Marketplace
Selling on Amazon: the 2026 fee stack, line by line
Amazon is not one fee. It is a referral percentage, a fulfillment fee that now varies with your selling price, a surcharge on top of that fee, an inbound placement charge, two storage regimes, an aged-inventory penalty, a low-stock penalty and a returns charge. Modelling it as "about 15% plus fulfillment" is how sellers arrive at a loss they did not forecast.
Rates checked 2026-09-05. Marketplaces revise fee schedules on their own timetable — confirm anything you are about to price against before you use it.
What it costs
| Charge | Rate |
|---|---|
| Account Professional plan; Individual plan charges per item sold instead | $39.99 / month |
| Referral fee Category dependent; most categories 8%–15% | 6%–45% of sale price |
| Fulfillment (FBA) By size tier, weight — and, since 2026, by price band | From roughly $3.20 per unit |
| Price bands New in 2026: your selling price is an input to the fulfillment fee | under $10 / $10–$50 / over $50 |
| Fuel & logistics surcharge Effective April 17, 2026 (Amazon announcement of April 2); applies on top of the peak fee too | 3.5% on the fulfillment fee |
| Inbound placement Zero on Amazon-optimized splits (five or more identical cartons per SKU); minimal-split fees by size, weight and region | $0 to roughly $1.90 per unit |
| Storage, Jan–Sep Standard size; unchanged for 2026. A widely copied $0.87 figure is wrong | $0.78 / cu ft / month |
| Storage, Oct–Dec Standard size; about three times the off-peak rate | $2.40 / cu ft / month |
| Low-inventory-level fee Charged per unit shipped while an FNSKU sits under 28 historical days of supply on both the 30- and 90-day windows | roughly $0.32–$1.11 per unit (standard size) |
FBA, and the three fees people forget
The fulfillment fee is the number everyone quotes. It is rarely the number that decides whether a SKU works. Three charges sit outside it and behave differently.
| Item | Effect |
|---|---|
| Inbound placement Sending to one center costs the most; accepting five or more destinations can take it to zero, at the cost of higher freight | Per unit, at shipment creation |
| Low-inventory-level fee Applied at seller-FNSKU level since January 15, 2026 — one thin variant is charged on its own units, not the whole listing | Per unit sold, while understocked |
| Aged inventory surcharge The decision point is around day 150, not day 181 | Escalating by age band |
A worked example
A 2 lb standard-size item priced at $25, sold through FBA. Fulfillment and storage figures are illustrative; substitute your own before making a decision.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Sale price | $25.00 |
| Referral fee at 15% | −$3.75 |
| FBA fulfillment (illustrative, standard size) | −$5.60 |
| Fuel & logistics surcharge at 3.5% of fulfillment | −$0.20 |
| Inbound placement (minimal split, illustrative) | −$0.45 |
| Monthly storage, allocated per unit (illustrative) | −$0.10 |
| Professional plan, allocated over 500 units | −$0.08 |
| Left to you | $14.82 |
Platform take: 40.7% of the sale price, before advertising, returns and cost of goods.
What catches sellers out
Your repricer is now wrong
Selling price entered the fulfillment fee calculation in 2026 through three price bands. Raise a $49 item to $52 to protect margin and you may cross a band and take a second increase. Any repricing rule that treats fulfillment cost as fixed is running a model that no longer describes the platform.
The average is not your number
Amazon put the 2026 US increase at $0.08 per unit on average. Third-party readings of the published tables put small standard-size items between $0.12 and $0.51 depending on price tier. An average across a catalog as wide as Amazon’s says nothing about one SKU.
Reimbursement is no longer insurance at retail value
Since March 31, 2025, inventory lost before a customer orders is reimbursed at sourcing cost, not sale price — and the definition excludes freight and duty. For imported goods this is the largest exclusion in the policy.
Q4 storage is a scheduling problem
October to December storage runs roughly three times the rest of the year. Pulling excess out in late September and sending back a measured quantity in early October is a real lever, provided removal fees and return freight are in the calculation.
Figures the sources disagree on
These are recorded rather than resolved. Where published rate cards conflict, the honest position is to name the conflict and send you to the primary source.
| Figure | The disagreement |
|---|---|
| Per-unit fulfillment increase | Amazon states an average of $0.08 per unit for 2026; third-party readings of the tables put individual size tiers anywhere from +$0.12 to +$0.51. Your Fee Preview report is the only figure that describes your catalog. |
| Inbound placement per-unit ranges | Published readings of the 2026 minimal-split card differ by a few cents per band; the Send to Amazon screen shows the exact figure before you commit. |
Where it fits, and where it does not
Worth considering for
- Products with proven, steady demand where Prime placement is the deciding factor
- Sellers who can hold enough stock to stay above the low-inventory threshold without over-committing capital
- Standard-size, light items where the fulfillment fee stays a small share of the sale price
Works against you if
- Heavy, bulky or low-price items, where fulfillment and surcharges consume the margin
- Slow movers, which now carry storage cost, aged-inventory exposure and a reduced reimbursement value
- High-margin or one-of-a-kind goods, where sourcing-cost reimbursement understates what a loss actually costs you
Sources
- Update to U.S. referral and Fulfillment by Amazon fees for 2026, Amazon Selling Partners Primary source accessed 2026-09-05
- 2026 Amazon FBA fee changes: full rate card for sellers, Goat Consulting Secondary accessed 2026-09-05
- Amazon 2026 fees breakdown: FBA, referral, inbound placement, Brandwoven Secondary accessed 2026-09-05
- Amazon FBA fees in 2026: a seller’s complete cost breakdown, ConnectBooks Secondary accessed 2026-09-05
- Amazon 2026 FBA fees: what sellers need to know, SellerEngine Secondary accessed 2026-09-05