Amazon Account Health: The Metrics That Keep You Selling
One bad metric can suppress your listings or suspend your account. Here are the 2026 thresholds that matter and how to stay safely inside them.
Your Account Health Rating (AHR) is the single number Amazon uses to decide whether you keep selling. It rolls up customer-service, shipping, and policy-compliance metrics into a score, and crossing the wrong threshold can suppress listings, cost you the Buy Box, or deactivate your account — sometimes before any warning email arrives.
The thresholds that matter in 2026
Each metric has a hard line. Falling below standard on even one can trigger review across your whole account. These are the current US thresholds — verify them in your Account Health dashboard, as Amazon adjusts enforcement periodically.
| Metric | Threshold | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Order Defect Rate (ODR) | Below 1% | Negative feedback, A-to-Z claims, chargebacks |
| Pre-fulfillment cancel rate | Below 2.5% | Orders you cancel before shipping |
| Late Shipment Rate | Below 4% | Orders confirmed after the ship-by date |
| Valid Tracking Rate | Above 95% | Shipments with working tracking (all carriers) |
| On-Time Delivery Rate | Above 90% | Deliveries arriving by the promised date |
| Invoice Defect Rate (B2B) | Below 5% | Missing/late invoices on Business orders |
If you use FBA, Amazon handles fulfillment and delivery — so the shipping metrics (late shipment, tracking, on-time delivery) come off your risk profile. One reason FBA sellers get smoother metrics automatically.
ODR is the one to guard most
Order Defect Rate is the heavyweight. It combines 1- and 2-star feedback, A-to-Z Guarantee claims, and chargebacks over a rolling 60-day window. Multiple problems on one order count as a single defect. The math is unforgiving at low volume: with 1,000 orders, just 11 defects puts you over 1%.
Sellers above 1% ODR are automatically disqualified from the Buy Box — and roughly 82% of Amazon sales go through it. You lose most of your sales before Amazon sends a single email. That's why prevention beats appeals.
A weekly health routine
- Open the dashboard weekly, not monthly
A violation caught on Tuesday is far cheaper to fix than one Amazon flags on Friday. Check the Account Health page every week.
- Reply to customers within 24 hours
Fast responses prevent complaints from escalating into A-to-Z claims and negative feedback — including weekends.
- Watch policy compliance, not just service
Most sellers fixate on ODR and shipping, then get blindsided by an IP or restricted-product warning. These can hit hard.
- Keep a buffer
Target metrics well below the limits (ODR under 0.5%, late shipment under 2%) so a single bad week doesn’t push you over.
If your account is already flagged, the next guide walks through building a Plan of Action to recover.