Quick Answer
Amazon seller fees start with your plan: $39.99 a month (Professional) or $0.99 per item sold (Individual), per Amazon’s fee schedule. Every sale also pays a referral fee, 15% in most categories. With FBA you add a fulfillment fee (from $2.43 per unit in 2026) plus a 3.5% surcharge. A $100 home product weighing just over a pound pays about $20.49 to Amazon outside the holiday peak.
Amazon doesn’t send you one bill. You pay a monthly plan, a cut of every sale, a fee for every unit Amazon ships, and monthly rent for the space your stock takes up. Then 2026 added a surcharge, new size tiers, and a holiday rate card that runs until January 14, 2027.
This guide adds it all up. It starts with the question most sellers actually have (how much does Amazon take per sale?), then goes through each fee with Amazon’s 2026 rates, what changed in 2026, and where sellers lose money without noticing.
About the Author: Diana Walsh writes for the SellerSonar editorial team about Amazon fulfillment, fees, and account health. She checks every rate in her articles against Amazon’s Seller Central help pages, and the worked examples against live listings we track.
How much does Amazon take per sale?
Here’s the short version: for most FBA products, Amazon takes 15% of the price plus a fulfillment fee. On a $100 item that usually lands around a fifth of the sale, according to Amazon’s 2026 rate cards.
Let’s do the math on a real-world shape of product. Take a $100 item in Home and Kitchen that ships as large standard size, weighing between 1 and 1.25 pounds. According to Amazon’s 2026 FBA fee rate card:
| Fee | Non-peak (April 17 to October 14, 2026) | Peak (October 15, 2026 to January 14, 2027) |
|---|---|---|
| Referral fee (15% of $100) | $15.00 | $15.00 |
| FBA fulfillment fee | $5.30 | $5.60 |
| 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge | $0.19 | $0.20 |
| Total to Amazon | $20.49 | $20.80 |
That’s 20.5% of the sale outside the holiday peak (since the surcharge started on April 17) and 20.8% during it, per Amazon’s rate card above, before storage and before any of the inventory fees covered later. Ship it yourself instead (FBM), and only the $15.00 referral fee goes to Amazon; the shipping and packaging cost is yours.
A cheaper product gives up a bigger share. On a $39.99 comforter set we track in SellerSonar, our free FBA calculator showed a $6.00 referral fee (exactly 15%) and a $9.84 FBA fee on October 19, 2026, peak season. That’s $15.84, or about 40% of the price, before the surcharge. Heavy, low-priced products get hit hardest because the fulfillment fee is set mostly by size and weight, while the referral fee shrinks with the price.
You can run any ASIN the same way in SellerSonar’s free FBA calculator. It’s the fastest way to see the referral and fulfillment fees for a product before you commit to stock.
Selling plan fees: Individual vs Professional
Every seller picks one of two plans. Per Amazon’s monthly subscription fee page and per-item fee page:
- Individual: no monthly fee, $0.99 for every unit sold, per Amazon
- Professional: $39.99 per month, no per-item fee
The break-even is simple. At 41 units a month, the Individual plan’s per-item fees ($40.59 at Amazon’s $0.99 rate) cost more than Professional, according to that math. Amazon’s fee schedule also says the subscription charge “does not apply when you do not have active listings in any country,” so a paused Professional account doesn’t keep paying.
The plans differ in more than price (Professional adds bulk listing tools, Amazon Ads, API access and what Amazon calls “eligibility for top placement on detail pages”), and we compare them side by side in Individual vs Professional seller plans.
Referral fees by category
The referral fee is Amazon’s commission on each sale, and it’s the fee that matters most for almost everyone. Per Amazon’s referral fee page, it’s a percentage of the “total amount paid by the buyer, including the item price and any delivery charges or gift wrapping charges,” not counting tax Amazon calculates. Amazon charges whichever is greater: the percentage or a minimum of $0.30 per item in most categories.
A few of the 2026 rates:
| Category | Referral fee |
|---|---|
| Home and Kitchen, Toys and Games, Sports and Outdoors, Office Products, Everything Else | 15% |
| Beauty, Health and Personal Care; Baby Products | 8% up to $10, 15% above |
| Grocery and Gourmet | 8% up to $15, 15% above (no minimum) |
| Clothing and Accessories | 5% up to $15, 10% from $15 to $20, 17% above $20 |
| Computers; Consumer Electronics | 8% |
| Electronics Accessories | 15% on the first $100, 8% on the rest |
| Furniture | 15% on the first $200, 10% on the rest |
| Jewelry | 20% on the first $250, 5% on the rest |
| Watches | 16% on the first $1,500, 3% on the rest |
| Amazon Device Accessories | 45% |
Watch the price thresholds. A shirt at $20.00 pays 10%; the same shirt at $20.01 pays 17% on the whole price, according to Amazon’s table. Pricing a cent under a threshold is one of the few fee cuts that costs you nothing.
