Free tool

Amazon margin calculator

Retail price minus COGS is not your margin. Amazon takes its cut in several places, not one, and tax behaves differently in each country. Run one SKU through the lot and see what is actually left.

Start with your sku

Australia and the United States, same model. Free, nothing to sign up for.

01 — the calculator

your real margin,
per unit

A sample product is loaded so you can see how the fees stack up. Put in your own numbers and the result updates as you type. Switch the marketplace and run the same SKU again. The two answers are rarely as close as founders expect.

Three minutes, one SKU, start to finish. Or skip it and just start typing.

Margin calculator

Edit any field
Swaps the referral table, the fulfilment bands, the tax treatment and the currency
Use the packed dimensions and weight, not the bare product
Filled from Amazon's rate card for the band above. Type over it if you have an exact quote
How many units fit in one box going into Amazon
Amazon's Partnered Carrier rate is a flat $4.99 a box excluding GST, from an eligible Australian postcode. Use your own quote if you ship any other way
Manufacture landed into Australia, per unit. Leave the leg into Amazon to the inbound field
If yes, your listed price includes GST you have to remit
Average across everything you sell: coupons, Lightning Deals, Subscribe & Save, price cuts. Steady state usually runs 5 to 10%, but a new launch runs higher while you are buying rank and reviews. Comes off before Amazon works out its cut
Share of orders that come back. Most categories run 2 to 5%, apparel and electronics run well above that. Already selling? Use your own rate from Seller Central. Not yet? Start at 5% and see whether the product still works
Amazon margin / unit, before ads, promotions and returns
$0.00
Amazon margin %, before ads, promotions and returns
0.0%
Amazon fees / unit
$0.00
Discounts and returns / unit
$0.00
Inbound / unit
$0.00
Net GST you remit / unit
$0.00
Everything off the top
0.0%

Go

Run these with me

Three things about how this is built. The first is what the headline is. It is your Amazon margin: the price less any discount you run, less tax, less landed COGS, less the referral, fulfilment and storage fees, less inbound freight, less what returns cost you. It is not gross profit, because those channel costs are already out of it. Two variable costs sit outside it: advertising and your own overhead. Discounts and returns are inside it only once you fill in those two fields, which both start at zero, and the two headline labels name whatever is still missing so you always know which number you are looking at. My minimum is a 40% margin on this basis, which is the Go band above. There is no ad spend field and no ad allowance in the result, because ad cost swings too far by category, by season and by how crowded your keywords are. No single number would mean anything. It is still a real cost and it still comes out of the figure above, so read every result as the ceiling rather than the answer. What the verdict is telling you is whether there is enough room left to advertise into at all.

The second is how discounts and returns are costed, because both are more than a haircut on revenue. Amazon works out the referral fee and picks the fulfilment price band off what the customer actually pays, so a coupon or a Lightning Deal moves your fees as well as your revenue, and on the US bands at $10 and $50 a small discount can move the fulfilment fee more than it moves the price. On a refund you get the referral fee back less Amazon's refund administration fee, the lesser of $5 or 20% of the referral. The fulfilment fee is not refunded at all, and neither is storage, so you carry both on a unit that came back. A returned unit is treated as landed cost you do not get back. That is deliberately conservative, because plenty of returns do go back into sellable stock, so if most of yours do, this reads a little harsh. Returns handling and inspection are not in it either.

The third is GST. If you are registered, the GST on Amazon's referral, fulfilment and storage fees and on your inbound freight comes back to you as an input tax credit, so the tax you actually hand over is the GST on the sale less those credits. That is what the net GST line shows, and it is why the fee lines above are held excluding GST for registered sellers and grossed up by 10% if you are not. Landed COGS is treated as already excluding GST, so if you are importing, the GST you pay at the border is claimable on top and is not shown here.

This is a planning estimate built from Amazon's published rates and the numbers you typed in. It is not financial, tax or accounting advice, it is not a quote, and it is not a guarantee of what you will earn. Your settlement report will differ. Confirm your own figures in Seller Central before you commit to stock or a price. Nothing you type here leaves your browser.

Every rate in here was checked against Amazon's published schedules on 7 August 2026. Amazon changes them, usually once or twice a year and sometimes with a month's notice, so if you are reading this a long way past that date, treat the numbers as a guide and confirm your own in Seller Central before you commit stock.

On a typical first product, Amazon's fees plus advertising come close to the cost of the product itself. That is normal for FBA. The point is knowing it before you launch, not after your first settlement report. This model covers the three fees every unit carries, referral, fulfilment and storage, plus the freight to get each unit into a fulfilment centre and the tax, which is where most spreadsheets go wrong. It takes off discounts and returns too, once you give it a rate for each. Both start at zero, because every other default on that form is a rate Amazon publishes and there is no published number for either of those, so it waits for yours rather than inventing one. Advertising is not in it, for the reason above. One other thing sits outside it, the aged inventory surcharge, which only lands on stock unsold past 271 days.

