Amazon FBA vs FBM Calculator
Compare your per-unit profit and margin selling on Amazon via FBA versus merchant-fulfilled FBM, side by side, using your own fees and shipping costs.
FBA
$7.15
28.6% margin
FBM
$5.55
22.2% margin
Both methods pay the same referral fee — Amazon's cut applies regardless of who ships the order. FBA and FBM fee defaults are typical placeholder estimates, not a live rate card; replace them with your own numbers from Seller Central and your actual carrier rates before trusting a result for a real pricing decision.
About this tool
How to use it
- Enter the selling price, your cost of goods, and the referral fee percentage (15% covers most categories — check yours if it's electronics, jewelry, or another category with a different rate).
- Under FBA, enter the fulfillment fee and monthly storage fee Amazon would charge per unit.
- Under FBM, enter your own shipping cost and packaging/labor cost per unit.
- Press Compare Fulfillment, or just keep typing — both sides update live, with the higher-profit method highlighted.
Why it matters
The same product can net a different profit depending on who ships it — Amazon (FBA) charges a fulfillment and storage fee but handles the logistics, while shipping it yourself (FBM) avoids those fees but adds your own shipping, packaging, and labor cost. Neither option is universally better; it depends on your specific numbers, and those numbers are easy to get wrong when comparing them in your head.
When to use it
Useful when deciding how to fulfill a new listing, when your FBA storage or fulfillment fees have gone up and you're wondering if self-fulfillment now makes more sense, or when your own shipping costs have changed and you want to recheck which method still wins.
Good to know
Both fulfillment methods pay the same referral fee — that's Amazon's marketplace cut and applies regardless of who ships the order, which is why it's shown once as a shared cost rather than duplicated under each method. The FBA and FBM fee defaults shown here are typical placeholder estimates, not a live rate card; replace every field with your own real numbers from Seller Central (for FBA fees) and your actual carrier rates (for FBM shipping) before trusting a result for a real pricing or fulfillment decision.
Common questions
Why does the referral fee appear once instead of under each method?
The referral fee is Amazon's marketplace commission, charged on every sale regardless of who fulfills the order — it's identical whether you use FBA or FBM, so showing it once as a shared cost avoids implying it's a separate, comparable expense between the two methods.
Does this account for FBA's other benefits, like Prime eligibility?
No — this only compares the direct per-unit profit and margin. FBA also typically brings Prime eligibility and can affect a listing's visibility and conversion rate in ways this calculator doesn't model, so a small profit edge for FBM doesn't automatically mean it's the better overall choice.
What if I don't know my exact FBA fees?
The fields default to typical estimates so you can see the shape of the comparison immediately, but Amazon's real fulfillment and storage fees depend on your product's exact size, weight, and category — check Seller Central > Fees for your specific product before relying on a result for a real decision.
What if I don't know my exact FBM shipping cost?
Get a real quote from your carrier for the product's actual weight and dimensions, and don't forget to include packaging materials and your own time or staff cost for picking, packing, and printing labels — it's easy to undercount FBM's true cost by only thinking about the shipping label price.
What does it mean if FBA and FBM net about the same?
When the two methods are within a cent of each other, the calculator says so explicitly rather than declaring an arbitrary winner — at that point, other factors (Prime eligibility, how much of your own time fulfillment takes, storage limits) are likely to matter more than the extra cent or two of margin.