Amazon FBA Fees Explained: Referral, Fulfillment and Storage
Guide · 2026-10-17
Amazon does not charge one fee. It charges a referral fee, a fulfillment fee, a storage fee, and a handful of surcharges that appear only after you have committed inventory.
1. Referral fee
A percentage of the total sale price, including any shipping the buyer pays. Most categories are 15%, with a $0.30 minimum. Media categories (books, music, video) are 15% with a closing fee. Consumer electronics are 8%. Some categories reach 45%.
The minimum matters: on a $1.50 item, 15% would be $0.22, so Amazon takes $0.30 instead. Low-price items are structurally worse on Amazon than the headline rate suggests.
2. FBA fulfillment fee
A flat fee per unit based on shipping weight and dimensions, not on the sale price. A small standard-size unit in the lowest weight band costs roughly $3.06, and the fee climbs through size tiers to double digits for large bulky items.
This is the fee sellers most often get wrong, because it depends on the packaged dimensions after your own packaging is applied, not the supplier's spec sheet.
3. Monthly storage fee
Charged per cubic foot per month on the average daily volume held. Standard-size storage runs around $0.87 per cubic foot from January to September and roughly $2.40 during October to December.
The Q4 jump is the trap. Inventory that arrives in September to prepare for the holiday season is billed at peak rates for the months it sits waiting.
4. Aged inventory surcharge
Inventory stored beyond 180 days attracts an additional per-unit surcharge, and it rises sharply beyond 365 days. This is designed to punish slow-moving stock, and it works: a product with a 200-day turnover can lose more to surcharges than it earns in margin.
5. The smaller ones
- Inbound placement fee: charged when Amazon splits or places your shipment across fulfillment centres.
- Returns processing: a per-unit fee on customer returns in most categories.
- Removal and disposal: charged when you ask Amazon to send stock back or destroy it.
- Professional selling plan: $39.99 per month, on top of everything above.
A worked example
A $29.99 product, 15% referral, $4.75 fulfillment, $1.50 of other per-unit cost, $7 product cost:
- Revenue: $29.99
- Referral: $4.50
- Fulfillment and other: $6.25
- Product cost: $7.00
- Net: $12.24 (40.8%)
That looks healthy. Now apply a 5% return rate and the returns processing fee, and the effective margin drops by two to three points. Add a month of Q4 storage on slow stock and it drops further.
The three fees that kill products
- Fulfillment on oversized units. A large item can carry a $15+ fulfillment fee against a $40 sale.
- Storage on slow movers. Inventory that does not turn becomes a monthly bill.
- The minimum referral fee on cheap items. Anything under about $8 is effectively taxed at a higher rate than 15%.