Amazon’s holiday peak fulfillment fees begin October 15 and continue through January 14, 2027.
I spent some time looking through the changes, and the first thing worth pointing out is that there isn’t one holiday surcharge that applies equally to every Amazon seller.
Amazon is temporarily increasing its FBA fulfillment fees. The amount depends primarily on the size and weight of the product being shipped. Amazon says the increase averages about $0.32 per unit, but I don’t think the average is particularly useful to an individual seller.
What matters is what you sell.
A business selling small, lightweight products may only see an increase of a few dimes per unit. A business selling larger or bulky products can see a considerably larger increase.
That distinction matters because a few cents multiplied by a lot of units stops being a few cents pretty quickly.
A Simple Example
Let’s say you sell a product for $40 and your normal FBA fulfillment fee is $5.50 per unit.
During the holiday period, assume the fee increases by $0.35, to $5.85.
If you sell 10,000 of them:
10,000 × $0.35 = $3,500
That’s $3,500 less profit if nothing else changes.
And we’re only talking about one fee.
One detail worth knowing is that Amazon looks at when the item leaves the fulfillment center, not when the customer places the order. An order placed before October 15 that ships on or after October 15 can therefore be subject to the holiday rate.
This is also why I wouldn’t look at the holiday increase by itself.
There are referral fees, fulfillment fees, inbound placement costs, storage, advertising and returns. Amazon also has its separate fuel and logistics surcharge. Then you have costs outside Amazon such as freight, duties, packaging and the actual landed cost of the inventory.
None of these expenses by themselves necessarily destroy the economics of a product. The problem is what happens when you start stacking them on top of each other.
That’s where the accounting becomes important.
One thing we see with ecommerce businesses is how easy it is to look at the Amazon deposits hitting the bank account and feel pretty good about the month. The deposit isn’t profit. There is a lot going on behind that number, and you need the accounting to separate it.
Two companies can each sell $3 million a year on Amazon and have completely different economics.
One might sell small, lightweight products that turn quickly. Another might sell larger products that cost considerably more to fulfill and take up more warehouse space.
Both companies have $3 million of Amazon revenue. That doesn’t tell me much about which one is more profitable.
The same thing can happen within one company. Two products might both sell for $50 and have very different margins after you account for fulfillment, advertising, freight, returns and landed inventory cost.
This becomes particularly easy to miss during the holidays.
November and December sales are strong. Amazon deposits are larger. Everyone is happy about the volume.
Then you close the books and discover that the increase in sales didn’t produce the increase in profit you expected.
That’s the part I would pay attention to this year.
I’m not suggesting sellers should automatically raise prices because Amazon’s holiday fees are going up. For a lot of businesses, the increase will simply be another cost of selling during the busiest part of the year.
But I would want to know the answer to a fairly simple question before heading into the holiday season:
After Amazon gets paid, advertising gets paid, freight gets paid and the inventory itself gets paid for, how much are you actually making on the products you’re selling?
Amazon’s holiday fee increase is just one more reason to know that number.