Amazon Reimbursed Me Less Than My Product Is Worth

Step by step

1. Open the Reimbursements report and read the date, not just the amountEvery dispute window counts from the date the reimbursement was issued, so that date is the field that matters. Note the SKU, the amount and the date for each line that looks short.
2. Separate the lines lost before a customer order from the ones lost afterOnly the first group is paid at manufacturing cost. A unit lost or damaged after a customer order should show the sales price on the original order minus applicable fees, and if it does not, that is a different problem.
3. Open Manage Your Sourcing Cost in the reimbursement portalThe full name is the Manage Your Sourcing Cost page in the Inventory Defect and Reimbursement portal. It is the page Amazon pointed sellers to when it delayed the policy to March 31, 2025, and Amazon said all sellers would have access to it by February 28, 2025.
4. Enter your own cost per SKU instead of leaving Amazon's estimateThe figure Amazon asks for is what you pay to source the unit from a manufacturer, wholesaler or reseller, or your production cost if you make it. Do not add freight, handling or customs duties: the policy excludes them, and adding them is what gets a figure questioned.
5. Dispute any reimbursement value you disagree with within 60 daysAmazon's guidance to sellers in the forums is to raise a disagreement over the listed valuation of a unit through Contact Us in Seller Central within 60 days after the reimbursement is issued. Attach the invoice that shows the sourcing cost for that SKU.
6. Re-check the same SKUs in the next reimbursement cycleA cost entered today applies going forward, not backwards. The check that it worked is the next credit for that SKU matching the cost you loaded.

You open the Reimbursements report, find the unit Amazon lost, and the credit is a fraction of what the product sells for. Nothing is broken and nothing was denied. Amazon reimbursed me less than my product is worth is the right description of what happened, and the reason is a policy change with a date on it.

Why the amount is lower than the sale price

Amazon announced an update to the FBA inventory reimbursement policy: inventory lost or damaged before a customer order is reimbursed at the product manufacturing cost, not at what the unit sells for. Amazon defines manufacturing cost as your cost to source the product from a manufacturer, wholesaler or reseller, or your production cost if you make it yourself, and says it excludes costs such as shipping, handling and customs duties.

The first effective date Amazon published was March 10, 2025. Amazon then posted a new effective date for the policy, March 31, 2025, to give sellers more time to load their costs on the Manage Your Sourcing Cost page, and said all sellers would have access to that page by February 28, 2025.

One case did not change. For a unit lost or damaged after a customer order, Amazon says it continues to reimburse the sales price on the original order minus applicable fees. So two units of the same ASIN can be reimbursed at very different amounts, and both are correct under the policy.

Is each reimbursement line correct?

Check my units

Where the number comes from if you never entered one

If you have not entered a cost for a SKU, Amazon estimates it. Sellers in the forums describe estimates well under what they actually pay, and a long thread on low reimbursement amounts collects examples of credits at roughly half the figure the seller expected. That is what other sellers report, not a rule: what is documented is that the basis is your sourcing cost and that you can supply it yourself.

Fixing it, and the clock on each step

The repair has two halves: set the cost so future reimbursements use your number, and dispute the ones already issued before the window closes. Both are below, step by step. If you have never opened that page, our walkthrough on submitting your own sourcing cost to Amazon covers the form field by field.

What to check once it is set

A cost loaded today does not retroactively fix a credit issued last month, so the two tracks run in parallel for about two months. After that, the check is routine: compare the credit on each reimbursement line against your own sourcing cost for that SKU, not against the retail price, and treat a gap as a dispute rather than a loss. For the units that never produced a credit at all, the reimbursements overview lists the claim types and their windows, what to do when Amazon loses inventory and never reimburses it covers the silent cases, and the SAFE-T filing window covers the returns side.

One last thing worth saying plainly: the excluded costs stay excluded. Freight to the fulfillment center, handling and customs duties are not part of the manufacturing cost under this policy, so a unit reimbursed exactly as written still leaves the landed cost short. That gap is not an error to appeal, it is a margin line to plan for.

“we'll continue to reimburse you for the sales price on the original order minus applicable fees”

— Amazon Seller Central ↗

#reimbursements#fba#lost inventory

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