On the US side, three things behave differently and all three catch Australian sellers out. Tax is not yours to remit, because Amazon collects and pays sales tax under marketplace facilitator laws, which is why that line reads zero. Fulfilment is banded three ways by sale price, under $10, $10 to $50 and over $50, so the same box costs a different amount to ship depending on what you charge for it. Australia bands it too, but only once, at a reduced rate under $13. The US then adds a 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge to every published fee, live since April 2026. And there is a 30 cent minimum referral fee, which quietly makes cheap products much worse than the percentage suggests. US figures are in USD, so you are carrying FX and repatriation on top of everything shown.

A word on Europe, because it is the next market most people look at and it is not in this calculator. The EU's General Product Safety Regulation has applied since 13 December 2024, and it changes what it costs to sell a physical product there. You need an EU Responsible Person, a business or individual established inside the EU, named with a full address on the listing itself. Amazon collects that in the compliance fields in Seller Central, and sellers report listings being blocked at save or deactivated where it is missing. Amazon has also signalled further checks on labelling, on-listing safety information, and documentation such as your technical file, risk assessment and test reports, so treat the requirement as tightening rather than settled. Check Amazon's own current GPSR guidance before you plan around any of it. Appointing a Responsible Person is an ongoing subscription cost, usually charged per brand or per product line. None of that is in the model above, and it is not in Amazon's own revenue calculator either. Budget for it separately before you decide Europe is worth it.

Where the fulfilment numbers come from. The Australian rates are Amazon's own published schedule, effective 10 June 2026, and the inbound default is Amazon's flat $4.99 a box under its Partnered Carrier Program. The US rates are the 15 January 2026 non-apparel card with the surcharge applied, cross-checked against three independent sources because Amazon keeps its US card behind a seller login. Both are the standard cards, so apparel, dangerous goods and peak season October to December all run higher. One honest gap: for US standard-size items the independent sources agree to the cent, but for the bulky and extra-large tiers they do not, and they disagree by up to about 30 cents a unit. Those tiers are close, not exact. Extra-large is also modelled only to 50 lb, and Amazon charges heavier items on a steeper scale again. If your product is bulky, get the number from Seller Central rather than from here.

02 — where the money goes

the five costs
you have to model

Three land on every single order. One only shows up if your stock sits. The last one you pay before you have sold anything at all. Here is each one in plain English before you get into the numbers.

01 — Referral fee
A percentage of your sale price. Charged on every order, in every category, on the total including shipping.
02 — Fulfilment fee
What Amazon charges to pick, pack and ship each order. Based on box size and weight, not on what is inside.
03 — Storage fee
Monthly rent on the warehouse space your stock takes up, whether it sells or not.
04 — Aged inventory surcharge
An extra charge on top of storage once stock has sat unsold for more than 271 days.
05 — Inbound freight
Getting your cartons from your warehouse into Amazon's. Paid up front, spread across the units in the box.

03 — reference tables

the Australian
fee schedule

Current Amazon Australia rates, for when you want to check a number by hand. Every figure here excludes GST, the way Amazon publishes them. The US rates are built into the calculator above, referral in the category dropdown and fulfilment in the size and weight one.

Referral fees by category

This is Amazon's commission. It is charged on the total sale price including shipping, not just the item, and the rate depends on your category.

Swipe the table sideways →

CategoryReferral feeNotes
Video game consoles6%Lowest standard rate on the schedule
Base equipment power tools7%Flat rate
Major domestic appliances7%Flat rate
Consumer electronics8%Flat rate, no price break
Home & kitchen appliances8%Flat rate
Beauty, health & personal care8% / 13%8% at or under $20, 13% above $20
Grocery & gourmet8% / 10%8% at or under $20, 10% above $20
Baby products8% / 11%8% at or under $20, 11% above $20
Computers8% / 6%8% on the first $150 of price, 6% above it
Tyres9%Flat rate
Video games & gaming accessories9%Flat rate. Consoles are lower, at 6%
Alcoholic beverages10%Flat rate
Clothing & accessories10% / 13%10% at or under $20, 13% above $20
Pet products10% / 13%10% at or under $20, 13% above $20
Tools & home improvement10% / 13%10% at or under $20, 13% above $20
Automotive & powersports10.5%Flat rate
Lawn & garden10.5%Flat rate
Business, industrial & scientific supplies11%Flat rate
Musical instruments & AV production11%Flat rate
Furniture12%Flat rate
Toys & games12%Flat rate
Watches12% / 8%12% at or under $50, 8% above $50
Home & kitchen (general)13%The default most DTC home and lifestyle brands fall into
Office products13%Flat rate
Luggage13%Flat rate
Sports & outdoors13% / 12%13% at or under $200, 12% above $200
Electronics accessories13.5%Flat rate
Shoes, handbags & sunglasses14% / 10%14% at or under $50, 10% above $50
Media (books, DVD, music)15%Plus a flat $1.00 closing fee per unit
Jewellery15% / 5%15% on the first $200 of price, 5% above it
Everything else15%The catch-all rate for anything not in a named category
Amazon assigns your listing to a category automatically, and it does not always land where you would expect. Check the exact rate for your product against Amazon's published fee schedule before you set your pricing.

