Overview

Amazon enforces a minimum on-time delivery rate (OTDR) for all seller-fulfilled orders, and falling below the threshold can result in losing the ability to list merchant-fulfilled products. As of late 2024, the company also changed how OTDR is measured, removing promise extensions from the calculation and placing more responsibility on sellers to set accurate handling and transit times.

Key Points / What Sellers Need to Know

• 90% minimum OTDR required — Sellers must maintain at least a 90% on-time delivery rate without promise extensions to keep their seller-fulfilled listings active on Amazon.com. Amazon recommends targeting 95% or higher.

• Promise extensions no longer count — OTDR is now measured against the seller's original promised "ship by" date, before Amazon adds any promise extensions for weather, network delays, or other logistical factors.

• FBA sellers are exempt — This policy only applies to seller-fulfilled orders. If you use Fulfillment by Amazon, delivery performance is Amazon's responsibility.

• Violations can restrict your account — Dropping below 90% can result in Amazon removing your ability to list seller-fulfilled products, though you can appeal the decision.

• 14-day measurement window — Amazon evaluates OTDR using shipments with promised delivery dates in the last 21 days, excluding the most recent 7 days to allow packages still in transit to arrive.

How OTDR Is Calculated

Amazon calculates your on-time delivery rate by looking at the percentage of tracked seller-fulfilled units that arrived on or before your promised delivery date. The promised date is based on your seller-set handling time plus transit time, without any promise extensions factored in. This means the date Amazon uses for measurement may differ from what the customer actually saw at checkout if extensions were applied.

To illustrate, consider a seller with a 1-day handling time and 2-day transit time. An order placed on a Monday would need to arrive by Thursday to count as on-time. Even if Amazon added a promise extension and showed the customer a Friday delivery date, the seller is still measured against the original Thursday deadline. Amazon uses a rolling 14-day evaluation window, pulling data from the past 21 days but excluding the last 7 days since those shipments may still be in transit.