Amazon seller fees in the big overview: These costs you have to expect when you sell on Amazon Marketplace

The prospect sounds promising: in return for appropriate Amazon seller fees, the ecommerce platform offers online retailers in almost every sector and of every size the chance to present their own products to an audience of millions of users ready to buy. In contrast to your own online store, you do not have to provide the necessary store infrastructure or an adequate flow of visitors. But what seller costs and fees does Amazon really charge when selling your own items via their world-famous marketplace? How are they made up, and what are the differences between product categories and countries? Are there exceptions and special regulations that one should know about before starting to sell? In short: Is selling on Amazon worth it for me at all?

We will clarify all these and other questions for you over the course of this article. First, we will explain the basic principle behind Amazon’s marketplace model and show you how the various seller fees are created. Subsequently, we will go into the differences, advantages and disadvantages of the two rate models “Individual seller” and “Professional seller”, so that you can easily find the right option for you. In order to correctly assess the actual costs incurred, we follow with a great overview of the various sales commissions, which sometimes differ considerably from category to category, as well as the fees for Amazon’s popular fulfillment program “FBA”, which e.g. incurs an Amazon FBA fee. Last but not least, we provide you with a number of tips and tricks that should make your preparation and entry into the world’s largest online marketplace a little easier. Have fun reading!

By the way: If you already have your own online store, this is not an obstacle on the way to successfully selling your products on Amazon. Quite the contrary: In combination with our listing tool magnalister, you find ideal conditions for an easy and cost-efficient start, as we will also show you over the course of this article.

More about the core features of the magnalister marketplace interface and the possibility to test the plugin in a 30 day free trial with full functionality can be found here:

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Please note: The information and fees mentioned in this article are as of January 2021, unless explicitly noted. Please note that Amazon may adjust both base fees and referral fee percentages and other seller fees at any time. To be on the safe side, you should check the corresponding information on your own.

Table of Contents

The rationale behind Amazon’s marketplace model: How Amazon seller fees are composed

Basic and professional seller account in comparison: Which plan is the right one for you?

These different percentage seller fees apply when selling your products through the Amazon marketplace

Amazon FBA: Additional costs from using Amazon’s popular shipping and fulfillment service

Tips and tricks for dealing with Amazon seller fees

Bonus tip: With magnalister, you can link well-known online marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay directly to your own online store – and benefit from increased efficiency in multi-channel sales of your products

Conclusion: With appropriate advance planning, costs for selling are not an obstacle for success on Amazon

The rationale behind Amazon’s marketplace model: How Amazon seller fees are composed

Amazon’s business activities are no longer limited to pure online trading and the resulting costs for selling on the platform. For years, other business areas such as the cloud computing service “Amazon Web Services” or their advertising business with third-party providers have been on the rise. But as much as Amazon is transforming itself into a technology company the likes of Google or Facebook: The retail business is and will remain (for the foreseeable future) the basis of the various corporate activities – and thus the backbone of the US online giant.

As is well known, one man’s joy is another man’s sorrow. But as they say: “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch” – in other words: everything has its price. Basically, the Amazon seller fees are made up of both fixed amounts and variable portions per unit sold. Depending on the chosen tariff – we will discuss both alternatives in detail in the following chapter – either a fixed monthly fee of 39 USD or a flat rate (0.99 USD) is charged for each item sold.

In addition, percentage Amazon seller fees apply, which vary with the online giant’s own product categories and currently range between 7 and 15 percent in the German marketplace. An exception is the sale of accessories for in-house devices such as the voice assistant “Alexa”, which is charged at a whopping 45 percent. Since mid-2019, there has also been a minimum sales charge of 0.50 USD, which applies to most categories.

In addition to this, other costs and fees may apply under certain circumstances, for example in connection with the sale of media items or the use of logistics and fulfillment services such as Amazon FBA. By the way, you can find out why the latter are not synonymous with additional costs per se, but can rather make your own business leaner and more profitable in our separate article “Success with FBA“.

In short: Amazon’s fee structure is not particularly complicated in itself, but can quickly become opaque for beginners and in connection with different product types or fulfillment programs. Of course good preparation can help. There are also useful tools such as the Amazon fee calculator, which helps you determine the cost to sell on Amazon. We will present these tools over the course of this article.

Basic and professional seller account in comparison: Which plan is the right one for you?

As already mentioned in the beginning, there are two plans available to you as an Amazon merchant that incur different Amazon seller costs, namely individual seller (also called “Basic Seller Account”) and professional seller (also called “Professional Seller Account”). The difference between the two options lies in the cost structure and range of features that the plans offer you as a seller. The respective target groups are clearly demarcated.

