Amazon FBA Fees Breakdown: What Every Seller Pays
Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) handles storage, packing, shipping, and customer service for your products. In exchange, Amazon charges multiple fees that can significantly eat into your margins. Knowing these fees upfront helps you decide whether FBA makes sense for your product.
The 3 Main FBA Fee Types
1. Referral fees by category: flat rates and price bands
Amazon charges a referral fee on every sale, calculated as a percentage of the total sale price (including shipping). The rate depends on your product category. Most common categories fall in the 15% range. Several categories are priced in bands rather than at a single rate, and Amazon applies a minimum referral fee of $0.30 on most of them, which this table and our calculator do not model. Media items, which is to say books, DVDs, music, software and video, carry a further $1.80 closing fee per item on top of the referral fee. Because the calculator does not model that charge, media categories are left out of its category list rather than shown at a rate that would understate the real cost.
| Category | Referral Fee |
|---|---|
| Everything Else, and most named categories including Home and Kitchen, Toys and Games, Sports and Outdoors, Office Products, Tools and Home Improvement | 15% |
| Computers, Consumer Electronics, Video Game Consoles | 8% |
| Tires | 10% |
| Automotive and Powersports; Business, Industrial and Scientific Supplies | 12% |
| Gift Cards | 20% |
| Amazon Device Accessories | 45% |
| Clothing and Accessories | 5% up to $15.00, 10% above $15.00 through $20.00, 17% above $20.00 |
| Grocery and Gourmet | 8% up to $15.00, 15% above |
| Beauty, Health and Personal Care | 8% up to $10.00, 15% above |
| Jewelry | 20% on the portion up to $250.00, 5% on the portion above |
2. FBA Fulfillment Fee - $3.22 to $11.00+ per unit
This covers picking, packing, shipping, and handling. The fee depends on the product's size tier and weight. Standard-size items (under 20 lbs, within certain dimensions) are cheaper; oversize items cost significantly more.
| Size Tier | Weight | Fulfillment Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Small standard | Up to 1 lb | $3.22–$3.86 |
| Large standard | 1–3 lb | $4.08–$5.90 |
| Large standard | 3–20 lb | $5.90–$9.73 |
| Small oversize | Up to 70 lb | $9.73+ |
The 2026 fuel and logistics surcharge - 3.5%
Effective April 17, 2026, Amazon added a 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge on FBA fulfillment fees in the US and Canada (Multi-Channel Fulfillment and Buy with Prime followed on May 2). The surcharge is calculated on the fulfillment fee, not your sale price, so on a $4.75 fulfillment fee it adds about $0.17 per unit. Amazon has not announced an end date, so build it into your margins and confirm the exact figure in Seller Central.
3. Monthly Storage Fee - $0.87 to $2.40 per cubic foot
Amazon charges monthly fees for storing your inventory in their warehouses. Rates are higher during Q4 (October–December) due to holiday season demand for warehouse space.
| Period | Standard Size | Oversize |
|---|---|---|
| January – September | $0.87/cu ft | $0.56/cu ft |
| October – December | $2.40/cu ft | $1.40/cu ft |
A $29.99 Kitchen Gadget on FBA
Referral fee: 15% × $29.99 = $4.50
FBA fulfillment fee: ~$4.75 (large standard, 1.5 lb)
Fuel & logistics surcharge: 3.5% × $4.75 = $0.17
Monthly storage: ~$0.15 (small item)
Total Amazon fees: $9.57
Revenue after fees: $29.99 - $9.57 = $20.42
Profit after COGS: $20.42 - $8.00 = $12.42
Net margin: 41%
FBA vs FBM: When Cheaper Postage Changes the Answer
With FBM you handle storage and shipping yourself. You still pay the referral fee, but you avoid the fulfillment fee, the surcharge on it, the storage allocation and the inbound shipping, and you take on postage, packaging and your own time instead. Whether that trade is worth it is not a matter of taste. It comes down to one number: what postage actually costs you.
Here is the same product run both ways. Every figure below is an assumption chosen to make the comparison concrete, not a quoted Amazon rate. Assume a $30.00 selling price, no buyer-paid shipping, and the same number of units sold either way.
| Per sold unit | FBA scenario | FBM scenario |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $30.00 | $30.00 |
| Product cost | -$8.00 | -$8.00 |
| Assumed referral fee, 15% | -$4.50 | -$4.50 |
| Assumed FBA base fulfillment fee | -$4.00 | - |
| Separately modeled 3.5% surcharge on that base | -$0.14 | - |
| Inbound shipping | -$0.75 | - |
| Assumed storage allocation per sold unit | -$0.12 | - |
| Outbound postage | - | -$5.00 |
| Packaging | - | -$0.40 |
| Handling: 4 minutes at $18/hour | - | -$1.20 |
| Modeled contribution per unit | $12.49 | $10.90 |
At $5.00 postage, FBA wins by $1.59 a unit. But postage is the only input that moved, so the comparison can be solved rather than guessed. Holding everything else fixed, FBM contribution is $15.90 minus postage. It ties this FBA scenario at $3.41 postage. Below that, FBM is ahead: at $3.25 it contributes $12.65, which is $0.16 more per unit.
FBM contribution = $30.00 - $8.00 product - $4.50 referral - $0.40 packaging - $1.20 handling - postage = $15.90 - postage
Set that equal to the FBA figure: $15.90 - postage = $12.49, so postage = $3.41
So the question is not "is FBA good", it is "can I buy postage for this unit for less than $3.41".
