Amazon FBA fees explained for first-time sellers
Amazon takes a referral fee and a fulfillment fee, then charges you storage and advertising on top. The first two are predictable. The last two are where first-year sellers lose money.
1. The referral fee
The standard referral fee is 15% of the total sales price, charged when the unit sells. There is a minimum of $0.30, which only matters on very cheap items. Some categories are deliberately cheaper — consumer electronics and several business categories sit at around 8% — and a few are higher.
Two details catch people out. The percentage applies to the total the buyer pays, so a Prime shipping charge that you are credited for is commissionable. And the referral fee is charged whether or not you made money on the unit: on a discount or a price war, it comes out of your cost.
2. The fulfillment fee
This is what Amazon charges to pick, pack and ship your unit, and it depends on the size tier and the weight of your product. It is not a percentage — it is a fixed amount per unit, so it hurts cheap items far more than expensive ones.
The practical consequence: a $9 product with a $4 fulfillment fee gives Amazon 44% of the sale before the referral fee is even added. The same product at $40 with the same fee gives Amazon 10%. Size tier, not price, is the thing to engineer — a slightly smaller box can move a product down a tier and change the fee permanently.
Because these tables change and vary by marketplace, do not guess. Amazon shows the exact fulfillment fee for your product in the fee preview inside Seller Central, and that is the number to enter in any calculator.
3. Storage
Storage is charged per cubic foot per month and rises in the run-up to the fourth quarter. It is not a per-sale cost, so the honest way to model it is to divide your expected monthly storage bill by your expected monthly units and enter that as a per-order cost. If you hold inventory for six months, the storage cost of a slow seller can quietly exceed the profit on it.
4. Advertising, the line that decides everything
PPC is why two sellers with identical products and identical fees have completely different results. Enter your ACOS — ad spend as a percentage of revenue — and watch the profit move.
A worked example
A product sells for $29.99. The referral fee at 15% is $4.50. The fulfillment fee for its size tier is $5.60, and the product costs you $7.00 landed.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Buyer pays | $29.99 |
| Referral fee (15%) | -$4.50 |
| FBA fulfillment fee | -$5.60 |
| Product cost | -$7.00 |
| Profit before advertising | $12.89 (43% margin) |
| PPC at 25% ACOS | -$7.50 |
| Net profit | $5.39 (18% margin) |
The same unit at a 45% ACOS makes almost nothing, and past roughly 43% it loses money on every sale. That is the number to know before you scale a campaign, not after.
How to use this
Put your own price, product cost and the exact fulfillment fee into the Amazon FBA calculator. It returns net profit per unit, the break-even price and the price you would need to hit a target margin — which is usually the most useful output, because it tells you what to do about a unit that is not working rather than just that it is not working.
If you also sell the same product on other platforms, the marketplace comparison tool prices it everywhere at once.