BTHE BARATELLI INSTITUTE · Mentoring at Scale
WHAT AMAZON ACTUALLY KEEPS

Your true Amazon take rate is 30-40% higher than you think.

Referral fee + FBA fulfillment + storage + inbound + ad spend + returns + reimbursement gaps. Sellers consistently find their actual margin is dramatically below the napkin math. This tool lays out every fee Amazon charges, the order they're applied in, and what you actually keep.

7
Fee categories
~40%
Typical Amazon take
PPC
Hidden ad-spend drain
CM%
What you actually keep
YOUR ASIN
1
Product
2
Amazon fees
3
Operating costs
4
Marketing & returns
5
True take-rate
STAGE 1 OF 5

Tell me about the product

Defaults are typical for a $35 standard-size consumer product.

Listed price on Amazon — what the customer pays before tax. Excludes shipping if applicable (most FBA is free shipping for Prime).
$
Manufacturer cost + tariffs/duties + landed-cost shipping to your US warehouse. Not the price Amazon shows.
$
Approximate monthly velocity. Drives total revenue and storage cost.
STAGE 2 OF 5

Amazon's direct fees

The fees Amazon charges per unit before you spend a dollar on ads or returns.

Amazon's commission. Auto-set by category but adjust if you have a niche rate. Ranges 6-17%.
%
Pick + pack + ship. Small standard ~$3.50; large standard ~$5-7; small oversize ~$10-13; large oversize $25+. Rate-card auto-suggests by size tier.
$
$0.87/cu ft (Jan-Sep) or $2.40/cu ft (Oct-Dec) per Amazon's 2025 rates, allocated per unit. Typical small-std: $0.05-0.15/unit/month; oversize $0.50-2/unit.
$
Cost of getting the unit from your supplier or 3PL into Amazon's network. Sea freight + drayage + Amazon partnered carrier or your own LTL. Typical: $0.50-2.50/unit for normal-size, $3-8 for oversize.
$
Additional fee on inventory aged 271-365 days ($1.50/cu ft) or 365+ days ($6.90/cu ft). Set 0 if you turn inventory under 270 days; otherwise Amazon will surprise you.
$
Amazon's 2024+ inbound placement service charges if you use single-warehouse shipping. Typical: $0.20-0.50/unit. Set 0 if you self-distribute.
$
The fees Amazon adds without telling you obviously. Beyond the published rate card, Amazon adds inbound placement service fees (2024+), low-inventory-level fees (2024+, ~$0.32-2.45/unit when stock falls below 28 days of cover), high-volume listing fees, and removal/disposal fees. Most "Amazon fee calculator" tools online ignore these. The 2024-2025 fee creep added ~3-5% of unit revenue for most third-party sellers.
STAGE 3 OF 5

Your operating costs

Costs Amazon doesn't see but that come out of your margin.

Polybagging, labeling, bundling, FNSKU labels. Either your prep center charges this (~$0.40-1.00/unit) or you absorb labor. Set 0 only if your manufacturer ships fully prepped.
$
% of inventory units lost to FBA damage, mis-shipment, or worse. Amazon reimburses some — typically you net 0.5-1.5% of revenue lost. Set higher if your category is fragile.
%
Helium 10 / Jungle Scout / Sellerboard / Sellerise / SellerApp / repricer / etc. Total monthly cost ÷ units sold. Typical: $0.05-0.30/unit for established sellers.
$
Sales tax on marketplace remittance is handled by Amazon, but income tax + bookkeeping + state nexus filings are not. Allocate annual cost across units.
$
If you didn't include tariffs in landed COGS. Typical: 7.5-25% of EXW cost depending on Section 301, China-origin status, etc.
$
STAGE 4 OF 5

Amazon ads & returns

The two largest hidden margin drains. Most sellers know about ads but not what they actually cost; almost no one prices in the true cost of returns.

Ad spend ÷ ad-attributed sales. Typical 15-35% for established ASINs; 40-80% for new launches; under 12% for low-competition niches. This is THE biggest margin killer for most FBA sellers.
%
If your TACoS (total ACoS) is 15% and ACoS is 22%, then ~68% of sales are organic. Adjust based on your data — most sellers have 60-80% ad-attributed sales.
%
% of orders returned. Apparel 20-30%; electronics 8-15%; home/kitchen 5-12%; consumables 2-5%. Amazon's "Returnless Refund" feature has driven returns higher in 2024-2025.
%
Of returned units, % that can be sold again at full price. Apparel 50-70%; electronics 40-60%; consumables 0%; cosmetics 0%. Non-resaleable returns are 100% loss.
%
Amazon charges sellers ~$1.50-3 per return for processing. Plus the original FBA fee is non-refundable on most returned items.
$
Amazon increasingly issues refunds without requiring returns on low-cost items. You lose 100% of the unit. Allocate as % of returns × full unit cost.
$
The return-cost double-hit. When a customer returns a unit, you lose: (a) the full purchase price refunded to the customer, (b) the FBA fee Amazon already collected, (c) the return processing fee, (d) the inbound shipping you paid, and frequently (e) the unit itself if it's not resaleable. Effective cost of a single return on a $35 item: ~$22-30. Most sellers price as if returns are 1.05× the COGS — they're actually 0.6-0.9× the sale price.
STAGE 5 OF 5 · TRUE TAKE-RATE

What you actually keep

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Where the money goes — per unit

Per-unit P&L waterfall

Health metrics

Recommendations

PAIRS WITH
CFO & Controller's Guide · E-commerce Unit Economics tool
The companion E-commerce Unit Economics tool covers the full DTC + Amazon hybrid picture; the CFO Guide chapter on consumer brands covers Amazon-vs-DTC strategic positioning, working-capital math, the inventory financing options, and the path to a sale (consumer brand M&A multiples penalize Amazon-heavy mixes meaningfully). Subscribe to the library →
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Fee assumptions reflect 2025 Amazon FBA rate cards (referral fee schedule, FBA fulfillment rate card, monthly storage rates, inbound placement service fees, low-inventory-level fees, returns processing). Your actual fees may vary based on category sub-tiers, FBA Small & Light eligibility, multi-channel fulfillment usage, and brand registry status. Storage cost assumes consistent inventory levels; seasonal storage spikes (Oct-Dec at 3× rate) are not modeled. ACoS-attribution math is necessarily an approximation — Amazon's last-click attribution overweights ads relative to true lift. This is not financial advice.
WANT THE METHODOLOGY BEHIND THIS TOOL?
This calculator is one chapter of The Business Buyer's Guide.
The tool gives you the answer. The guide gives you the argument — the case law, the worked examples, the negotiation playbook, the cross-check tables, the exception cases. Read the chapter and you can defend your number to a board, a buyer, an examiner, or a counterparty.
The methodology behind this calculator is in e-commerce buyer track of the reference guide.
See the Guide → Browse all 22 guides
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Educational and informational purposes only. This calculator and any output it produces are intended solely for general educational and decision-support purposes. They do not constitute investment, tax, legal, accounting, appraisal, lending, insurance, or any other professional advice, and they do not create a fiduciary, attorney-client, accountant-client, or advisor-client relationship of any kind.

Estimates based on your inputs. All results are estimates derived from the data and assumptions you provide. Tax law, accounting standards, regulations, market conditions, and the specific facts of your situation can materially change the answer. The Baratelli Institute, its affiliates, and any co-branding professional make no warranty of accuracy, completeness, currency, or fitness for any particular purpose, and disclaim all liability for decisions made in reliance on the output.

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