Amazon has made two significant changes to how FBA sellers experience fees and payments over the past 12 months — and most sellers have not fully accounted for either of them in their financial planning. The first is a broad restructuring of FBA fulfillment fees, with new per-unit tiers and weight-based adjustments that went live in February 2025. The second is a change to the disbursement cycle — the shift to DD+7 (Delivery Date plus 7 days) — that has created unexpected cash flow pressure for sellers who weren't prepared for it.
Together, these changes have made the per-unit economics of FBA materially different from what many sellers modeled even 18 months ago. This guide breaks down exactly what changed, how to calculate the real impact on your margins, and what operational adjustments are worth considering.
What Changed in Amazon FBA Fees
Amazon's 2025 fee restructuring was described in communications as "simplification," but for most sellers it represented a meaningful increase in fulfillment costs, particularly for mid-size products. Here are the key changes and their practical implications.
New fulfillment fee tiers
Amazon moved from a fulfillment fee structure based on product size tiers (Small Standard, Large Standard, Oversize) to a more granular system that calculates fees based on dimensional weight alongside physical weight — whichever is greater. For most products that were previously categorized as Large Standard, this means higher fees.
- Small Standard (up to 4 oz): approximately $3.06 — broadly unchanged
- Small Standard (4–8 oz): approximately $3.15 — slight increase
- Large Standard (8–12 oz): approximately $3.68 — moderate increase
- Large Standard (1–2 lb): approximately $4.99 — significant increase for light bulky items
- Large Standard (2–3 lb): approximately $5.79 — meaningful increase vs. prior year
- Products above 3 lb: fee increases compound with every additional pound
Inbound placement fees
One of the most significant new costs introduced in 2025 is the inbound placement fee — a charge for "Minimal Shipment Splits," Amazon's default placement option where sellers ship to a single fulfillment center and Amazon redistributes inventory across its network. This fee, ranging from $0.21 to $0.57 per unit depending on size, effectively means Amazon is charging for the distribution service it previously included in its fulfillment fee.
Sellers who ship directly to multiple fulfillment centers (using the Distributed Placement option) avoid this fee — but this requires more complex logistics coordination and typically higher freight costs. For sellers with high-volume SKUs and established 3PL relationships, the math often favors direct distribution. For smaller operations, the inbound placement fee is often the path of least resistance despite the added cost.
Low-inventory-level fees
A new fee category introduced in mid-2025 penalizes sellers who maintain FBA inventory at levels Amazon considers insufficient relative to historical sales velocity. If your 28-day inventory average is below a calculated threshold, you are charged a low-inventory fee on a per-unit basis.
This fee has caught many sellers off guard because it is counterintuitive: Amazon is penalizing you for not having enough inventory in their network. From Amazon's operational perspective, low-inventory products are harder to fulfill efficiently because they cannot be distributed across fulfillment centers. For sellers, it creates pressure to maintain higher FBA stock levels — which in turn increases storage fees and cash tied up in inventory.
The low-inventory-level fee, inbound placement fee, and standard fulfillment fee increases can combine to add $1.50–$3.00+ per unit in costs that were not present in 2023. For products with margins already under pressure, this can flip a profitable SKU to break-even or worse.
The DD+7 Payment Change: What It Means for Cash Flow
Historically, Amazon disbursed seller funds on a rolling 14-day schedule — twice per month, regardless of when individual orders were delivered. In 2025, Amazon transitioned to a Delivery Date + 7 (DD+7) disbursement model, which ties fund availability to when each order was delivered rather than to a fixed calendar schedule.
How DD+7 actually works
Under DD+7, funds from a sale are not available for disbursement until 7 days after the order is confirmed delivered. This means: (1) orders with longer fulfillment timelines have longer cash conversion cycles, (2) disbursements are no longer predictably twice-monthly — they reflect the rolling delivery pattern of your order flow, and (3) seasonal spikes in sales can create a delayed spike in cash availability.
Real impact for FBA sellers
For sellers ordering inventory from Chinese manufacturers with 45–60 day lead times, the cash cycle now looks like this: you pay for inventory 60 days before it arrives at FBA. It arrives, is received (5–10 days), sells (variable), is delivered (1–5 days via FBA), and funds are available 7 days after delivery. A product that sells within its first week at FBA could still have a 75–80 day cash cycle from supplier payment to cash in hand.