Risk-free option for newcomers: The Amazon basic seller account

Contrary to the initial belief of many newcomers, the basic seller account already offers all the necessary features to sell your own products to Amazon customers in Germany and abroad. In particular, you get access to the sales platform, to which you can add your own product listings via your seller account (“Amazon Seller Central”). You and your customers also have access to numerous services such as the online payment feature “Amazon Pay” or the popular fulfillment service Amazon FBA, which we will refer to separately below.

In connection with the sales tariff for individual sellers certain Amazon seller fees arise. You do not pay any monthly basic fee to Amazon, but you do pay the aforementioned flat rate of 0.99 USD per product sold, which is payable in addition to the referral fee. Of course, this offers the great advantage of a relatively risk-free start in the marketplace, since you only make payments when you generate sales. In that sense, there is no sales pressure for you, if you (initially) decide for the basic seller account.

On the other hand, depending on the prices at which you can sell your products, as well as the product category, additional costs of almost 1,20 USD may well have a considerable impact on your respective margin. In addition, as an individual seller, you are not qualified to sell products in restricted categories (learn more about product category restrictions here).

The basic tariff is therefore primarily suitable for merchants who only plan to sell a few products and who want to avoid the fixed cost risk when paying a monthly fee. If, for example, your sales figures cannot be reliably estimated at the beginning, it may of course make sense to start out as a basic seller and change the tariff as required. However, if you are likely to sell more than 40 products per month, the basic rate is not worthwhile from a financial perspective alone. In this case, the flat fees would already exceed the monthly cost of the professional tariff.

The Amazon professional seller account as an alternative for larger and more demanding merchants

Should you belong to the latter group of traders and therefore want to sell your products on a larger scale, a professional seller account is generally more suitable for you. With 39 USD per month a significant monthly fee is to be paid, which is due regardless of the actual sales volume. However, considering the opportunities that Amazon Marketplace opens up for successful sellers, the risk of excess cost for selling on Amazon is almost negligible. And as we have just learned, the whole thing pays off at the latest from the 40th sold unit of each month.

The benefits of the professional seller account do not stop here. In addition to the elimination of the flat fee, it offers other advantages that can boost your business success. Among other factors, the professional seller account is needed if you want to advertise your products (at the beginning of your sales activity on Amazon), create multiple user accounts or make use of advanced analysis and reporting features. In addition, a professional seller account is a prerequisite for obtaining the so-called “Buy Box” as well as the coveted Prime status. Both are effective ways to increase the visibility of your products and are explained in detail in our big Amazon beginners guide.

So it’s clear: If you intend to use Amazon as a serious and high-turnover sales channel for your own product range, there’s no getting around a professional seller account. In addition to the financial aspect surrounding the flat-rate sales fees, the tariff offers a variety of important features that contribute to sustainable success on Amazon and thus open the doors to real scaling opportunities at predictable Amazon seller fees.

These different percentage seller fees apply when selling your products through the Amazon marketplace

How profitable a sale on the Amazon Marketplace really is, ultimately also depends significantly on what are the fees to sell respectively the applicable referral fee percentages – after all, these have a fixed influence on the respective profit margin. To make it easier for you to calculate your own profitability, we have compiled an overview for you below.

An overview: Category-dependent referral fees on Amazon Marketplace

Before we look at the individual categories in comparison, a distinction must be made. This is because in addition to fixed referral fee percentages – shown below in the first table – there are also those that depend on certain factors. The decisive factor here is usually the total selling price (TSP) of the products, which, in addition to the actual product price, also takes into account shipping and additional costs, such as those incurred for gift wrapping.

But let’s start with the flat fees. To make the list as clear as possible, we have bundled categories of the same referral fee class and sorted them by ascending amount. We have marked product classes that are exempt from the minimum sales fee with the addition “MSF exempt”.

It should be noted that products in the category “Handmade” incur a decreased cost to sell on Amazon as they are subject to a temporary reduction from 15% to 12%, which according to Amazon will remain in place until December 31, 2021.

In addition, there are those categories with variable referral fees. As already mentioned above, the total sales price plays a decisive role here. On the one hand, the price can determine the referral fee percentage to be applied in principle, as is the case in line one of the table below. The principle is always the same: Up to a certain Total Selling Price (TSP) (here: 10.00 USD), a lower fee (8%) is applied, while higher seller fees (15%) is applied when the threshold amount set by Amazon is exceeded.

In addition, in some categories there is a proportionally compounded referral fee. If we look at the example “Jewelry” with a limit amount of 250.00 USD, this means: On that part of the TSP, which exceeds the aforementioned 250.00 USD, you only pay a 5% fee instead of 20%.

