What Does Amazon FBA Cost in 2024?

For Amazon sellers, the old adage remains true: you have to spend money to make money. Amazon fees are a necessary expense for every vendor on the platform. To run a successful business selling on Amazon, you need to understand how those fees work and how much to budget for them.

Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) is an optional program sellers can use to outsource storage and fulfillment to Amazon, while increasing your odds of winning the Buy Box. The program offers many benefits, but they come at a cost. If you’re considering whether FBA is right for you, this guide will help you understand what Amazon FBA costs.

How are Sellers Charged for Using Amazon FBA?

When you enroll products in Amazon FBA, the company handles all the main tasks of fulfillment for you: storing inventory, picking items, packing them up, shipping them out, and handling basic customer service tasks. In exchange, Amazon charges fees based on a few factors.

The two main types of fees all FBA sellers should expect are:

FBA Storage Fees

Part of what you pay for with FBA is storage space in Amazon’s warehouse. The main storage fees you’ll encounter are charged monthly and determined based on shipping weight and time of year (the peak holiday season costs more). In addition to the monthly fees, some sellers will face additional fees based on how long your items are in the warehouse:

• Aged inventory fees - Amazon doesn’t want items sitting in warehouses for months (or years). To discourage that, additional fees kick in for inventory that takes longer than 180 days to sell. Aged inventory is charged per cubic foot, with fees that go up the longer the inventory sits in the warehouse.
• Storage utilization fees - Even before the aged inventory status kicks in, if you have a lot of items taking up space in the warehouse that don’t sell, you could face storage utilization fees. This is calculated based on the average daily cubic feet your inventory takes up in the warehouse divided by your average daily ship volume.
• Low-inventory level fee - Making matters even more complicated, if a popular item frequently has low stock, Amazon may charge a low-inventory fee.

Need help managing your FBA inventory to minimize fees? See how RestockPro by eComEngine supports the Minimum Inventory Level and historical days of supply metrics to empower your inventory decisions.

FBA Fulfillment Fees

Fulfillment fees come into play each time you make a sale. They cover the cost of picking, packing, and shipping your orders. The item’s weight mostly determines fulfillment fee pricing, but some categories (namely, apparel and dangerous goods) have a different fee structure than others.

Other FBA Fees

In addition to the fees all FBA sellers should anticipate for storage and fulfillment, additional fees come into play in specific circumstances:

• Inbound placement service fee - If you prefer to send all your inventory to one warehouse and let Amazon distribute it across multiple locations, that is more expensive than shipping items to multiple warehouses.
  
  
• Removal and disposal fees - For excess inventory you decide isn’t worth keeping, Amazon will dispose of it or return it to you for a fee.
  
  
• Returns processing fees - If you sell products in categories with a high return rate, Amazon charges fees for handling the returns.

FBA-specific fees come on top of the fees all Amazon sellers pay, which include:

• Referral fees - the fees taken out of what you make off each sale
• Selling plan fees - for professional sellers, this is a monthly subscription fee of $39.99; for individual sellers, it’s $.99 for each transaction
• Refund fees - if you refund an order you’ve already received payment on, Amazon will deduct a refund administration fee from your referral fee reimbursement

How Much Does it Cost to Sell Items on Amazon FBA?

The short answer is that it’s complicated. As all these different fees make clear, it depends on a lot of different factors. To get an idea of how much it will cost to sell your items, you can review Amazon’s list of all 2024 US FBA fulfillment fees. But even with the breakdown, the graphs and details can be confusing.

For an easier option, try the FBA Revenue Calculator. It lets you fill in details about the specific items you sell and compare how much you’ll spend using FBA versus handling fulfillment yourself.

How to Decide if the Cost of Amazon FBA is Worth It

Reading along, you’ve probably had the same thought every Amazon seller has at some point: this is a lot of fees, can it really be worth it? Only you can decide if the benefits of using Amazon FBA are worth the costs. When doing that math for yourself, consider:

• Amazon’s reach - Millions of customers turn to Amazon for all kinds of purchases. A presence on the platform helps you tap into that large market. By using FBA, your products get Prime status, which can help you increase conversions.
  
  
• Time and money saved - You’ll have to pay for inventory storage, picking and packing labor, and shipping costs regardless. FBA just moves those costs to Amazon. And FBA shipping costs are 70% lower per unit on average than comparable options from traditional carriers.
  
  
• Overall profits - If FBA increases your sales, the increased profits can make up for the fees. And if the savings you get from lower shipping, storage, and labor costs add up enough, you’ll still come out ahead.

Save on FBA with a Smart Strategy

You can minimize how much you spend on FBA fees by keeping a close eye on your inventory levels. Keeping the right amount of stock in FBA warehouses can reduce your Amazon FBA costs by saving you from unnecessary storage, removal, and disposal fees.

The easiest, most effective way to monitor your stocking needs is with Amazon inventory software. RestockPro is designed specifically for Amazon FBA sellers. It delivers strategic insights into how much inventory to keep stocked and when to re-order, including Amazon's Minimum Inventory Level metric and historical days of supply to help you avoid the low-inventory-level fee. That means more sales with fewer fees. Start a free trial to see how.