Be careful which number you compare against what. With packaging held at $0.40 and handling at $1.20 per unit, FBM matches this FBA scenario at $3.41 of postage. That is $5.01 for postage, packaging and handling together. Compare a postage quote with $3.41, or a quote that already includes all three costs with $5.01. The $0.40 and the $1.20 are already inside the $3.41 derivation, so counting them again against it would understate FBM twice over.
Change any assumption and the threshold moves with it. A heavier unit with a $7 fulfillment fee pushes the break-even postage up, so FBM wins more easily. Four minutes of handling at $30 an hour instead of $18 pushes it down. Run your own numbers in the FBA profit estimator for the FBA side, then subtract your postage cost, holding the other listed costs fixed, for the FBM side.
What this comparison leaves out matters as much as what it includes. It excludes shared overhead, the selling-plan fee, taxes, advertising, returns and the situational charges listed further down. It holds sales volume constant, which is a convenience, not a prediction: losing the Prime badge can change conversion, delivery speed and return behaviour, and none of that shows up in a per-unit contribution figure. The $4.00 base fulfillment fee is an assumption for illustration, not a universal Amazon tariff, and it excludes the surcharge, which is modeled on its own line. If a seller supplies a fee that already includes the surcharge, it belongs in the calculator's exact-fee field instead.
Hidden Costs to Watch
- Long-term storage fees: Inventory stored over 181 days incurs surcharges. Over 365 days = $6.90/cu ft or $0.15/unit (whichever is greater).
- Removal/disposal fees: Getting your inventory back costs $0.97–$1.98 per unit.
- Returns processing: For categories with free returns, Amazon charges you a return processing fee equal to the fulfillment fee.
- Inbound shipping: You pay to ship products to Amazon's warehouses. This is not included in the FBA fee.
- Advertising (PPC): Most competitive categories require $0.50–$3.00+ per click in sponsored ads to gain visibility.
Should You Use FBA?
There is no margin percentage that answers this for every product, and we are not going to invent one. The comparison above shows why: the same product can favour FBA or FBM depending on a single input, your postage cost, holding the other listed costs fixed. What is worth checking before you commit inventory is narrower and more answerable. Can you ship the unit for less than the break-even postage your own numbers produce? Does the product turn over fast enough that the aged-inventory surcharge never applies? And is the Prime badge doing enough for your conversion rate to be worth paying for? Model your specific product in the Amazon FBA profit estimator, then answer those three questions with your own figures.
The Fees This Page Does Not Cover
The referral, fulfillment, and storage tables above cover what every FBA seller pays on every unit. Amazon also charges several situational fees that only show up under specific conditions, and they surprise a lot of new sellers:
- Inbound placement service fee. When you send inventory in, you either split it across several fulfillment centers yourself or pay a per-unit fee to ship everything to one location and let Amazon spread it. Choose the single-destination option and this fee lands on every unit.
- Low-inventory-level fee. Keep less than about 28 days of supply on hand relative to your trailing sales and Amazon adds a per-unit charge on top of the fulfillment fee. It bites sellers who run lean to dodge storage fees.
- Aged-inventory surcharge. Stock sitting more than 181 days picks up a surcharge, and past 365 days it jumps to $6.90 per cubic foot or $0.15 per unit, whichever is greater. At that point a removal order usually costs less than one more month of storage.
- Returns processing fee. In categories with free customer returns, such as apparel and shoes, Amazon charges a processing fee on each return that roughly mirrors the fulfillment fee. A 20% return rate quietly raises your average fulfillment cost per net sale.
Referral Fee on Shipping
In most categories the referral percentage applies to the total the buyer pays, meaning item price plus any shipping you charge, not the item price alone. If you charge shipping separately, Amazon takes its cut of that too.
Say you list an item at $24.99 and charge $5.00 shipping in a 15% category. The referral fee is 15% of $29.99, which is $4.50, not 15% of $24.99 ($3.75). That extra $0.75 per unit is easy to miss when you set prices. Etsy works the same way - its 6.5% transaction fee also applies to item price plus shipping, which we break down in our Etsy fees guide.
Keeping Storage Costs Down
Storage looks cheap next to referral and fulfillment fees until the fourth quarter. From October through December the standard-size rate jumps from $0.87 to $2.40 per cubic foot, nearly triple, just as sellers stock up for the holidays.
January through September: 20 cu ft x $0.87 = $17.40/month
October through December: 20 cu ft x $2.40 = $48.00/month
Q4 total: $144.00, versus about $52 for the same inventory in any other three-month stretch
Practical moves: send holiday inventory in waves, mark down or remove anything that has not sold in six months, and for 2026 treat any unit you do not expect to sell within 90 days as a removal candidate before October 1. Then check the storage line in our Amazon FBA fee calculator against the actual charges in your Seller Central statements.
FBA vs Shipping It Yourself
FBM (Fulfilled by Merchant) beats FBA more often than the conventional wisdom suggests. If your product is heavy or bulky relative to its price, sells only a few units a week, or needs special handling, Amazon's fulfillment fee plus the 3.5% surcharge plus storage can cost more than a regional carrier charges you door to door. The honest trade-off: you give up the Prime badge, which usually means lower conversion, and you handle customer service and returns yourself. A fair test is to run the math both ways, FBA fees against your own packaging, postage and time, and to work out the postage figure at which the two are equal, as the worked comparison above does. That threshold is specific to the product; a flat rule of thumb about a dollar a unit is not.