How the result is calculated
Amazon's fee schedule runs to dozens of pages, and the two fees this calculator models are the only ones charged on every sale of every item. The rest, storage, placement, low-inventory, returns and seasonal surcharges, depend on your inventory rather than on the item, which is why they are left for the other-costs field. This guide explains how the two modelled fees are read from a store's rate card, works a $30 item through on amazon.com and a €119 item through in Germany, and shows how far the twelve stores differ.
referral baseprice ÷ (1 + VAT rate)
referral feemax(referral base × category rate, store minimum)
fulfilment feethe fixed fee for the size tier and weight band
profit per unitprice − VAT − referral − fulfilment − cost of goods − inbound − other
- price
- the selling price as displayed in the store
- VAT rate
- the store's VAT or GST rate, stripped out before the referral fee only where prices include tax and the seller is tax-registered
- category rate
- the referral percentage for the category, which may be tiered by price
- store minimum
- the per-item floor on the referral fee, where the store has one
Referral fee. Amazon's commission for the sale. Most categories are 15%, but computers and consumer electronics are 7% across Europe and 8% in North America, and many categories are tiered by price rather than flat. Clothing in Britain is 5% on the portion up to 15, 10% from 15 to 20 and 15% above, where in Canada it is 10% below 20 and 17% above. Jewellery charges a high rate on the first few hundred and a low rate beyond, and the threshold is set in each currency: 225 in Britain, 250 in the euro stores, 325 in Canada, 2,600 kr in Sweden.
FBA fulfilment fee. What Amazon charges to pick, pack and ship one unit, set by size tier and, within it, by shipping weight: the greater of the unit weight and its dimensional weight, rounded up. The calculator picks the lightest band covering the weight you enter and names it, with the bands either side.
Worked example
| Item | Amount | How it is obtained |
|---|---|---|
| Selling price | $30.00 | Selling price |
| Referral base | $30.00 | American prices are quoted before sales tax, so nothing is stripped |
| Referral fee | $4.50 | 15% × 30.00 in 'everything else', above the $0.30 minimum |
| FBA fulfilment | $3.53 | small standard, 10 to 12 oz band, United States card |
| Amazon's two fees | $8.03 | 4.50 + 3.53, which is 26.8% of the price |
| Cost of goods | $8.00 | Cost of goods |
| Inbound shipping | $1.00 | Inbound shipping to Amazon |
| Net profit per unit | $12.97 | 30.00 − 8.03 − 8.00 − 1.00: a 43.2% margin and 144% ROI on the $9 of cost |
| Item | Amount | How it is obtained |
|---|---|---|
| Selling price | €119.00 | displayed price, VAT included |
| VAT | €19.00 | 119 − 119 ÷ 1.19: not yours, it goes to the tax authority |
| Referral base | €100.00 | 119 ÷ 1.19 |
| Referral fee | €15.00 | 15% × 100.00, not the €17.85 the headline price suggests |
| FBA fulfilment | €3.42 | standard parcel, 400 g band, German card |
| Cost of goods and inbound | €42.00 | 40.00 + 2.00 |
| Net profit per unit | €39.58 | 119 − 19 − 15.00 − 3.42 − 42 |
If you are not registered for VAT, switch the toggle off. Amazon then charges the fee on the full €119 and the calculator says so.
Reading the result
- Net profit per unit is what remains after tax, Amazon's two fees and your own costs. Negative numbers are shown in red.
- Margin is profit divided by the selling price, the figure to compare across your own products.
- ROI on cost is profit divided by what you paid to get the unit into Amazon's warehouse. 100% means each unit of capital comes back as two.
- The fee share in the headline is the proportion of the price Amazon keeps. Between 25 and 35% is typical for standard-size items.
- Each line in the fee breakdown opens to show the tiers or weight band behind it, the base the percentage was charged on, and the date of the card it was read from.
