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How much does Amazon take per sale?
Short answer
Amazon typically takes somewhere between a quarter and half of each sale once you stack the referral fee, FBA fulfillment fee, and storage. There is no single number: cheaper products lose a much bigger share than expensive ones, because the fixed per-unit fulfillment fee doesn't shrink as your price drops.
By Marcus Brandt · Head of Seller Accounting
Updated June 26, 2026
Sellers ask "how much does Amazon take per sale" expecting one clean percentage, but the honest answer is a range. Amazon's cut is built from several separate fees that behave differently — some scale with your price, some are fixed per unit — so the share Amazon keeps changes dramatically depending on what you charge.
Below we break down each fee in the stack, explain why the percentage swings so much by price, and show how to figure out the real number for your own product instead of relying on a misleading average.
The fees that make up Amazon's cut
Amazon doesn't charge one fee — it charges several, and they add up. Understanding the structure matters more than memorizing any single rate, because the rates change over time and vary by category. Always verify the current numbers against Amazon's published fee schedule before you price a product.
Here is the typical stack on a standard FBA sale:
- •Referral fee — a percentage of the sale price that varies by category. For most categories it's roughly 15%, but some run lower and some higher, so check your category's rate.
- •FBA fulfillment fee — a fixed dollar amount per unit based on size and weight, not a percentage. This is the fee that punishes cheap products, because it stays the same whether you sell for $8 or $80.
- •Monthly storage fees — charged per cubic foot of inventory you hold, with higher rates in the Q4 peak season.
- •Optional and situational fees — long-term storage surcharges, removal/disposal fees, returns processing in some categories, and the $39.99/month Professional selling plan (a flat subscription, not per sale).
Why the percentage swings so much by price
Here's the part most "Amazon takes ~X%" answers miss: because the FBA fulfillment fee is a fixed dollar amount, it eats a huge share of a cheap product and a small share of an expensive one. A roughly $4–$6 fulfillment fee is more than half the price of a $10 item but barely 5% of a $100 item.
Stack the percentage-based referral fee on top of that fixed fee, and the total share Amazon keeps can swing by 30 percentage points or more across price bands. That's why a single blended number is misleading — your real take is a per-SKU question, not a marketplace-wide constant.
We modeled this across five price points in the Amazon Fee Creep Report, which shows roughly a third of a $10 sale survives Amazon's fees and ads before product cost, versus nearly two-thirds of a $100 sale. If you sell low-priced products, the report is worth reading before you assume a flat margin.
Don't forget advertising
Most sellers run Amazon PPC, and ad spend is effectively another slice Amazon takes — it just doesn't show up on the fee line. At a mid-range total advertising cost of sale (TACOS), ads can quietly consume another 10–15% of revenue on top of fulfillment and referral fees.
When you total referral fee + fulfillment fee + storage + advertising, the combined platform cost on a typical FBA sale often lands somewhere in the 35–55% range before you've paid for the product itself. That's the number that actually determines whether you're profitable.
How to find your real number
Stop estimating and calculate it per product. Pull the referral percentage for your category, the fulfillment fee for your size tier, and your storage and ad costs, then subtract them from your price. What's left, minus your landed product cost, is your real profit.
Run your specific product through a calculator that uses current fee inputs so you're working from real structure rather than a remembered percentage. BeanHawk also reconciles your actual Amazon settlements, so you can see exactly what Amazon kept on every order after the fact — including fees Amazon over-charged and owes back.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the Amazon referral fee?
- The referral fee is the percentage Amazon charges on each sale, and it varies by product category. Many categories sit around 15%, but some are lower and some higher. Check your category's current rate in Amazon's fee schedule rather than assuming a flat 15% everywhere.
- How much are Amazon fees for selling?
- Total selling fees combine a category referral percentage, a fixed per-unit FBA fulfillment fee, storage, and (for most sellers) advertising. Added together they often consume roughly 35–55% of the sale price on a typical FBA product before product cost — with cheaper items losing a larger share.
- How much does Amazon FBA cost?
- FBA costs include a fixed per-unit fulfillment fee based on size and weight, monthly storage per cubic foot, and possible long-term storage or removal surcharges. The Professional selling plan adds a flat $39.99/month subscription. Exact fulfillment rates depend on your size tier — verify against Amazon's current schedule.
- Why do cheap products lose more to Amazon fees?
- Because the FBA fulfillment fee is a fixed dollar amount, not a percentage. A few dollars of fulfillment fee is a large slice of a $10 product but a small slice of a $100 one, so low-priced items surrender a much bigger share of revenue to Amazon.
- Does Amazon take a cut of shipping too?
- With FBA, Amazon includes fulfillment and shipping in the per-unit fulfillment fee rather than charging it separately. With merchant-fulfilled (FBM) listings, you collect a shipping charge and pay the carrier yourself, but the referral fee still applies to the item price.
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