale

The Professional plan's $39.99 is due whether you sell or not, so it is a fixed cost that a slow month cannot avoid. The Individual plan charges $0.99 per item sold and nothing when nothing sells. The two cross over at about 41 items a month (39.99 ÷ 0.99): below that the Individual plan is cheaper on fees alone, above it the Professional plan is — and that comparison ignores the other Professional-plan benefits.

4. What is not in this number

Advertising, coupons and deals, returns and refund administration, long-term storage surcharges, and the referral fee on shipping labels bought through Amazon. Sales tax is collected and passed through, not your revenue. Enter ad spend and expected returns in the "storage / packaging / ads" box to keep the number honest.

Why the cheapest listings lose money

The fixed parts — $0.99 per item on the Individual plan, the $0.30 minimum referral fee, the per-unit fulfillment fee — do not shrink with the price. On a $10 item with a $3.50 fulfillment fee, a 15% referral fee and the $0.99 per-item plan fee, Amazon takes $5.99 of the $10 before your goods are paid for.

What the break-even price tells you

It solves the arithmetic backwards: the price at which revenue minus referral fee, fulfillment, plan fee and your costs is exactly zero. Any sale below that price is money out of your pocket. The target-margin price is the higher number you need if you want to keep a chosen share of revenue rather than just any profit — at these defaults, keeping 30% needs a price of $23.45.