Amazon.in seller fees explained: referral, closing and FBA

Amazon’s India fee pages describe a referral fee and a closing fee on every sale, and a weight handling fee when Amazon ships the order (FBA, Easy Ship or Seller Flex). If you use FBA, its page also lists transportation to the fulfilment centre, storage, pick and pack, and removals as separate FBA costs.

Amazon shows these fees excluding GST and applies 18 percent GST on all of them. So every fee you take from a rate card should be multiplied by 1.18 before it goes into your calculation. That one step is the most common reason a hand-built margin looks better than the payout report.

The referral fee is a percentage of the total selling price, charged on each item sold. Amazon’s fee schedule says the percentage varies by category and, in many categories, by price band. Its own example is a baby apparel item at ₹1,450 with a 7 percent rate, giving ₹101.50.

The rows differ a lot. When this was written, the schedule listed Shoes at 0 percent up to ₹1,000 and 8 percent above that, while Books had four bands, rising from 0 percent to 13.5 percent as the price climbs. Amazon has cut referral fees to zero on lower-priced items in many categories, but its pages quote different cut-offs (one says below ₹1,000, an older post says below ₹300). Do not rely on a headline. Find the row for the category your listing is filed under and read the band that matches your price.

The closing fee is a fixed amount per item, set by the price the buyer pays (including any shipping or gift-wrap charge you add) and by the fulfilment channel. Amazon’s page lists a revision effective 7 September 2026: ₹1 more on items up to ₹500 and ₹3 more above that. Because the amount is flat, it takes a larger share of a cheap item than of an expensive one.

The weight handling fee applies when Amazon ships, and depends on weight and distance. Amazon bills the higher of actual weight and volumetric weight, where volumetric weight is length × breadth × height in centimetres divided by 5,000. Standard items are billed in 500 g steps with a 500 g minimum. A box that is a few centimetres too large can move a light product into a higher step, so measure the packed product, not the product alone. With Self Ship, Amazon charges no shipping fee and you pay your own courier.

Storage is charged per cubic foot per month for stock held in a fulfilment centre. Amazon’s own pages disagree on the rate: the pricing page shows ₹50, while an example on the FBA page uses ₹33. Do not hard-code either figure. Read the current rate in the Seller Central fee schedule, and remember that pick and pack is charged per unit sold and removal per unit returned to you.

An Amazon staff reply on the Amazon.in Seller Forums describes an aged inventory surcharge on stock held for 181 days or more, assessed from a mid-month snapshot and charged in addition to monthly storage. Confirm the current dates and rates in Seller Central. The point for costing is simple: the longer a unit sits, the more it costs, so a slow mover needs a bigger margin than a fast one.

Take a product selling for ₹1,200. All figures here are illustrative, not real rates. Assume an 8 percent referral fee (₹96), a ₹30 closing fee, a ₹60 weight handling fee and ₹15 of storage and pick-and-pack charges. That is ₹201 in fees, plus 18 percent GST of ₹36.18, so ₹237.18 in total, about 19.8 percent of the price. Amazon pays out ₹962.82.

Now take off your own costs, again illustrative: ₹500 for the product, ₹40 for inbound packing and freight, ₹90 of advertising per unit, and ₹50 set aside for returns. Profit is ₹282.82 per unit, or 23.6 percent of the price. Amazon’s own profit formula is the same shape: sale price, minus product cost, minus all fees. This example treats the price as excluding GST on the sale itself, so confirm how your accountant handles that.

For each product: confirm the category and read the referral band for your price; look up the closing fee for your channel and price band; measure the packed dimensions and compute volumetric weight; add storage for the number of days you expect stock to sit; multiply all Amazon fees by 1.18; then subtract your product, freight, ad and return costs.

Amazon’s Revenue Calculator, at ASIN level and as a category-level fee dashboard, does most of this for you, though Amazon states its results are estimates only. Run it for each SKU, compare it with your own sheet, and re-run both whenever Amazon announces a fee revision.