Amazon FBA Storage Fees: Monthly Costs, Long-Term Charges, and How to Keep Them Under Control

The Two Types of Storage Fees

Amazon charges sellers two distinct storage-related fees. Most sellers know about one of them. Both matter.

Monthly storage fees are charged on all inventory sitting in Amazon's fulfillment centers at any given time. Every unit you have in an Amazon warehouse costs you money every month, whether it sells or not. This fee is based on the volume your inventory occupies — measured in cubic feet — not the number of units or their value.

Long-term storage fees are an additional charge applied to inventory that has been sitting in a fulfillment center for more than 365 days. This is on top of monthly storage, not instead of it. Amazon charges this fee to discourage sellers from using its warehouses as cheap long-term storage for slow-moving products.

Most sellers focus on fulfillment fees when calculating FBA costs, and treat storage as a small afterthought. For products with reliable sales velocity, that approach works fine. For products that move slowly, sit through a slow season, or get stuck waiting for a price adjustment, storage fees can accumulate into a significant cost that was never part of the original calculation.

Monthly Storage Fee Rates — 2026

Monthly storage fees depend on the time of year and the size classification of your products. Amazon splits the year into two periods with different rates:

These are the 2026 rates. Amazon updates its fee schedules periodically — always verify current rates in Seller Central before building projections.

Notice that oversize products actually cost less per cubic foot to store than standard-size products. This might seem counterintuitive, but Amazon's pricing reflects the different warehouse infrastructure and handling involved. The tradeoff is that oversize products also have significantly higher fulfillment fees, so the storage advantage rarely makes oversized products the better business choice.

How Amazon Actually Calculates What You Owe

Amazon measures your storage usage in cubic feet. The calculation is based on the dimensions of the packaged product — the box or packaging it ships in from the fulfillment center — not the product itself.

The formula is: Length × Width × Height ÷ 1,728 = cubic feet per unit.

The 1,728 in that formula is the number of cubic inches in a cubic foot (12 × 12 × 12). So a product packaged in a box that is 12 × 6 × 4 inches occupies 12 × 6 × 4 ÷ 1,728 = 288 ÷ 1,728 = 0.167 cubic feet.

Amazon then multiplies that volume by the number of units you have in stock, then by the applicable monthly rate, then prorates it for the exact number of days each unit was in storage during that billing period.

In practice, you do not need to calculate this manually — Amazon shows you the charges in your payments report and in the FBA Inventory report in Seller Central. But understanding the underlying calculation helps you estimate storage costs before you send inventory in, which is when the information is actually useful.

Real Examples at Different Inventory Sizes

Here is what monthly storage fees look like in practice for a standard-size product during the January–September low-rate period:

Example 1: A small kitchen gadget, packaged at 8 × 5 × 3 inches

• Volume per unit: 8 × 5 × 3 ÷ 1,728 = 0.069 cubic feet
• 50 units in stock: 50 × 0.069 = 3.47 cubic feet
• Monthly storage fee: 3.47 × $0.78 = $2.71 per month
• If those 50 units sit for 3 months without selling: $8.13 total

Example 2: A larger product, packaged at 14 × 10 × 6 inches

• Volume per unit: 14 × 10 × 6 ÷ 1,728 = 0.486 cubic feet
• 100 units in stock: 100 × 0.486 = 48.6 cubic feet
• Monthly storage fee: 48.6 × $0.78 = $37.91 per month
• If 30 of those units sit unsold for 6 months: roughly $68 in storage alone

The second example shows where storage fees go from "minor cost" to "real problem." A product with slow movement, combined with an initial shipment that was too large, can quietly accumulate storage costs that cut meaningfully into the margins you planned for.

Long-Term Storage Fees — The Expensive One

Any inventory that has been in an Amazon fulfillment center for more than 365 days is subject to long-term storage fees. Amazon assesses these charges on the 15th of each month.

The rate is $6.90 per cubic foot or $0.15 per unit, whichever is greater.

To put that in context: the standard monthly storage rate for January through September is $0.78 per cubic foot. The long-term rate is $6.90 per cubic foot — nearly nine times higher. And that charge comes every month, stacking on top of your regular monthly storage fee.

