Amazon Pricing Policy for Sellers
Amazon's pricing policies including the fair pricing policy, price suppression triggers, and rules around reference prices.
Key Points
- ✓Prices must not be unfairly high relative to recent prices on Amazon or other sales channels
- ✓Amazon compares prices across channels including your own website
- ✓Setting artificially high list prices to create misleading "discounts" violates policy
- ✓Prices must be in the local currency of the marketplace
- ✓Dynamic repricing tools must stay within policy guidelines
Policy Details
Amazon's pricing policy is designed to ensure buyers are offered fair prices on the platform. The policy has two main components: the Fair Pricing Policy and the Reference Price Policy. The Fair Pricing Policy prohibits pricing practices that harm customers, including: pricing a product significantly higher on Amazon than on other sales channels (Amazon does cross-channel price comparison), sudden price spikes following a shortage or demand surge, pricing combinations (product + required accessories) that are unfairly inflated, and pricing below cost as a predatory practice. When Amazon determines a price is unfair, they suppress the listing and show "Currently unavailable" — this is distinct from a listing violation and resolves when the price is adjusted. The Reference Price Policy (for showing strike-through "was" prices) requires that any reference price shown was an actual price that the seller or another seller charged for the product for a substantial period — Amazon prohibits manufacturing high list prices just to show a large "% off" discount that was never a real price. Violations of the reference price policy can result in suppression of the sale price display, not just a warning.
Common Violations
- ⚠Price dramatically above recent Amazon price history
- ⚠Listing at higher price on Amazon than own website
- ⚠Inflated list prices to show misleading sale discounts
- ⚠Prices that trigger the fair pricing policy alert
Check your listing for policy violations
The free audit tool checks your listing against Amazon policy requirements automatically.
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