Calculation example: You sell a chain at a TSP (product price + shipping costs + relevant additional costs) of 300.00 USD. Your payable fee would be 52.50 USD, which is the sum of 50.00 USD (20% of 250.00 USD) and 2.50 USD (5% of 50.00 USD).

Also the corresponding subcategory of a product class (e.g. “Automotive & Powersports”) or the fulfillment method/classification of the merchant (e.g. “Clothing & Accessories {including activewear}”) can have an impact on the seller fees retained by Amazon. Note that in the latter case, this was a limited time promotion until April 30, 2021.

The corresponding categories and referral fee models can be broken down as follows:

Expansion planned? These differences exist in international sales

You may have already learned about the enormous opportunities and potential that cross-border trade via the world-famous online marketplace brings in our article on international sales with Amazon. Whatsoever it is important to understand: At the end of the day, you do not pay the same taxes on your sales proceeds everywhere. We explain the most important differences below, so you can take this into account in your calculations from the outset.

Basically, the first thing to understand is that the percentage Amazon seller fees, as we have tabulated above for the German Amazon marketplace, can differ from country to country. However, the European marketplaces have a very similar fee structure, so that the proportionate fees do not change significantly among themselves, even in their relative amounts. Germany and the Netherlands have the lowest fees, while France, Italy, Spain and the UK retain slightly higher percentages. If you have asked yourself how much Amazon does charge you to sell on their European platforms, an overview of all European Amazon Marketplaces including the corresponding fees can be found here (login to Seller Central required).

The whole thing looks a little different on the non-European Amazon platforms, because in addition to the actual Amazon seller fees, the structural division of the product categories can also differ significantly. In the United States (amazon.com), for example, 15% is charged for sales in the “Shoes, Handbags & Sunglasses” category – regardless of the fulfillment method and the total sales price. Other apparel, in turn, is housed in the standalone “Apparel & Accessories” category, on which a 17% flat fee is charged. There are even more significant differences when looking at Asian marketplaces such as Singapore. Here, the fees are noticeably lower; most categories are between 6 and 10 %.

Practical tip for global sellers: You can completely avoid additional costs with the fixed monthly basic fees. This is because Amazon offers worldwide sales at a price of 39.99 USD in the form of the so-called “discounted subscription fee”. All you have to do is link your various marketplace accounts. As a seller, this benefits you twofold, because in addition to bypassing multiple marketplace fees, it allows you to centrally manage your stores from one seller account. You can find out how to link your international accounts in no time at all here.

By the way: When selling internationally, our listing tool magnalister can provide crucial support. As a webshop plugin, magnalister acts as a direct interface between your online store and many of the well-known online marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay – both nationally and internationally. In addition to core features such as central product upload directly from the online store, fully automated price as well as stock synchronization between the store and the various marketplaces, further features ensure efficient multi-channel sales of your products. This not only saves you a lot of time and money, but also significantly simplifies the coordination effort for international sales. You can learn more about this below.

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Special fees when selling on Amazon: You should know these regulations

Nobody likes to pay special fees. However, even as an Amazon merchant, you will most likely not be able to avoid one or the other payment. The three most important types of special fees that Amazon charges in addition to the actual seller fees are the so-called closing fees, the high-volume listing fee and processing fees for any refunds to buyers.

The former are only due for media items and amount to 1.80 USD per item sold for books, music, DVDs and videos as well as video games and software. Note any differences in the application and amount of the closing fees in different countries. The high-volume listing fee only applies if you offer more than 1.5 million active SKUs (“Stock Keeping Unit”, article number) per marketplace, which are not assigned to the “Media” area. In this case, an additional fee of 0.001 USD per article or SKU will be charged. For a total quantity of 4 million units, 2,500 USD would therefore be due ([4,000,000 – 1,500,000] x 0.001 USD).

Last but not least, there are processing fees in case you initiate refunds to customers – for example in case of cancellations. The fee retained by Amazon is generally 20% of the percentage Amazon seller fees of the respective item, but never more than 5.00 USD. With a TSP of 25,00 USD and a commission of 10 % the handling fee would therefore be 0,50 USD (20 % x (10 % x 25,00 USD). A number of other helpful examples showing different case studies can be found here.

Amazon FBA: Additional costs from using Amazon’s popular shipping and fulfillment service

Warehousing, shipping, returns and multilingual customer service. More and more retailers are turning to Amazon’s popular FBA service for time and efficiency reasons – and are benefiting directly from the company’s global logistics network. Of course, the service, which brings enormous advantages especially for retailers with time and logistical constraints, doesn’t come for free. But what exactly do the additional costs consist of and what all do you need to consider in this context?

