The referral fee is Amazon's cut for bringing you the customer. It is charged on every order regardless of whether you use FBA, Easy Ship or Self Ship, and it is the fee sellers feel most because it scales with price. The percentage depends on the category and, in India, on the price band of the item. Amazon publishes the full rate card on sell.amazon.in and in the Seller Central fee schedule, and updates it a few times a year.
How the referral fee is calculated
Referral fee = item price × category rate, where item price is the amount the customer pays for the product (Amazon counts the sale price after any seller-funded discount, before shipping charged to the customer in most categories). GST at 18% is added on the fee itself. Rates on Amazon.in run from 2% in a few categories such as gold coins to over 30% in some accessories, with most everyday categories between 5% and 17% as of September 2026.
The biggest recent change is the zero-fee band. Amazon removed the referral fee on products priced under ₹300 across 135 categories in 2025, then extended it on 16 March 2026 to items priced ₹1,000 and below across more than 1,800 categories, which Amazon says covers over 12.5 crore products. Apparel, footwear, home, beauty, toys, grocery and pet supplies are among the categories included; a few, notably parts of electronics, keep a fee at every price. The rate card is the only reliable source for your own category.
Worked example: a saree listed at ₹1,299 in a category with a 15% referral fee pays ₹195 plus ₹35 GST. The same saree priced at ₹999 pays ₹0 referral fee. The seller gives up ₹300 of price but saves ₹230 in fees, so net revenue falls by only ₹70 while the lower price typically lifts conversion. This is why so many Indian listings now cluster at ₹999 and ₹499. The referral fee is only one line: closing fee, weight handling and, for FBA, pick and pack still apply.
Why the referral fee matters for sellers
Referral fee is usually the largest single deduction on an order above ₹1,000, and it drives every other decision: break-even ACoS, minimum viable price, whether a bundle makes sense. Misreading it is the most common reason new sellers find their payouts smaller than expected. It also interacts with returns: on a customer return Amazon refunds the referral fee, but keeps a refund administration fee on some categories, and the closing and shipping fees for the return leg are not always recovered.
How to manage the referral fee
- Check the category your listing actually sits in. A mis-categorised product can pay a higher rate; a catalogue case fixes it.
- Price around the ₹1,000 line. If a product can sit at ₹999 with margin, test it against ₹1,199 and compare net payout, not just revenue.
- Bundle to change the maths. A two-pack at ₹1,899 pays one referral fee and one set of closing and shipping fees rather than two.
- Reconcile the fee report monthly. Rate cards change with notice; Amazon's March and September 2026 updates both moved fees on live listings.
- Model fees before ads. Set break-even ACoS from the net of all fees, not the referral fee alone.
Blooprint rebuilds fee models for every client under Amazon account management. The line-by-line tables are in the Amazon seller fees guide.