Amazon Individual vs Professional Seller Plans: Fees & Features (2026)

Quick answer: Amazon has two selling plans. The Individual plan has no monthly fee but charges $0.99 for every item you sell. The Professional plan costs $39.99 per month with no per-item fee. Both plans also pay referral fees (and FBA fees if you use FBA). If you’ll sell more than about 40 items a month, or you need ads, Buy Box eligibility, bulk tools or approval for restricted categories, Professional is the better choice. Fees below were checked against Amazon’s pricing page in October 2026.

Amazon Individual Seller Plan

The biggest question you need to ask yourself when choosing an Amazon seller account is how involved you want to be in your Amazon business.

The individual seller plan is good for people who want to get rid of a few extra items around the house. It’s also a good plan for those who want to give selling on Amazon a try before going all in and expanding their business to something like private label.

Finally, an individual seller account is a good way to gain access to Amazon’s seller dashboard and forums without committing to a $39.99 monthly payment.

Pros and Cons of Individual Plan

If you have a few extra items lying down around the house, this plan seems reasonable to get rid of them. Here is a list of the pros and cons of the individual plan:

Pros

•  No monthly fees, and you pay $0.99 per item when it is sold.

Cons

• The $0.99 per-item fee gets expensive once you pass about 40 sales a month (there’s no hard cap on sales, but past that point Professional is cheaper)
• You cannot advertise with Amazon Ads (Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands)
• You cannot apply for approval in restricted categories and brands, so many profitable arbitrage products are off-limits
• Limited Featured Offer (Buy Box) eligibility, which costs you sales on shared listings
• No access to bulk listing feeds, business reports, Automate Pricing, Brand Registry tools or third-party apps through the API

Amazon Professional Seller Plan

If you like to do online arbitrage, you certainly need a professional seller account. However, in the case that you are a newbie and not sure that you like the business or not, you can start with the individual plan for a month. Then, if you feel like you want to continue selling, you can upgrade to the Professional plan. The two most important reasons to use the professional plan for doing online arbitrage are:

1) Access to Restricted Categories and Brands

Only Professional sellers can request approval (ungating) for restricted categories and brands such as Grocery, Topicals, Toys during Q4, and many popular brands. In online arbitrage, one of the most frustrating things that can happen is finding a profitable item you aren’t allowed to sell. To miss fewer opportunities, you need a Professional account. Our guide to getting ungated on Amazon explains how approvals work.

2) Account Cost

If you do online arbitrage, you plan to buy and sell lots of products every month, usually well over 40. At that volume it makes sense to pay the flat $39.99 Professional fee instead of $0.99 per item. Most sellers who source from online arbitrage leads lists pass that break-even point in their first month.

Other Amazon professional seller features

In addition to the reduced cost when selling more than 40 products per month, and bonus categories that come with using an Amazon professional seller plan, here are some additional advantages Amazon professional sellers have over individual sellers:

• Manage inventory through feeds, spreadsheets, and reports
• Create promotions, gift services, and other special listing features
• Advertise with Amazon Ads and use Automate Pricing
• Use Brand Registry tools (with an enrolled brand), Amazon Business (B2B) pricing and Global Selling
• Connect third-party apps through the Selling Partner API (repricers, profit trackers, sourcing tools)
• Grant user permissions and account privileges to team members or a VA

Pros and Cons of Professional Plan

If you want to earn extra income, probably the professional plan works better for you. Here’s everything you should consider before making a decision:

Pros

• No per-item fee, so your cost per sale drops as volume grows.
• Full access to tools that help you scale with FBA, where Amazon stores, picks, packs and ships your items while you focus on sourcing.
• You can manage your inventory using Amazon Seller Central.
• If you use a professional plan and FBA, you have a higher chance to win the Buy Box.
• You can scale your business with User Permission.

Cons

• It has a monthly subscription fee of $39.99, charged even in months when you sell nothing

Differences Between Individual and Professional Plans

The primary difference between individual and professional Amazon seller plans is your projected volume of sales.