- Review your reserve balance in Seller Central — this is now meaningfully higher for many sellers because more funds are "in transit" under DD+7
- Model your cash flow using delivery date rather than order date — many seller accounting tools have not been updated for this change
- Consider whether a credit facility or inventory financing line is appropriate given the extended cash cycle
- For high-velocity products, the impact is lower because deliveries are more continuous — the real pain is felt by sellers with lumpy, seasonal, or lower-velocity sales patterns
The interaction with the A-to-Z guarantee hold period
DD+7 interacts with Amazon's existing A-to-Z Guarantee claims window in a way that further extends the hold period for some orders. If a buyer opens an A-to-Z claim, the funds associated with that order can remain on hold for the duration of the claims process — which can extend the cash conversion cycle significantly beyond the standard 7-day DD+7 window.
How to Recalculate Your True FBA Economics
Given these fee changes, every seller should run a fresh unit economics calculation for every active ASIN. The inputs have changed enough that 2023 or 2024 margin models are no longer reliable.
- 1Pull your current FBA fee per unit from the FBA Revenue Calculator — use current dimensional weight, not historical estimates
- 2Add the inbound placement fee if you are using Minimal Shipment Splits (check your shipping plan settings)
- 3Calculate your average storage fee based on your average monthly inventory level and current storage rates
- 4Estimate your low-inventory fee exposure by checking your inventory health dashboard for any flagged ASINs
- 5Add these costs to your Cost of Goods Sold, Amazon referral fee, and any advertising spend to get your true all-in cost per unit sold
- 6Compare your all-in cost to your current selling price and calculate the margin that remains
For products where the margin after this calculation is below 15%, you have a pricing or sourcing decision to make. Raising prices, renegotiating COGS with your supplier, or discontinuing the ASIN are all legitimate responses — but they require knowing the real number first.
What Sellers Are Doing to Adapt
Sellers who have adapted most successfully to the 2025–2026 fee environment have taken specific operational steps that are worth considering:
- Optimizing product packaging dimensions to reduce dimensional weight — even a 10% reduction in package size can move a product to a lower fee tier
- Shifting high-velocity SKUs to direct FC placement to avoid inbound placement fees
- Increasing reorder frequency to maintain inventory levels above the low-inventory threshold without holding excess stock
- Evaluating FBM as a parallel channel for products with higher price points where the margin math supports it
- Using Amazon's new FBA Reimbursement program aggressively — Amazon loses and damages inventory regularly, and many sellers are not claiming their full entitlement
Amazon adjusts its fee structure periodically. Sellers who build fee tracking into their quarterly business reviews — rather than treating FBA fees as a fixed background cost — consistently outperform those who recalculate only when they notice a margin problem.
Tools for Tracking the Real Impact
Managing FBA unit economics in 2026 requires better tooling than most sellers currently use. Seller Central's built-in analytics do not automatically surface the combined effect of fulfillment fee increases, inbound placement fees, low-inventory fees, and DD+7 cash flow changes on a per-ASIN basis. Dedicated Amazon analytics and advertising management tools that integrate with SP-API can pull this data automatically and surface margin warnings before they become a problem.
The most important metric to track going forward is not revenue — it is contribution margin per unit, calculated after all Amazon-side costs including storage, fulfillment, and inbound fees. Sellers who track this number weekly make better decisions about pricing, restocking, and ASIN mix than those who track it quarterly.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Amazon's DD+7 payment system?
DD+7 (Delivery Date plus 7 days) is Amazon's current disbursement model. Funds from a sale are not available until 7 days after confirmed delivery — replacing the prior twice-monthly calendar disbursement. For sellers with slower-moving or seasonal inventory, this extends the cash conversion cycle and increases the reserve balance held by Amazon.
What are Amazon inbound placement fees and how do I avoid them?
Inbound placement fees ($0.21–$0.57 per unit for most sizes) are charged when you use Amazon's default Minimal Shipment Splits option. You can avoid them by using Distributed Placement and shipping directly to multiple fulfillment centers — but this requires more logistics coordination and typically higher freight costs.
What is Amazon's low-inventory-level fee?
Amazon charges a per-unit low-inventory fee when your 28-day average FBA inventory falls below a calculated threshold relative to your sales velocity. Introduced in mid-2025, it can be avoided by maintaining inventory above your category-specific threshold — but this trades storage fees for low-inventory fees depending on your velocity.
How much have Amazon FBA fees increased in 2025–2026?
The combination of new inbound placement fees, low-inventory fees, and fulfillment fee tier adjustments adds approximately $1.50–$3.00+ per unit in costs that were not present in 2023, depending on product size and sales velocity. Products in the 1–3 lb range typically see the largest absolute increase per unit.
Amazon seller with 12+ years managing private label brands across 57 accounts and $60M+ in annual sales.
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