Amazon FBA Prep Cost Calculator
Outsourced prep against your own hours.
Amazon revises fee schedules at least annually and adds new surcharges more often. These defaults are a starting point — the figures in your own fee preview are the ones that describe your ASINs.
Prep cost per unit
$0.85
$425 for the shipment
Prepping in house is $0.63 cheaper per unit on paper. Whether that is real depends on whether your time has a better use — at 500 units it is 5.0 hours of your week.
How the Amazon FBA Prep Cost Calculator works
Prep is priced per unit and looks cheap until you multiply it by the shipment. The honest comparison is against your own time at a real hourly cost — and for most sellers past the first year, that comparison favours the prep centre.
Not financial advice. Marketplace fees change, and they vary by country, plan and seller status. Every rate here is an editable default, not a quoted price — check the platform's current fee schedule before you price a product against it. This is not tax or business advice.
Frequently asked questions
What prep does Amazon require?
It varies by product: polybagging with a suffocation warning for anything that could pose a risk, bubble wrap for fragile items, opaque bagging for adult products, and FNSKU labelling unless you use commingled inventory.
What does a prep service charge?
Commonly 30 cents to a dollar per unit depending on the work, sometimes with a receiving fee per carton. Bundling and kitting cost more.
Should I prep in house?
Early on, when your time is cheap and volume is low, yes. Once volume means hours a week, the prep centre is usually cheaper than the alternative use of your time — and makes fewer mistakes.
What happens if prep is wrong?
Amazon may charge an unplanned prep fee at several times the cost of doing it properly, or refuse the shipment entirely. The unplanned prep fee is one of the more expensive ways to save thirty cents.