How the comparison works
For anyone importing from China, Amazon's fees are only part of the cost: freight and duty sit between the supplier price and your landed cost. Marginely starts from FOB cost, adds sea freight and duty to get your true landed cost per unit, then runs that same unit through both fulfillment paths so the comparison is apples to apples.
FBA per-unit cost
Referral (category) fee on the sale price, plus Amazon's fulfillment fee, plus your inbound shipping into Amazon and monthly storage. When you leave the fulfillment fee at zero, it's estimated from unit weight using current US size-tier rates as a starting point — enter the exact figure from your Amazon listing for precision.
FBM per-unit cost
Referral fee still applies, but instead of Amazon's fulfillment you carry your own shipping label cost and pack/handling time. Which path costs less depends on your item's weight, sales volume and storage cost; the break-even volume below shows where they cross.
Break-even volume
If one method has a higher per-unit profit, it wins at every volume and there's no crossover. When FBA has lower per-unit profit but you'd otherwise lose Prime-driven sales, the break-even line shows the monthly volume where FBA's scale advantage would need to kick in. Use it as a planning anchor, not a guarantee.
The 2026 fee changes quietly eating your margin
Your FBA vs FBM result above uses today's fee structure — but four rules in force for 2026 keep shrinking the gap after you've committed inventory. Each one is set out on an Amazon Seller Central help page linked below the cards:
Fee figures move and depend on size tier, weight, and violation type — treat these as ranges to verify against your live Seller Central rate card, not fixed quotes. Sources: Amazon Seller Central, 2026 fee changes summary, FBA prep service, low-inventory-level fee; read October 11, 2026.
Since March 10, 2025, when Amazon loses or damages your inventory before a sale, it reimburses you at manufacturing cost, not retail — a $50 item that cost you $15 to source now pays back $15. Reimbursement services put recoverable errors at 1–3% of annual sales, so it is worth auditing. Estimate what Amazon owes you →
How import duty is set
Duty is charged on the customs value of the goods (generally the price paid, before international freight), not the sale price. The base rate (Column 1 General) depends on the HTS code; look yours up in the US International Trade Commission's HTS search.
Goods from China can owe Section 301 and other additional duties on top of the base rate, and these change by notice. Enter the combined rate for your HTS code, as your customs broker or a CBP ruling gives it.
Why landed cost decides FBA vs FBM
The fulfillment choice rarely flips a losing product into a winner — landed cost does. If freight and duty push your true unit cost above what either method can carry, no fulfillment tweak saves it. Run landed cost first; then let the FBA/FBM split decide how you keep what's left.
What this tool doesn't include
Returns, PPC/advertising spend, long-term storage surcharges, and removal fees aren't modeled here — they affect both methods but not equally. This is a sourcing-stage screen to see whether a product is worth listing at all, and which fulfillment path starts you ahead. Confirm exact Amazon fees on your live listing before committing inventory.
Amazon FBA vs FBM: the complete 2026 seller guide
If you're choosing how to fulfill Amazon orders in 2026, the decision comes down to who stores, packs, and ships your product — Amazon (FBA) or you (FBM) — and what that does to your per-unit profit once every fee is counted. This guide walks the full picture the calculator above is built on, so you can read your result with the context behind it.
What is FBA?
Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) means you send inventory to Amazon's fulfillment centers, and Amazon stores it, picks and packs each order, ships it, and handles customer service and returns. Your products get the Prime badge, which lifts conversion because Prime members filter for fast, free delivery. In exchange you pay a per-unit fulfillment fee, monthly storage, and a growing list of secondary fees (inbound placement, aged-inventory surcharges, low-inventory fees, returns processing). Sellers choose it for Prime eligibility and hands-off logistics; whether that outweighs the fees depends on your product, which the calculator above tests.
What is FBM?
Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM) means you list on Amazon but ship orders yourself, from your own location or a third-party logistics (3PL) provider. You keep control of inventory and packaging, you avoid Amazon's storage and fulfillment fees, but you carry your own shipping label cost and packing labor — and you don't automatically get the Prime badge unless you qualify for Seller-Fulfilled Prime, which has strict performance requirements. FBM tends to win on heavy or bulky items where Amazon's size-based fees are punishing, on low-velocity products that would rack up storage and aged-inventory surcharges, and on high-margin items where you can absorb slower shipping without losing the sale.
How Amazon FBA fees work in 2026
Amazon takes several cuts on every FBA sale. Understanding each one is the difference between a product that looks profitable and one that actually is:
- Referral fee: a category commission on the full sale price (item price plus any shipping or gift-wrap you charge), mostly 8–15%, with 20% on the lower price band of jewelry and fine art, 22% for veterinary diets and 45% for Amazon device accessories (see the full category table). Referral percentages were frozen for both 2025 and 2026. There's a $0.30 per-unit minimum.
