What you pay before your first sale: an Amazon seller's monthly fixed costs

Why fixed costs matter

Sales-based fees rise and fall with revenue. Fixed costs are billed every month or every year even when sales are zero. In the early months, when sales are low, these costs don't reduce profit; they come straight out of your starting capital.

A common pattern: a new seller signs up on day one for the full tool stack that experienced sellers use. That stack makes sense for a store doing several thousand dollars a month, but it is a heavy load for an account whose first shipment hasn't reached the warehouse yet. So it helps to separate what is truly required from the tools you can add as sales grow.

Required costs: you pay them with or without sales

For a seller with a US LLC and a Professional account, the items below are hard to avoid in practice. Amounts are as of October 2026 and may change.

• Together these five items come to roughly $90–230 a month without any tools, or about $140 with typical choices. Most of that is the Amazon plan and tax filing preparation.
• The registered agent and filing preparation figures are market indications, not official rates. When you get a quote, ask in writing what the service covers.

Optional tools: what they do and when you need them

The tools below are useful, but none of them is required on day one. Most offer a free tier, a trial or a discount for annual billing.

• Product research (Helium 10, Jungle Scout, Data Dive, SmartScout): Helium 10 Platinum is $129 a month, or $99 a month billed annually. Jungle Scout Starter is $49 a month, or $29 a month billed annually. During product selection, subscribing for one month and cancelling once the research is done often makes more sense than paying all year.
• Keepa: a widely used tool for price and sales rank history. Basic charts are available through the free extension; data access costs 29 EUR a month or 290 EUR a year. It is billed in euros, so the dollar cost moves with the exchange rate.
• Profit and inventory tracking (sellerboard): the Standard plan is $19 a month or $179 a year, with a one-month free trial. It is a sensible early addition once sales begin.
• Accounting (QuickBooks, Xero, A2X): QuickBooks Online has a free tier; Simple Start is normally $38 a month. Xero's US plans start at $27 a month. A2X, which brings Amazon settlements into your books, starts at $29 a month. In the first months, a well-kept spreadsheet plus your accountant at year end is often enough.
• Repricers: BQool starts at $25 a month. If you are the only seller of your own brand, you usually don't need one; repricers are mainly used in wholesale or arbitrage models where several sellers share a product page.
• Design (Canva): the free plan may be enough to start. Canva Pro is $144 a year in the US (about $12 a month). Product photography is a one-off cost, not a monthly one.
• Banking and payments: Mercury and Relay have $0 base plans. According to Payoneer's pricing page, accounts that receive less than $6,000 over any 12 consecutive months may be charged a $29.95 annual account fee; older sources mention a different threshold. Check the current fee schedule in your own account.
• Virtual US address: services such as Anytime Mailbox start at roughly $5–10 a month; pricing depends on the location, and scanning or forwarding may cost extra.

Monthly cost range by category

The table shows, for each category, the cheapest valid option, a reasonable choice for a private label seller, and the top tier among the tools we reviewed (excluding enterprise plans). Annual items are divided by 12. Amounts are approximate, in USD, as of October 2026.

Three example setups: what they cost per month

The setups below combine the same items at different scales. They are examples, not recommendations. All three assume a Wyoming annual report ($60), a registered agent at $125 a year and a US phone line.

• The gap between the lean and typical setups is about $266 a month, mostly from research and accounting tools.
• The advanced tools are built for stores with high annual revenue and a team. Turning them all on for a new account means more than $10,000 a year in costs before sales begin.
• SmartScout's second price set is assumed to be annual billing; the page does not label it clearly.

Automation tools such as Seller Flash

SellerFlash is Amazon sales automation software with a Turkish-language interface, also used by sellers in Türkiye. Its website describes automatic repricing, Buy Box tracking, inventory and order tracking, ordering automation for out-of-stock items, and a prep warehouse. As of October 2026, prices range from $59.90 a month (5,000 products) to $499.90 a month (100,000 products). The page advertises a discount campaign, and it is not clear whether the listed amounts are discounted or list prices.

In our view, these features appear better suited to a model where the product is bought from a supplier after the order comes in, similar to online arbitrage or dropshipping. A seller building their own brand rarely needs most of this kind of automation.

If you are considering that model, read Amazon's drop shipping policy first. It requires you to be the seller of record and to be the only seller identified on packing slips and invoices; orders bought from another retailer and shipped straight to the customer carry account health risk. What matters is whether your business model complies with the policy, not which tool you use.

Do you need a US VPS or VPN?

One item often recommended to new sellers is renting a virtual server (VPS) in the US so that Seller Central is always accessed from the same US IP address. As of October 2026, Linux servers start at about $5–6 a month; if you want a remote Windows desktop, licensing and memory push the typical range to $20–60 a month (indicative).

We did not find an official Amazon text that either bans or explicitly allows the use of a VPS or VPN, and views on seller forums are mixed. What is known: at registration Amazon verifies identity, address and payment details with documents and, if needed, a video call. According to a reply from an Amazon employee on the seller forums, accounts can be linked through things like access to another account, and if one linked account is deactivated, the selling privileges of the others may be affected too.

• A VPS is not a required cost. For most sellers, accurate and consistent information matters more than which IP address they connect from.
• A VPS or VPN should not be used to hide your real location or to conceal links between accounts. Doing so does not reduce account risk and may increase it.
• If you work with team members or assistants, use the user permissions feature in Seller Central instead of sharing a password.
• If you are unsure about your own situation, get a written answer from Seller Support.

Add tools as sales grow: a phased plan

• Formation and product selection: the required costs, the free Keepa extension and Canva's free plan. Subscribe to a product research tool for one month and cancel when the research is done.
• First order and inbound shipment: starting monthly tool subscriptions before the product reaches the warehouse is usually unnecessary. Free trials are more useful once sales start.
• First sales: a profit tracking tool (for example sellerboard Standard) is a good early addition; seeing per-unit profit makes it easier to decide on other tools.
• Steady sales: as monthly revenue grows, you can add accounting integration, a second research tool or inventory planning software. Weigh each new subscription against the time or profit it will bring.
• Annual billing: for the tools in this guide, annual plans work out roughly 10–40% below the monthly price. If you are sure you will use a tool for at least a year, annual billing pays off; if not, monthly billing keeps the option to cancel.
• Review your subscriptions every quarter and cancel the ones you don't use.

Reading the price pages

• Promotional prices: some providers, such as QuickBooks and Xero, discount the first months; base your budget on the regular price.
• Currency: Keepa is billed in euros. Your card's foreign exchange fee also adds to the cost.
• Taxes: listed prices usually exclude taxes.
• Plan limits: many tools are tiered by orders, products or users, so the bill grows as sales grow.
• One-off costs: product photography, trademark registration and Amazon Vine enrollment are not monthly costs and should be budgeted separately.