Fees
Everything Amazon charged you to sell, ship and store the goods.
What it means
Fees is the total Amazon charged against the row on screen: referral commission, fulfilment, closing and storage fees, service charges, refund administration, shipping labels and statutory deductions. Those charges have different causes — some scale with price, some with size and weight, some with how long stock sits still. Advertising, the goods themselves and inbound shipping are billed separately and sit outside this figure.
Show the math
Formula and a worked example
Commission — the referral fee — is a percentage of the sale price, so it moves with revenue.
Fulfilment, shipping labels and closing fees follow the item: its size band, weight and category. They move with units, not euros. Storage, service charges, refund administration and statutory deductions follow time and events — stock sitting still, returns processed, subscriptions running.
Worked example. Net SalesNet SalesSee the full entry. of €50,000 against €15,000 of fees is 30% of what customers paid. Sell the same €50,000 next month in bulkier stock that's been in the warehouse seven months and the bill can reach €18,000 — 36% — without a single rate changing.
It answers the question
What did it cost you to sell through Amazon instead of your own shop? Read it as a share of sales, because the euro total grows every time you have a good month.
Why it matters
It's often one of the largest costs in the Amazon business, and one of the least visible, because it never arrives as an invoice — it's already gone by the time the settlement lands. A size band, a rate change, one pallet that stopped moving: none of them announce themselves.
The share is what to watch. Fees at 30% of sales leave 70 cents in the euro to cover the goods, the ads and everything else, and every point it climbs comes straight out of what's left.
What good looks like
No universal share applies: a small, light, high-priced product keeps far more of its revenue than a bulky cheap one, and commission varies by category before size and storage get involved. Track fees as a percentage of Net SalesNet SalesSee the full entry. and judge your own line month to month — flat is fine at almost any level, while a climb of two or three points across a quarter is worth a morning's work. Compare across your own SKUs too, since the rows sitting far above the rest are usually oversized, slow-moving or heavily returned.
How to improve it
| Lever | What you do | Expect | How long | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fast Remove the long-term stock | Run a removal or disposal order on units past six months in Amazon's warehouses | Storage charges drop off the next settlement | 2–4 weeks | Removal costs money per unit, and disposed stock can't sell — demand that comes back finds nothing there. |
| Fast Check your size and weight bands | Re-measure the SKUs sitting just over a fulfilment band and repack them under it | A lower fulfilment fee on every unit of those SKUs | 3–6 weeks | Tighter packing raises damage in transit, and damaged arrivals come back as refunds with their own charges. |
| Slow Cut the returns behind the admin charges | Rework the listings for the SKUs with the most refunded units | Less refund administration and return processing in the total | 1 quarter | Honest listings persuade fewer visitors, so orders dip for a while before the fee line improves. |
| Slow Shift the mix towards cheaper-to-sell products | Rank SKUs by fees as a share of their own sales, then back the light, fast, higher-priced end with stock and budget | The account-wide share falls | 1–2 quarters | The cheapest products to sell aren't always the ones people want. Units Shipped and rank on your popular lines can slide. |
Every lever costs something somewhere. The last column is the one to read twice.
Read it with
Fees on its own is a number that grows when you do well. Next to what customers paid, it tells you whether Amazon is taking more.
Costing less to sell
Sales grew and the bill shrank. Usually a storage clear-out, a packaging change or a mix that moved towards lighter stock. Whatever it was, it's repeatable.
Growing, and paying for it
Fees rising with sales is normal, because commission is a percentage. The question is whether the share rose too, since that means the extra volume cost you more per euro than the rest.
Shrinking slowly
Both down. If fees fell more slowly, the fixed charges — storage, service fees — now take a bigger slice of a smaller month, and that gets worse before it gets better.
The worst month shape
You sold less and paid more. Long-term storage, a wave of refund administration, or stock that moved into a costlier size band. None of those are fixed in the ad account.
Two sides of the same settlement. A payout that falls while fees stay flat is a sales or refund story; a payout that falls while fees climb means Amazon is taking more per unit and your selling did nothing wrong. The two need opposite responses.
Fees divided by units is the cost of putting one item in a customer's hands, and it's the only version of this number that compares month to month. A total up 10% on 20% more units is getting cheaper; up 20% on 5% more units means size, weight or storage time moved against you.
Common misreads
Most increases are your own doing — bulkier stock, more units, longer storage, more returns. Check which components moved before you assume a rate change.
The bill falls whenever you sell less. Read it as a share of sales: a smaller total on a much smaller month is a worse result, not a better one.
It's what Amazon billed on the settlement. Advertising charged separately, the goods themselves and getting stock into the warehouse all sit outside this figure.
Also called
Amazon Fees · seller fees · marketplace fees · settlement deductions
See yoursYour total Amazon fees for the period, next to the sales they came out of.
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