Long-term storage fees are the mechanism Amazon uses to force sellers to make a decision about slow-moving inventory rather than leaving it indefinitely. The choices, once you are approaching the 365-day mark, are:

• Lower the price aggressively to move the inventory before it hits 365 days
• Run a promotion or coupon to accelerate sales
• Create a removal order to get the inventory sent back to you (Amazon charges a per-unit removal fee)
• Create a disposal order (Amazon destroys the inventory for a smaller per-unit fee)

Which option makes sense depends on the product's remaining value and how much it would cost to receive and relist it yourself. For cheap items, disposal is often the least bad option. For items with real resale value, removal and either relisting on another channel or storing them yourself is usually worth the effort.

The Q4 Storage Fee Increase Most Sellers Miss

The shift from the standard rate ($0.78/cubic foot) to the Q4 rate ($2.40/cubic foot) happens on October 1st and stays in effect through December 31st. That is a 207% increase.

This timing is not accidental. Q4 — October through December — is when Amazon's fulfillment centers are under the most pressure. The holiday shopping season means massive increases in inbound inventory, outbound shipments, and warehouse space demand. Amazon prices storage accordingly.

The implication for sellers is that inventory arriving at fulfillment centers in August or September for Q4 sales needs to actually sell through in Q4. Products that do not move during the holiday season and sit through November and December at $2.40/cubic foot, then fail to clear before January 1st, can accumulate substantial storage charges.

Practical guidance: if you are sending in Q4 inventory, build the Q4 storage rate into your margin calculation, not the standard rate. If your margin only works at $0.78/cubic foot, you are more exposed than your projections show.

Six Ways to Reduce Your Storage Fees

1. Ship smaller quantities more frequently

Instead of sending three months of inventory at once, send four to six weeks of supply and replenish more often. You will pay more in inbound shipping over time, but you will hold less inventory and pay less in storage. Whether the math works out in your favor depends on your product size, inbound shipping cost, and sales velocity — run the numbers for your specific situation.

2. Know your sell-through rate before you ship

Sell-through rate is how quickly you sell your inventory relative to what you have on hand. Amazon tracks this and displays it in your inventory dashboard. Before sending a large shipment, look at your historical sales velocity and estimate how many days of supply the shipment represents. If the answer is over 90 days, you may be over-sending.

3. Time your inbound shipments around the Q4 rate change

If you are sending Q4 inventory, aim to have it arrive at fulfillment centers by mid-to-late September, when you still have a short window at the lower rate. More importantly, do not send more than you expect to sell in Q4 — the high rate on leftover inventory in November and December is avoidable if you size the shipment correctly.

4. Use Inventory Age reports proactively

Seller Central has an Inventory Age report that shows you exactly how long each ASIN has been sitting in storage, broken down by age range. Review this report monthly, not just when you get a storage fee charge. Products approaching the 180-day mark deserve a pricing review. Products at 300 days need an immediate decision.

5. Price down rather than pay long-term fees

When inventory is approaching the 365-day mark and you cannot move it at your current price, the math on a significant price reduction almost always beats continuing to pay storage. At $6.90 per cubic foot per month for long-term fees, the economics of holding the inventory rapidly become worse than liquidating at a loss.

6. Consider FBM as a parallel channel for slow-moving SKUs

Some sellers keep a small amount of their inventory outside Amazon — at home, at a 3PL, or at a prep center — and list those units as FBM. This does not solve slow movement, but it means you are not paying FBA storage fees on inventory that is not selling through the FBA channel.

IPI Score and Storage Limits

Amazon uses an Inventory Performance Index (IPI) score to evaluate how well you manage your FBA inventory. The score is based on factors including your sell-through rate, how much excess inventory you hold, and how often you have stranded inventory (inventory that is in a fulfillment center but not attached to an active listing).

Sellers with IPI scores below Amazon's threshold (which has historically been around 400-450, though Amazon adjusts this) may face storage limits on how much inventory they can send to fulfillment centers. This can be a significant constraint for sellers who rely on large inventory positions.

The IPI score is worth monitoring quarterly even if you are not close to the limit, because it gives you a leading indicator of inventory health issues before they become fee problems. You can find it in the Inventory Performance section of Seller Central.