What changes the result
Amazon is twelve shops, not one
The single most common mistake in FBA planning is to price a product against American fees and assume the European or Japanese numbers are close enough. They are not close. The same 400 g standard parcel is fulfilled for 3.01 in Britain, 3.42 in Germany, 3.77 in Spain, 4.04 in the Netherlands and 5.22 in France, each in its own currency, and that is before the exchange rate.
The weight bands themselves differ, which catches people out more often than the rates do. Japan's small size tier stops at 250 g; Canada's, Australia's and India's stop at 500 g; Britain's and Germany's reach 3.9 kg, so an item that is small standard in one store is billed from a different column in another. North America publishes ounces, everywhere else publishes grams, so the calculator asks for the weight in whichever unit the store you selected actually uses rather than converting behind your back.
The minimum per item differs by store too, and a single schedule applied everywhere quietly misleads on it. Books, music, video and DVD are exempt from the minimum everywhere, so a cheap book pays the percentage and nothing more.
| Store | Referral minimum | Small tier ceiling | Weighed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | $0.30 | 16 oz | ounces |
| United Kingdom | £0.25 | 3,900 g | grams |
| Euro stores | €0.30 | 3,900 g | grams |
| Sweden | 3 kr | 3,900 g | grams |
| Canada | C$0.40 | 500 g | grams |
| Australia | none | 500 g | grams |
| Japan | ¥30 | 250 g | grams |
| India | none | 500 g | grams |
Because the schedules differ this much, each store has a page of its own, linked from the calculator's country list, running this calculator on that store's rate card and listing its sources. Where a store does something the others do not, such as Ireland's promotional rates, Japan's girth bands or India's free band below 1,000 rupees, the explanation sits there rather than here. Three of the countries this site covers have no Amazon store at all: sellers in New Zealand list on amazon.com.au, sellers in Finland on amazon.se or amazon.de, and there is no Sri Lankan marketplace. The calculator says so and names the store that applies, rather than quietly showing American fees for a shop that does not exist.
Tax changes the referral fee, and only outside America
American prices are quoted before sales tax, so the referral fee is charged on the price as shown. Every other store here displays a price that already includes VAT or GST, and Amazon charges a tax-registered seller's referral fee on the tax-exclusive amount. That is a real saving and it is easy to overlook: the difference between 15% of 119 and 15% of 100 is nearly three euros on a single sale. The rate stripped out is the store's, not yours, so the same displayed price leaves a different base behind it in each. Canada is the exception: its prices are quoted before sales tax too, so there is nothing to strip.
What is not included
Put an estimate of these into the other costs field so the profit figure stays honest:
- Monthly storage, charged per cubic foot or cubic metre and roughly tripling in the fourth quarter.
- Inbound placement, charged per unit when you send stock to one location rather than letting Amazon split it.
- The low-inventory-level fee, when you hold less than about four weeks of stock relative to sales.
- Returns processing, charged in apparel and shoes and for products with high return rates.
- Fuel and logistics surcharges. Several stores add a percentage on top of the fulfilment fee.
- Advertising. Most new listings need sponsored ads to rank; sellers commonly budget 10 to 20% of price.
- The Professional selling plan, a flat monthly charge in every store regardless of sales.
There are also things this calculator cannot know: the exact dimensional weight of your packaging, whether your product is classified as dangerous goods, apparel or oversize, and mid-year fee changes.
Using the result
Screen products in this order. Check that the price is high enough for the fixed fees to be a small share of it, which usually means the local equivalent of about 20 and above. Confirm the margin after the two modelled fees is comfortably above 30%. Subtract a realistic allowance for storage, advertising and returns. Then run the exact dimensions through Seller Central's Revenue Calculator for that store.
If you sell in more than one country, run the same product through each store before committing stock. A product that clears 35% in Britain can be marginal in France on fulfilment alone. A product that works only on the optimistic numbers will not survive a fee increase or a competitor's price cut.