First things first: In our big FBA guide, we have addressed these and many other questions in detail. If, apart from the general sales fees, you need more information about the Amazon FBA fee, please have a read.

Let’s get this straight, should you make use of FBA, Amazon takes over the entire goods handling for you. You only have to make sure that your products arrive at the corresponding Amazon warehouse. Most retailers have their goods shipped to the warehouse directly by the manufacturer. And that brings us to the first cost position.

Storage fees

The storage fees are variable and depend on the average daily storage volume (in Germany this is calculated according to cubic meters) per month that your products take up in the logistics center, on the one hand, and on the storage duration, on the other. There is a further distinction between high and low season (October to December or January to September), the type of product (clothing, shoes and bags or other products) and the product size, meaning if your items are oversized.

The following costs for storage are incurred per cubic foot and month:

Non-dangerous goods products:

* * View the Product size tiers to determine if your product is oversize

Dangerous goods products**:

** View the Dangerous goods identification guide to determine if your product is classified as “dangerous”

Goods that are in the logistics center for longer than 365 days are an exception. In addition to the usual storage, shipping and sales fees, Amazon charges the seller so-called long-term storage fees. These basically amount to monthly $6.90 per cubic foot or $0.15 per unit, whichever is greater.

Shipping fees

The second basic cost block is represented by the shipping fees. Unlike when shipping independently (FBM, “Fulfillment by Merchant”), you have the disadvantage that you cannot determine or negotiate the shipping method and costs yourself. In return, Amazon does not only take care of the process, but also guarantees extremely fast delivery times (usually one to maximum two business days), which can massively increase your customer satisfaction.

In addition to the product type and its weight and dimensions, the shipping fees also depend on the location of the logistics center. For all product-related variables, Amazon’s shipping fee calculator provides a great orientation, which we will go into in more detail in the following chapter. The location of the logistics center becomes particularly relevant in connection with international sales via FBA. When using the so-called European Fulfillment Network (EFN), your products are shipped nationally as well as internationally from a local warehouse. Other than that when using “pan-European shipping” you can make use of on-site storage, e.g. in the respective destination countries. On a side note, we discuss both options in detail in our article on international sales with Amazon.

In addition to the actual handling of goods, including returns and customer service, Amazon offers a number of optional services that you can use at any time. They do however incur additional Amazon seller costs. These include, for example, the labeling of products, for which there currently is a charge of USD 0.30 per item. A gift wrapping service is also offered for eligible products, with the cost being directly billed to the buyer.

Case study: For storage and shipping of a conventional toaster sent in a standard parcel (product dimensions ≤ 45 x 34 x 26 cm) and with a shipment weight of 2.2 kg, the following charges apply in the off-season in Europe depending on the shipping program and storage location:

*** Exchange Rate EUR-USD as of 7 September 2021

Please note: You can find more detailed information about the individual rates and programs on Amazon’s official website. If you offer your products at a retail price of less than 7 USD (incl. VAT) and they are comparatively small and light, they might also be eligible for Amazon’s special “Small and Light” program, for example.

Tips and tricks for dealing with Amazon seller fees

How to retrieve your Amazon sales fees in Seller Central

Of course, you have the option to view the amount and composition of your paid Amazon seller fees via the Seller Central at any time. This is important, if you for example want to precisely calculate the final margin of the respective products in order to analyze your business feasibilty. You can get to the so-called fee statement, which is located in your billing report, in just a few steps:

1. Log into the Seller Central as usual
2. Click on “Payments” in the “Reports” tab of the main menu, which is located at the top of the website
3. In the summary page that opens, select “Transaction view”
4. Click on any amount in the “Total” column
5. Last but not least, click on any amount in the “Amazon fees” column

Now you can easily view the respective amounts and their composition per product and transaction.

The Amazon fee calculator helps determine seller cost and plays a decisive role in sales preparation

Anyone who would like to sell their products on Amazon and does his/her research is inundated with a veritable flood of different information: category-dependent referral fees, closing fees, Amazon FBA fees – to name just a few. Especially as a beginner, you can quickly lose track of everything. To avoid this, or simply for a quick orientation during the preparation process, Amazon offers a small but fine tool to determine Amazon seller costs in no time – the fee calculator. Taking into account the marketplace you want to sell your items on (e.g. Amazon.de or Amazon.com), exemplary shipping fees as well as the applicable product category, this calculates the amount that would ultimately be credited to your account for any sales price and quantity.

