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Net Proceeds

The money Amazon actually transfers to you once it has taken its cut.

60 second readAppears on: Amazon Summary

What it means

Net Proceeds is what Amazon settles to you for a date: the sales it settled, less refunds, less every fee it charges. It's a currency total per settlement date, and the closest figure in the app to the amount that reaches your bank. Your own costs — the goods, inbound shipping, anything billed outside Amazon — haven't come off it.

Show the math

Formula and a worked example

Start from the sales Amazon settled for the date, with refunds netted off.

Then take off everything Amazon charges — referral commission, fulfilment, closing and storage fees, refund administration, shipping labels, service charges and statutory deductions. Those are the components totalled in FeesFeesSum of commission, fulfilment, closing, storage, service, refund admin, shipping label, statutory deduction, and related fee fields for the row..

Worked example. Customers spend €50,000 in the period and you refund €3,000, leaving €47,000 of sales standing. Amazon's fees on that come to €14,000. Net Proceeds = €33,000 — 66 cents of every euro a customer spent.

Track that 66%, not the €33,000. The euro figure follows how much you sold; the share only moves when your fee mix, your refunds or your product mix change.

It answers the question

For every euro a customer spent on Amazon, how much did Amazon send you? Everything you pay for yourself comes out of that share, not out of the sales line above it.

Why it matters

The sales number is the one people quote; the proceeds number is the one you can spend. It's the difference between the till total and what's in the safe once the landlord, the card machine and the delivery driver have been paid.

On Amazon that gap is wide and it moves. Fulfilment and storage charges follow size, weight and how long stock sits, so two months with identical sales can settle thousands apart. Restocking and ad budgets both start from this line, not the one above it.

What good looks like

No standard share applies here: a small, light €120 product keeps far more of its revenue than a bulky €20 one, and commission varies by category before anything else does. Track Net Proceeds as a percentage of Net SalesNet SalesSee the full entry. and watch your own line — steady or rising is healthy, a slide of several points across a quarter means fees, refunds or mix have moved against you.

How to improve it

LeverWhat you doExpectHow longWatch out for
Fast
Clear the stock that's been sitting
Remove or liquidate units that have been sitting in Amazon's warehouses for months and stop reordering themStorage charges drop off the next settlement, so proceeds rise on the same sales2–4 weeksLiquidation sells below cost, and removed units can't sell at all if demand comes back.
Fast
Shrink the oversized packaging
Re-measure the SKUs sitting just over a fulfilment size band and repack them under itA lower fee on every future unit of those SKUs3–6 weeksTighter packing raises damage in transit, and damaged arrivals come back as refunds you pay for twice.
Slow
Move the mix towards what keeps most
Rank SKUs by proceeds per unit and put stock and ad budget behind the top of that listThe proceeds share climbs even if sales stay flat1 quarterYour best-keeping products are rarely your best sellers. Volume and rank on the popular lines can slide while you do it.
Slow
Bring the refunds down
Rework the listings behind most of your returned units — sizing, photos, what the bullets promiseFewer refunds and less refund administration inside the settlement1–2 quartersAccurate listings convert fewer visitors, so gross sales dip for a while before the payout improves.

Every lever costs something somewhere. The last column is the one to read twice.

Read it with

Net Proceeds tells you what arrived. Next to what customers paid, it tells you what selling through Amazon cost you.

Net Proceeds and Net Sales, month over month on Amazon Summary
Net Proceeds up
Net Proceeds down
Net Sales up

Growing and keeping it

Both moved together, which is what growth is supposed to look like. If proceeds grew more slowly, the extra volume arrived at a worse rate than the rest of the business.

Confirm proceeds grew at least as fast as sales.

Selling more, keeping less

A bigger month with a smaller payout. Look for refunds, a shift into bulkier or cheaper stock, or storage charges on lines that stopped moving.

Compare fees per unit against last month.
Net Sales down

Smaller and cleaner

Fewer sales, more money kept — usually a storage clear-out or a mix change. Understand it before the next restock undoes it.

Work out what caused it and keep it.

Falling on both

If the payout fell faster than sales, fixed charges are eating a smaller month. Long-term storage and refund administration keep billing whether you sell or not.

Open the fee breakdown before you cut ad budget.
Net Proceeds + FeesFeesSum of commission, fulfilment, closing, storage, service, refund admin, shipping label, statutory deduction, and related fee fields for the row.

Two halves of the same euro. Proceeds falling with fees flat is a sales or refund problem; proceeds falling while fees climb means Amazon is taking more per unit. Neither number separates those on its own.

Net Proceeds + Units ShippedUnits ShippedUnits shipped on this date

Divide one by the other and you get what a single unit actually earned you. Proceeds holding flat while units jump means each unit now keeps less — the earliest sign a cheaper variant is taking over your mix.

Common misreads

“Net Proceeds is our profit.”

It's Amazon's payout, not your profit. What you paid for the goods, your inbound shipping and anything advertised outside Amazon are all still ahead of you.

“Proceeds fell, so fees went up.”

Refunds sit in here too. A month with a wave of returns settles lower with Amazon charging exactly the same rates it always did.

“Same sales, so the payout should be the same.”

Fulfilment and storage follow size, weight and time on the shelf. Sell the same €40,000 in bulkier or slower-moving stock and noticeably less of it comes back to you.

Also called

Settlement payout · net payout · net settlement · disbursement

See yoursYour Net Proceeds by settlement date, next to the fees that produced it.

Open Amazon Summary