Overview

Amazon offers two distinct selling plans — Individual and Professional — each designed for different stages of a seller's business. Understanding the differences between these plans is essential for managing costs, accessing key tools, and scaling effectively on the platform. This reference guide breaks down the pricing, features, and capabilities tied to each plan so sellers can make an informed decision.

Key Points / What Sellers Need to Know

• Pricing structure differs significantly — The Professional plan costs a flat $39.99 per month regardless of sales volume, while the Individual plan charges $0.99 per item sold with no monthly subscription.
• Break-even point is roughly 40 units per month — If you sell more than 40 items monthly, the Professional plan becomes more cost-effective than paying per-item fees.
• Advanced tools are Professional-only — Features like bulk listing, advertising eligibility, Buy Box competition, business pricing, API access, and shipping rate customization are reserved for Professional sellers.
• Individual plans are limited — Individual sellers cannot create new product listings in the catalog, run Sponsored Products ads, access detailed reports, or use most automation features.
• You can switch between plans — Amazon allows sellers to upgrade or downgrade their selling plan at any time, though certain enrolled programs may be affected by a downgrade.

How the Plans Compare

The Professional selling plan is built for serious sellers who need access to Amazon's full suite of tools. Professional sellers can create entirely new product detail pages in the Amazon catalog, manage inventory through feeds, spreadsheets, and bulk reports, and process orders using order reports and order-related feeds. They also gain access to the Selling Partner API (SP-API), which enables automated feed uploads, report retrieval, and other programmatic functions critical for running a high-volume operation. Individual sellers, by contrast, are limited to listing products on existing detail pages and managing orders one at a time through Seller Central.

Shipping is another area where the plans diverge. Professional sellers can set custom shipping rates for all of their products, while Individual sellers are assigned Amazon's standard shipping rates. For non-media products, only Professional accounts can configure their own shipping templates.