Typically, individual Amazon arbitrage seller plans are for sellers who will likely sell 40 units (or less) of their product each month, while professional Amazon seller plans are for sellers who plan on selling more than 40 units per month.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself before you start selling products on Amazon.

Amazon Individual or Professional Seller Plans

Ultimately, the plan you choose to use boils down to the reasons why you’re planning to sell on Amazon in the first place.

If you only want to get rid of a few items and make a little spare change, then select the individual seller plan. However, if you want to actually build a business and make a regular income selling on Amazon, signing up for the Amazon professional seller plan is the smarter option.

What made you decide to become either an individual or professional Amazon seller? Let us know in the comments below, along with any questions.

If you want to sell more than 40 products per month, then you should probably consider signing up for the professional seller plan. Here’s why:

The professional seller plan on Amazon comes with a monthly subscription fee of $39.99. In contrast, the individual seller plan on Amazon does not have a monthly subscription fee.

However, individual sellers are required to pay a $0.99 fee for each of their sales transactions; the professional seller plan does not. Therefore, if an individual seller sells 41 products in a month, they will have to pay $40.59 (41 x $0.99) in seller fees.

On the other hand, professional sellers only pay the $39.99 subscription fee, regardless of the number of products they sell.

Note: these fee calculations exclude referral fees, special fees, and/or fulfillment fees which are the same for both individual and professional seller plans.

Both plans can list in Amazon’s open categories without approval. Many other categories, subcategories and brands are restricted, for example Grocery & Gourmet, Fine Jewelry, Watches, Collectible Coins, Fine Art, Sports and Entertainment Collectibles, and Video, DVD & Blu-ray, and selling there requires Amazon’s approval. Only Professional sellers can apply for that approval, so if you want to sell in gated categories, you need a Professional account.

Read More: Amazon Restricted Categories and Brands

One of the biggest advantages that Amazon professional sellers have over Amazon individual sellers is their eligibility to win the all-important ‘Buy Box’. (The Buy Box is the section of a product listing page that allows buyers to automatically add your product to their shopping cart.)

But, if you aren’t an Amazon professional seller — and even if you are the only seller on a listing — buyers will have to go through more steps in order to make a purchase.

Since the large majority of Amazon sales go through the Buy Box (now officially called the Featured Offer), Featured Offer eligibility alone usually justifies the Professional fee for resellers. Learn more in our guide to winning the Amazon Buy Box.

Another huge advantage that Amazon professional sellers have over individual sellers is the ability to create sponsored listings on Amazon.

Using Amazon’s pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, Amazon professional sellers can spend money to boost their products to the top of Amazon’s search results. This often results in more sales and profits for the sellers.

Amazon individual sellers, however, cannot create advertisements for their products on Amazon.

Amazon’s PPC is covered in depth in our Amazon PPC guide.

Amazon Individual vs Professional Seller Plan FAQ

How much does an Amazon Professional seller account cost?

The Professional plan is $39.99 per month (U.S. marketplace) plus selling fees such as referral fees, and FBA fees if you use FBA. The Individual plan has no subscription and charges $0.99 per item sold, plus the same referral and fulfillment fees. See our Amazon FBA fees guide for the full fee breakdown.

Can you do FBA as an Individual seller?

Yes. Individual sellers can use Fulfillment by Amazon. However, without Amazon Ads, restricted-category approvals and full Featured Offer eligibility, most FBA resellers upgrade to Professional quickly.

Can I switch from Individual to Professional (or back)?

Yes. You can upgrade or downgrade your selling plan at any time after registration from your Seller Central account settings, so many new sellers start as Individual and upgrade once they consistently sell more than about 40 items a month.

What are the requirements for an Amazon Professional seller account?

Registration is the same for both plans: a government-issued photo ID, a chargeable credit card, a bank account, tax information, a phone number and (for businesses) your business details. Amazon also verifies your identity, usually with a short video call or document check.

Which plan is best for online arbitrage?

Professional. Arbitrage depends on volume, Buy Box share and access to gated brands, all of which require the Professional plan. If you’re new to the model, start with our guide to what online arbitrage is.