Running an Amazon Seller Central business carries five primary expense categories. Modeling each one accurately is the difference between a profitable program and one that just looks profitable on the top line.
1. Professional vs Individual Plans
Amazon offers two selling plans:
- Professional Plan: $39.99/month + additional selling fees. Enables bulk listing creation, API integration, multiple account users, and advertising tools.
- Individual Plan: $0.99 per item sold + additional selling fees. Suitable only when you sell fewer than 40 items per month.
For any brand that wants to advertise, run reports, or manage SKUs at scale, the Professional Plan is the only viable option.
2. Category Referral Fees
Amazon charges a referral fee on every sale, ranging from 8%–15% depending on the product category and price point. The Baby category illustrates the structure: 8% for items under $10 and 15% above that threshold, with a $0.30 minimum per transaction. Referral fees come off the top, they apply before any FBA, storage, or advertising costs.
3. FBA Fulfillment Fees
Fulfillment by Amazon handles pick, pack, ship, and customer service. Fees are calculated by product size tier and weight. Use Amazon’s FBA Calculator to estimate per-order cost: input the ASIN, item price, shipping cost to Amazon, and your product cost. The output gives you the true contribution margin per unit before advertising.
4. Inbound Transportation Charges
Getting product to Amazon’s warehouses costs money. If you use Amazon’s Partnered Carrier Service for FBA shipments, parcel, LTL, or FTL, you’ll see an inbound transportation charge against each shipment. These costs are negotiable depending on lane and volume; bigger shipments via LTL/FTL are usually cheaper per unit than parcel.
5. Hidden Fees
The fees that surprise new sellers:
- Monthly storage fees based on cubic footage (with Q4 surcharges).
- Long-term storage fees on inventory that ages out.
- Coupon redemption fees ($0.60 per coupon used).
- Referral fees apply to merchant-fulfilled shipping, not just the item price.
- Gift wrap fees when customers request packaging services.
Add these into your unit economic model before deciding what to launch and at what price. The brands that scale profitably on Amazon are the ones that know their fully-loaded cost per unit, referral, FBA, storage, inbound, and the hidden line items, before they ever bid on a keyword.