Understanding Amazon Fees: Where Your Margin Actually Goes

On paper, the maths looks harmless: sell a product for €29.99, pay Amazon 15%, keep the rest. In reality, your margin melts in four stages – and if you don’t know them line by line, you only notice in the settlement report (or worse: at year-end) that a “profitable” product has been burning money.

This article dissects a typical Amazon sale into its cost components, clears up the three most common calculation mistakes, and shows how to work out your true contribution margin per unit in two minutes.

Anatomy of an Amazon sale: four deductions, one contribution margin

Every unit you sell is hit by four cost blocks:

1. Referral fee. Amazon’s commission, according to Amazon mostly between 8% and 15% depending on category, with a minimum fee of €0.30 per item in most categories. It is based on the total sales price, meaning the amount the buyer pays, including shipping and gift wrapping (as of October 2026, Amazon.de seller pricing page, in German). Because consumer prices are gross, you effectively also pay commission on the VAT you pass on to the tax office. Check this against one line of your settlement.

2. FBA fulfilment fee. A fixed amount per unit, driven by the size tier and weight of the packaged product. Current amounts are in Amazon’s rate cards; since 17 April 2026, a fuel and logistics surcharge of 1.5% applies to fulfilment fees in Germany. For small, light items it is often the single largest cost – a €9.99 product can lose more here in percentage terms than to the referral fee.

3. Cost of goods and inbound freight. Purchase price plus transport into the FBA warehouse. Constant per unit, but freight is frequently left out of the calculation.

4. VAT. The silent line item: part of your gross price belongs to the tax office, not to you. At 19%, that is already €4.79 of a €29.99 sale – more than the referral fee.

Worked example: the €29.99 product

The example assumes a seller in Germany under standard VAT taxation selling to consumers in Germany. Fees and cost of goods are net; any VAT charged on the fees is recovered as input VAT. The FBA fee is a rounded example value; Amazon’s rate card shows the current amount for your product.

Line	Amount
Selling price (gross)	€29.99
− VAT contained in the price (19%)	−€4.79
= Net proceeds	€25.20
− Referral fee 15% of the gross price	−€4.50
− FBA fulfilment fee (example value)	−€3.20
− Cost of goods incl. inbound freight	−€9.50
= Contribution margin per unit	€8.00

So “€30 of revenue” becomes roughly eight euros of contribution margin – before storage fees, PPC advertising, returns and the Professional selling plan (€39 a month excl. VAT) are even considered. That is not yet profit. That gap between perceived and real margin decides whether scaling multiplies profit – or losses.

Three mistakes that ruin margins

“I calculate the 15% on the net price.” The basis is the total amount the buyer pays, including shipping. Calculating on the net price understates the fee by almost a sixth at 19% VAT.

“FBA fees are roughly the same.” The fulfilment fee jumps at size-tier boundaries. A product that slips into the next tier because of its packaging instantly loses noticeable margin – packaging optimisation is real money here.

“VAT is a pass-through item, I ignore it.” Correct for bookkeeping, dangerous for pricing: your price floor must be based on net proceeds. Our guide to VAT in e-commerce shows how to separate gross and net cleanly – and when selling across the EU, the destination country’s VAT rate shifts your margin further without a single fee changing.

Get the real number in two minutes

For the concrete calculation, we built the free Amazon Fee Calculator: enter selling price, category, size tier and cost of goods – the calculator breaks down referral fee, FBA fulfilment fee and contribution margin per unit, for marketplaces in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the UK and the US. You see whether a product is worth listing before you list it – not after the first settlement period.

To look beyond the single unit – for instance how different EU VAT rates reshape profit at a uniform gross price – try the E-Commerce Profit & VAT Simulator (OSS).

Conclusion: margin is not a feeling, it is a booking

Amazon fees are no secret, but they are scattered: commission here, fulfilment fee there, VAT on top. Run the numbers once per product – for example with the Amazon Fee Calculator – and you make pricing decisions on facts instead of gut feeling.

The same components then reach your books month after month: KudTax pulls proceeds, fees and refunds from your Amazon settlements, reconciles them with the payouts using AI assistance and creates journal entries based on SKR03 or SKR04 for the DATEV export. Pricing each product remains your job; the calculator above helps with that.