What It Really Costs to Sell on Amazon (2026 Fee Breakdown)
The Professional plan is $39.99/mo, referral fees run 5–45% by category, and FBA adds more on top. Here's what Amazon actually takes in 2026 — and why your settlement deposit is never your real revenue.
Ask most Amazon sellers what they earned last month and they’ll read you the number that hit their bank. That number has already had Amazon’s fees stripped out of it — which is exactly why it can’t be your revenue, and why Amazon books go wrong so often. Here’s what Amazon actually charges in 2026, straight from its published rates, and what it means for your accounts.
The selling plan
Amazon has two plans (Amazon official pricing):
- Professional: $39.99 per month, flat, no matter how much you sell.
- Individual: $0.99 per item sold — fine under ~40 items a month, more expensive above that.
Referral fees — the big one
On every item sold, Amazon takes a referral fee — a percentage of the total sale price, with a minimum of about $0.30. The rate depends on the category, and the spread is wide (Amazon official pricing):
- Consumer electronics — 8%
- Home & kitchen — 15%
- Clothing & accessories — 5–17% (tiered by price)
- Amazon device accessories — up to 45%
Across most categories the rate lands at 15%. That comes off the top of every single order.
FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon)
If Amazon stores and ships for you, there’s a separate FBA fulfillment fee charged per unit, based on the item’s size and weight, plus monthly storage fees. These change periodically — the 2026 fee update reworked the size bands — so the only reliable figure for your products comes from Amazon’s own revenue calculator. The point for your books is simply that FBA is a second layer of cost stacked on the referral fee, before you ever see a cent.
Why this breaks your books
Here’s the trap. Amazon doesn’t send you each sale and each fee separately — it nets everything into a settlement deposit every two weeks: sales, minus referral fees, minus FBA fees, minus refunds, minus advertising, plus or minus reserves. One number lands in your bank.
Book that deposit as “sales” and three things are instantly wrong: your revenue is understated, your fees are invisible as expenses, and your real margin is anyone’s guess. Multiply across a year and your P&L — and the tax return built on it — describes a business that doesn’t exist.
The fix is to split every settlement back into its parts, so sales are sales and each fee lands in its own expense account. That’s the core of what we do on our Amazon seller bookkeeping service, and it’s why the numbers behind clean books matter more for marketplace sellers than almost anyone.
Not sure your Amazon books are split right?
Send us view-only access and we’ll tell you — our free books review flags what’s misclassified or lumped together, in plain English, within 48 hours. Or book a free call.
Source
Not sure whether this is happening in your books?
Give us view-only access and we will tell you, in plain English, what is misclassified, unreconciled or wrong — within 48 hours. Free, and you are under no obligation to do anything about it.