Closing fee for media
Books, DVDs, music, software and video games pay one more fee. Amazon’s closing fee page sets it at $1.80 per unit sold, on top of the referral fee.
FBA fees in 2026
If Amazon stores and ships your product, you pay the FBA fulfillment fee on every unit sold. Amazon’s FBA fulfillment fee page says it “varies depending on an item’s category, size, and weight.” Price matters too in 2026: there are separate columns for items under $10, $10 to $50, and over $50.
A few rows from the non-peak 2026 rate card, per Amazon:
| Size tier and weight | Under $10 | $10 to $50 | Over $50 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small standard, 2 oz or less | $2.43 | $3.32 | $3.58 |
| Small standard, 6 to 8 oz | $2.66 | $3.54 | $3.80 |
| Large standard, 1 to 1.25 lb | $4.22 | $5.04 | $5.30 |
According to a footnote on Amazon’s rate cards, these rates don’t include the 3.5% surcharge. It’s easy to miss.
What changed on January 15, 2026
Amazon’s 2026 fee changes summary says FBA fees went up by “an average of $0.08 per unit sold.” The details:
- Small standard items priced $10 to $50 went up $0.25 per unit on average, per Amazon; large standard went up $0.05.
- Items over $50 went up $0.51 (small standard) and $0.31 (large standard) on average.
- Items under $10 get an average $0.86 discount compared with $10+ items (up from $0.77).
- The old Large Bulky tier split into Small Bulky and Large Bulky, with lower fees on average.
- Amazon also promised “no new FBA fee types in 2026.”
The 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge
Starting April 17, 2026, Amazon adds a 3.5% fuel and logistics-related surcharge to FBA fulfillment fees in the US and Canada, per its FBA fee page. It applies during peak season too.
On a $5.30 fee it’s about $0.19 per unit, according to Amazon’s 3.5% rate. Small, yes. On 10,000 units a year it’s roughly $1,900 that wasn’t in the 2025 math.
Peak fees: October 15, 2026 to January 14, 2027
Holiday rates are back from October 15, 2026 through January 14, 2027, according to Amazon. On the rows above, that means:
- Small standard, 6 to 8 oz, $10 to $50: $3.54 becomes $3.74, per Amazon’s peak rate card
- Large standard, 1 to 1.25 lb, over $50: $5.30 becomes $5.60
We saw it land. On October 16, 2026, the day after peak rates started, SellerSonar logged FBA fee increases on 11 listings we track. One phone case went from $3.54 to $3.74, exactly the rate-card jump for its tier.
A storage cabinet went from $60.88 to $65.45, per SellerSonar. Across a big catalog, that’s an easy change to miss until the statement arrives.
💡 Expert Tip: If you reprice for the holidays, reprice for the fee too. A $0.20 bump (per Amazon’s peak rate card) on a $25 product looks like nothing until you multiply it by your Q4 volume, and the peak rate card runs into the middle of January, after most holiday promotions end.
Storage, aged inventory and low-inventory fees
These are the fees that show up after launch, and they punish two opposite mistakes: holding too much stock, and holding too little.
Monthly storage. Per Amazon’s storage fee page, standard-size inventory costs $0.78 per cubic foot from January to September and $2.40 from October to December. That’s about 3.1 times more in Q4. Sellers whose stock sits for 22 weeks or more relative to sales also pay a storage utilization surcharge, from $0.44 up to $1.88 per cubic foot. New sellers, Individual sellers, and sellers with 25 cubic feet or less of daily volume are exempt from that surcharge.
Aged inventory surcharge. This used to be called the long-term storage fee. Amazon’s aged inventory page charges it on units stored 181 days or longer, on top of storage. Since January 16, 2026 there are two top tiers: 366 to 455 days costs $6.90 per cubic foot or $0.30 per unit (whichever is greater), and 456 days or more costs $7.90 or $0.35. Our guide to slow-moving inventory covers what to do before stock gets there.
Low-inventory-level fee. Run too lean and you pay this one. Per Amazon’s low-inventory-level fee page, it applies when your historical days of supply drop below 28, and since January 15, 2026 Amazon calculates it per seller-FNSKU rather than per parent ASIN. For a small standard item it’s $0.89 per unit under 14 days, $0.63 at 14 to 21 days, and $0.32 at 21 to 28 days. Grocery is exempt. (If you’re fuzzy on FNSKUs, our FNSKU guide explains them.)
