Amazon sellers already juggle countless fees – from referral charges to storage costs to advertising spend. But starting in 2024 and expanding through 2025, one fee is quietly eating into profits: the FBA Placement Service Fee.
If you’re not paying attention, this fee can significantly impact your cost structure, especially for sellers using Amazon’s Distributed Inventory Placement (DIP) model.
In this post, we’ll explain:
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What the FBA placement service fee is
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Why Amazon introduced it
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How much it costs
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When you’ll be charged
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How to avoid or reduce it
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How RockitSeller helps you stay margin-positive
What Is the FBA Placement Service Fee?
When you ship products to Amazon’s fulfillment network (FBA), you’re no longer just sending everything to one warehouse. Amazon may redistribute your inventory to multiple fulfillment centers across the country for faster Prime delivery.
This convenience, however, now comes with a cost.
The FBA Placement Service Fee is a per-unit charge applied when sellers opt into Amazon-optimized placement (i.e., letting Amazon split and route shipments to multiple FCs instead of manually pre-sorting inventory).
Why Did Amazon Introduce This Fee?
Amazon’s logistics costs have skyrocketed due to the complexity of redistributing inventory for 1-day and same-day delivery.
Instead of absorbing the cost of moving your products across regions, Amazon now passes part of that cost back to sellers through this fee. It’s part of their broader push for network efficiency, encouraging sellers to take on more of the burden of inventory prep and routing.
How Much Does the Fee Cost?
As of mid-2025, here’s what you can expect:
| Size Tier | Fee Per Unit (Standard) | Fee Per Unit (Oversize) |
|---|---|---|
| Small Standard | $0.21 – $0.27 | N/A |
| Large Standard | $0.25 – $0.32 | N/A |
| Small Oversize | N/A | $1.58 – $2.45 |
| Large Oversize | N/A | $2.16 – $4.50 |
Fees vary based on location, destination zone, and time of year.
These charges can add up fast – especially for high-volume sellers or those with oversized SKUs.
When Does the FBA Placement Service Fee Apply?
✅ You’ll be charged when using Distributed Inventory Placement (DIP)
❌ You won’t be charged if you pre-sort inventory using Minimal Shipment Splits or Amazon Partnered Carrier + Manual Sorting
Amazon doesn’t show this fee clearly until after you finalize the shipping plan, which makes it easy to overlook – until it starts impacting your margin.
How to Avoid or Reduce the Fee
Here are your top options:
1. Use Minimal Shipment Splits
Amazon allows you to limit how many fulfillment centers receive your inventory, but you’ll have to handle the complexity yourself: printing extra labels, pre-sorting inventory, and managing multiple shipments. This strategy works best for sellers using prep centers or who have well-organized in-house ops.
2. Ship Regionally and Intelligently
If you’re fulfilling from the East Coast, consider sending only to FCs nearby. While this may not eliminate fees entirely, it minimizes the likelihood of Amazon cross-docking inventory across the country.
3. Use RockitSeller’s Smart Fee Tracking
This is where RockitSeller makes a huge difference.
RockitSeller was built to help Amazon sellers optimize every operational decision, and that includes managing hidden costs like the FBA Placement Service Fee. Our platform automatically flags shipments likely to trigger the fee – before you approve them. With built-in logic that accounts for item size, fulfillment type, and shipping origin, RockitSeller’s fee engine estimates your true landed cost per unit, placement fee included. You’ll also see side-by-side profit simulations with and without Amazon’s inventory placement enabled – so you can choose smarter. For advanced users, RockitSeller even supports batch-level rule automation, allowing you to avoid the fee entirely by routing shipments through prep centers or regional fulfillment strategies.
Real-World Example
Let’s say you sell a lightweight kitchen gadget:
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Cost per unit (landed): $3.80
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Amazon selling price: $15.99
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Amazon referral + FBA fee: $5.45
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Placement service fee: $0.27
Your margin before the fee = $6.74
Your margin after = $6.47
It seems small – until you’re shipping 10,000+ units per month.
Should You Always Avoid It?
Not necessarily.
For high-margin, fast-moving SKUs, the fee might be worth it if:
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You want Amazon to handle all routing and speed
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You don’t have a prep center or warehouse partner
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You’re optimizing for time to shelf, not raw margin
But for oversized items or razor-thin margins, absorbing the fee can completely destroy profitability.
Final Thoughts
The FBA Placement Service Fee is Amazon’s way of pushing more logistical responsibility onto sellers. If ignored, it can quietly drain thousands of dollars from your bottom line each year.
But with awareness – and the right tools – you can regain control.
Use RockitSeller to surface placement fees before they hit, simulate profit impact across SKUs, and build smarter prep/shipping rules that preserve your margins. Whether you’re handling logistics yourself or working with a 3PL, RockitSeller ensures your numbers always tell the full story.