Please note: The calculated amounts are for orientation purposes only. Any additional costs, for example for advertising campaigns or services such as Amazon FBA, are not taken into account, nor is the monthly basic fee in case of the professional seller account.

Using Amazon FBA: Fee preview and shipping fee calculator as useful planning tools

As shown above, the FBA service makes the fee structure a whole lot more complex. This is because in addition to the Amazon fixed and percentage seller fees, additional variables find their way into the cost equation when using Amazon’s fulfillment service. Inventory management, analysis and forward planning are further complicated by the fact that fees depend not only on product characteristics but also on factors such as storage location.

Provided you are still in the planning phase for selling on Amazon or simply looking for new profitable products, Amazon’s shipping fee calculator can provide great assistance. Based on your information regarding size, weight and intended shipping program, it calculates the resulting shipping costs. This can save you a lot of time when searching for a best practice for you. On the same page, Amazon also offers a variety of examples of different amounts and compositions of the storage fees.

If you already sell your own products with Amazon FBA, we would also like to recommend the fee preview. Based on the sales price you set, the shipping fees estimated by Amazon and all available product data, you will receive a preview of the applicable Amazon FBA fee for products in your inventory. In addition, you gain insights into the exact composition of the shipping fees. Please note: These are to be understood as an estimate and include the basic fees (excl. VAT) for sales as well as shipping by Amazon. Costs for optional and additional services such as stock storage or labeling service are not included.

Bonus tip: With magnalister, you can link well-known online marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay directly to your own online store – and benefit from increased efficiency in multi-channel sales of your products

As we have learned over the course of this article, selling on Amazon comes with manageable but certainly significant running costs, the amount of which depends on a variety of different factors. In order to build a sustainably functioning business, attention should therefore be paid to a certain cost efficiency from the outset. One way of implementing this is to use various applications and tools that automate processes and thus save time as well as staff overheads.

For retailers with their own online store, for example, our listing tool magnalister is the ideal and cost-effective option for multichannel sales via Amazon and similar platforms. The plugin offers everything you need for effective management between online store and marketplace – and thus makes it much easier for you to get started on Amazon Marketplace or to manage your products and orders on an ongoing basis. At the same time, the simultaneous development of an independent online store can be useful for existing Amazon merchants to realize synergy effects and to avoid Amazon seller fees at least in parts.

With magnalister you benefit from the following features for efficient multi-channel distribution:

• Central product upload: Time-saving and efficient upload of products to all connected marketplaces
• Price synchronization: Prices are matched fully automatically or individually (per marketplace)
• Inventory synchronization: Current stock levels are synchronized and thus unwanted cancellations are avoided
• Automatic order import: Import and manage marketplace orders
• Attribute matching: Match product variations and features with marketplace attributes*
• Order status matching: Automatically match order status (e.g. “shipped” or “cancelled”) with marketplaces
• Invoice upload: Send invoices automatically from the webshop
• Interface customization: Customize the plugin via so-called hook points as you desire**

* Not supported by all marketplaces

** Requires programming knowledge. Not available for cloud (SaaS) systems, as no intervention is allowed by the manufacturer.

The magnalister plugin is available for many of the well-known webshops and can be tested in a 30 day free trial with full functionality.

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Conclusion: With appropriate advance planning, costs for selling are not an obstacle for success on Amazon

Amazon gives online retailers easy and smooth access to millions of potential customers from all over the world. In addition to this global presence and an almost unparalleled logistics infrastructure, retailers can benefit from numerous additional services such as the in-house fulfillment service FBA. Of course, all of this comes at a price. In Amazon’s case, these are the seller fees that you as a merchant have to pay in various forms.

Basically, the following applies: Among other factors, both, the product selection and the choice of the appropriate shipping and fulfillment method should be done with the respective cost constellations in mind. Especially for beginners, this can quickly lead to confusion, as there are several exceptions and special regulations in addition to the different referral fees per product category. With this in mind, over the course of this article we have not only explained the basic composition of the various costs, but also listed an overview of all fees that may be incurred when selling on Amazon.

If you use the tips and information given in this article for a well thought-out preparation, you will be on top of your game right from the start and thus create the foundation for a profitable business in the long run. Amazon itself also provides assistance with a whole range of useful features, such as the fee calculator that helps you determine the cost to sell on Amazon.

Another way to increase efficiency and create economies of scale as well as synergies is to simultaneously sell via your own online store. In this context, we would like to refer once again to our plugin magnalister: As an interface between your online shop and many well-known online marketplaces including Amazon, our tool effectively supports you in the area of product listing and order management, so that you can fully concentrate on selling your products and the expansion of your ecommerce business.

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