Inbound placement and inbound defect fees
When you send stock in, you choose how it’s split. Per Amazon’s inbound placement page, sending everything to one location (“minimal shipment splits”) costs a per-unit fee, which went up about $0.05 for standard size in 2026. Sending it to several locations yourself (“Amazon-optimized splits”) costs nothing, but you need at least five identical cartons or pallets per item.
Shipments that never arrive, arrive late, or go to the wrong place now pay a single inbound defect fee of $0.60 per unit on average, per Amazon’s 2026 summary.
Other fees that catch sellers out
Most sellers never touch these, but the ones who do tend to find out from their statement:
- Refund administration fee. When you refund an order, Amazon gives back the referral fee minus this fee: the lesser of $5 or 20% of the referral fee for most products, and $0 for books, music, video and DVDs, per Amazon’s refund administration fee page.
- High-volume listing fee. $0.001 per active SKU above 1.5 million a month, per Amazon. Big catalogs only.
- Coupon fees. The variable coupon fee is capped at $2,000 per coupon for coupons created on or after November 5, 2025, per Amazon’s 2026 summary.
- Removal and disposal. In 2026 Amazon cut removal and disposal fees for standard-size aged items under 0.5 lb by $0.20 per unit, per the same summary. Cheaper to clear out than it was.
FBM costs: what you pay when you ship yourself
Fulfilled by Merchant skips every FBA line above. You still pay the plan fee and the referral fee, and the referral fee is calculated on the total the buyer paid, shipping included, per Amazon’s referral fee page. Then you pay your own carrier, packaging, and storage.
So FBM isn’t automatically cheaper. It’s cheaper when your own cost to store and ship a unit beats Amazon’s fulfillment fee plus storage. We run that comparison with real numbers in Amazon FBA vs FBM.
How to estimate your fees before you list
Two tools, both free:
- SellerSonar’s FBA calculator. Paste an ASIN or Amazon URL and you get the commission fee, the FBA fee, and a margin estimate. No account needed. Here’s how to use it step by step.
- Amazon’s Revenue Calculator in Seller Central, which Amazon updated with the 2026 peak rates and the surcharge, per its FBA fee page.
Whichever you use, check the size tier it assumes. A package that’s even slightly over a tier boundary pays the next tier’s fee on every unit.
🎯 Pro Insight: Run the calculator twice: once at your planned price and once at the price you’d drop to in a deal. Referral fees scale with price, but the FBA fee doesn’t, so the fee share of a discounted sale is always higher than it looks.
How to keep Amazon fees down
None of these are tricks. They’re just the places where Amazon’s own rate cards leave room:
- Price below a referral threshold when you’re close to one (like $20.00 in Clothing or $10.00 in Beauty, per Amazon’s referral table).
- Shrink the package. Size tier and weight drive the fulfillment fee, and Bulky items that can ship in their own packaging avoid the new packaging fee.
- Use Amazon-optimized splits when you can send five or more identical cartons per item, to skip the inbound placement fee.
- Keep 28+ days of supply on your sellers to avoid the low-inventory fee, without overstocking into aged inventory.
- Clear slow stock before 181 days, and before October, when storage triples.
So, how much does it cost to sell on Amazon?
For most FBA sellers in 2026, Amazon takes 15% plus a fulfillment fee on each sale, which lands around 20% of the price on a $100 item and closer to 40% on a heavy $40 one, according to Amazon’s 2026 rate cards and our calculator. Around that sit the monthly plan, storage, and the inventory fees that punish both too much and too little stock.
Three things to hold onto:
- Fees changed three times in 2026: new rates on January 15, a 3.5% surcharge from April 17, and peak rates from October 15 to January 14, 2027.
- The referral fee is the biggest line for most products, and its price thresholds are worth pricing around.
- Fees move per listing, not only when Amazon announces new rates. On October 10, 2026, SellerSonar logged one phone case’s FBA fee dropping from $3.40 to $2.48, five days before the peak rate change.
Final Expert Recommendations:
Before you order stock, run the ASIN through a fee calculator at both your list price and your deal price, and plan for the peak rate card if you’ll be selling between October 15 and January 14. After launch, watch your days of supply as closely as your price.
SellerSonar’s product monitoring alerts you when a listing’s FBA fee goes up or down, on the next scheduled check, so a fee change shows up as an alert instead of a surprise on your statement.