- Fulfillment fee: a flat per-unit charge for pick, pack, and ship, based on size tier and weight. On the 2026 non-peak card it runs from $3.32 for the smallest standard items priced $10–$50 ($2.43 under $10) to $12.41 for a 20 lb large standard item, with separate, higher rate cards for bulky and extra-large products and a holiday peak card from October 15, 2026 to January 14, 2027. A structural change for 2026: fees are now published across three price bands (under $10, $10–$50, over $50), not a single fee per weight tier. From January 15, 2026, standard-size fees rose by about $0.08 per unit on average for items priced $10–$50, $0.05 under $10 and $0.31 over $50.
- Fuel & logistics surcharge: a new 3.5% surcharge applies to fulfillment fees only (not referral, not storage) effective April 17, 2026 — roughly $0.17 per unit on a standard-size item. Small on one unit, real at volume.
- Monthly storage: charged per cubic foot: $0.78 for standard-size items from January to September and $2.40 from October to December ($0.56 and $1.40 for oversize), plus a utilization surcharge for sellers holding more than 22 weeks of supply.
- Aged-inventory surcharge: begins at 181 days, so six months of slow stock starts accumulating surcharges on top of storage, climbing to $7.90 per cubic foot (or $0.35 per unit, whichever is greater) at the 15-month-plus tier.
- Low-inventory-level fee: charged when both the 30-day and 90-day historical days of supply fall below 28 days, assessed per FNSKU from 2026 and now also applied to small and large bulky items (grocery is exempt). Running too lean to save storage can trip this instead.
- Inbound placement, returns processing, and removal fees: the secondary layer that is easy to forget. They add anywhere from $0.30 to several dollars per unit depending on the product.
The under-$10 price point has its own track: products priced below $10 qualify for Low-Price FBA rates, averaging about $0.86 less per unit than standard rates — which is why the unit economics of pricing at $9.99 versus $10.00 can swing more than the penny suggests.
How FBM costs compare
FBM strips out Amazon's fulfillment and storage fees, but the referral fee still applies — it's charged on every Amazon sale regardless of who ships. In their place you carry your shipping label (often $4–$8 for a standard parcel depending on weight and zone — a market range, not a carrier-published rate), packing materials, and your own labor or 3PL handling fee. The math that decides FBA vs FBM is rarely the platform fee alone; it's your landed cost plus fulfillment, run side by side. That's exactly what the calculator at the top does — and why it starts from FOB cost, freight, and duty rather than just the supplier price.
Which should you choose?
There's no universal answer; the calculator above decides it for your product. As a rule of thumb, FBA tends to win for light, small-to-standard items with healthy margins in competitive categories where the Prime badge drives conversion, and once your volume is high enough that hands-off logistics frees you to focus on sourcing and marketing. FBM tends to win for heavy or oversized products where FBA's size-based fees are brutal, for slow-moving inventory that would rack up storage and the 181-day aged surcharge, and for sellers who already run efficient fulfillment or want full control of the customer unboxing experience. You can also run both: FBA for their fast movers and Prime-sensitive SKUs, FBM for the bulky or slow ones.
What margin should you target?
Amazon publishes no target margin, and there is no reliable industry figure, so set the bar from your own costs. Your net margin after all fees but before advertising has to cover what you will spend on ads as a share of sales, plus returns and the higher October–December storage rate. For example, if ads will cost 10% of revenue and returns another 3%, a product showing 12% net before ads loses money. That is why running the full fee stack before you commit inventory matters more than reacting to your first settlement report: if a product cannot clear your own threshold at your real landed cost, the price, the sourcing cost, or the fulfillment method has to change before you buy.
Is FBA still worth it in 2026?
For standard-size products with healthy margins in Prime-sensitive categories, yes — the 2026 fee increases are modest ($0.08/unit average on fulfillment) and for those products the Prime badge can be worth more than they cost; run your own numbers in the calculator above. The pressure points are the 3.5% fuel surcharge, the aged-inventory surcharge from 181 days, and the low-inventory fee, all of which compress margins on slow or poorly forecast inventory. FBA rewards lean, fast-turning catalogs and punishes stock that sits. If your product is heavy, bulky, or slow, model FBM seriously before defaulting to FBA.
Do referral fees differ between FBA and FBM?
No. The referral fee is identical whether Amazon fulfills the order or you do — it's a commission on the sale, not a fulfillment charge. The only thing that changes between FBA and FBM is the fulfillment side: Amazon's per-unit fee plus storage under FBA, versus your own shipping and handling under FBM. That's why the referral line is the same on both sides of the breakdown above.