FBA fulfilment fees by size tier

This is the fee that catches most founders. It is based on the size and weight of the box, not the value of what is inside it. A $60 candle in a big box costs more to fulfil than a $60 jacket in an envelope. The ranges below are the standard rate. Anything priced under $13 pays a reduced rate, which is 91 cents lower on every tier.

Swipe the table sideways →

Size tierMax dimensionsMax weightFee (AUD, ex GST)
Small envelope20 × 15 × 1 cm75 g$4.55
Standard envelope33 × 23 × 2.5 cm$4.58 – $5.61
Large envelope33 × 23 × 5 cm$6.78 – $8.29
Standard parcel45 × 34 × 20 cm12 kg$7.34 – $13.93
Small oversize61 × 46 × 46 cm$9.94 – $10.68
Standard oversize105 × 60 × 60 cm$12.30 – $16.43
Large oversizeOver 105 × 60 × 60 cm$14.71 – $34.00+
Your packaging sets this fee directly. Shaving 2cm off a box can drop a product into a smaller size tier and save $3 to $5 a unit. On 500 units a month that is real money, before you have touched your ads.

Storage and aged inventory

Charged monthly per cubic metre your stock takes up in Amazon's warehouse, sold or not. Rates go up around 40% from October to December.

Swipe the table sideways →

PeriodStandard sizeOversize
January – September$37.00 / m³$34.20 / m³
October – December (peak)$51.80 / m³$48.00 / m³

If stock sits unsold for more than 271 days, Amazon adds the aged inventory surcharge on top of normal storage. It is assessed on the 15th of each month.

Swipe the table sideways →

Days in storageSurcharge
271 – 300 days$155 / m³
301 – 330 days$175 / m³
331 – 365 days$185 / m³
366+ days$370 / m³, or $0.12/unit, whichever is higher

Getting stock into Amazon

Amazon's Partnered Carrier Program charges a flat $4.99 excluding GST per box, from an eligible Australian postcode to any Australian fulfilment centre, whatever the distance. Three boxes from Perth to Sydney is $14.97 plus GST. It is almost always cheaper than booking your own courier for small volumes, and it is the default in the calculator above.

The US works differently. Amazon does not publish a partnered carrier rate card there, you get quoted at the point you build the shipment, and sellers commonly report somewhere around $6 to $10 a box. Standard-size items can also attract an inbound placement service fee of roughly 20 to 70 cents a unit, which you avoid only by sending stock the way Amazon asks, split across multiple fulfilment centres or in five or more identical cartons. Extra-large items are exempt from it. Once you are moving pallets, an LTL freight quote will beat both, so use your own number in the calculator instead of the default.

04 — no dimensions yet?

borrow a competitor's
box size

You do not need a finished product or a freight quote to check whether the numbers work. You need one similar product already selling on Amazon. Here is how to get its exact shipping profile in about five minutes.

Every product on Amazon has a unique 10-character code called an ASIN. Most start with B0, though a few, books for example, do not. You will use a competitor's ASIN so Amazon's own calculator can pull that product's box size and weight for you.
  1. Find a similar product

    Search the way your customer would, on amazon.com.au if you are pricing for Australia or amazon.com if you are pricing for the US. You want something close to your product in type and rough size. You are not copying the listing, only borrowing its shipping profile.

    Example, searching a comparable product

  2. Copy the ASIN out of the web address

    Open the listing and look at your browser's address bar. The 10-character code straight after /dp/ is the ASIN. It is also listed under Product Information further down the page if that is easier.

    amazon.com.au/Owala-FreeSip-Insulated/dp/B0FJN3BTPV/ref=sr_1_5

    Example, ASIN highlighted in the URL

  3. Put it into Amazon's Revenue Calculator

    Open Amazon's FBA Revenue Calculator and search by that ASIN. It fills in the package dimensions, weight and size tier automatically, from Amazon's own data.

  4. Swap in your own numbers

    Keep the borrowed dimensions and weight. Change the price to what you plan to sell at, and the costs to your actual landed cost per unit. Then bring the fulfilment fee back to the calculator above to see margin after fees, freight and tax as well.

  5. Check it against two more listings

    Run the same numbers through two other similar products before you trust the result. One listing can have unusual packaging. Three gives you a reliable range.

That gets you a margin estimate accurate enough to decide whether a product is worth launching, before you have paid for a sample run or a freight quote.

05 — next step

want me to run
the numbers with you?

Send me your category, your rough sale price and your landed cost. I will run it through both marketplaces and send back your actual margin per unit, plus the one lever I would pull first.

Get the new numbers when Amazon changes its fees

Amazon revised its US fees three times in 2026 alone. Leave your email and I will send the updated rates when they move. No spam, unsubscribe any time.

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