Getting a first product onto Amazon and through a real sales test costs between $1,185 and $28,824 for the 15 businesses we can price, with a median test of $3,565 before setup costs. The test itself, the stretch where ads show whether strangers buy, runs 35 to 60 days in our plans. And the real businesses behind those numbers took anywhere from one month to nine between their first listing and the first month we can measure their sales. This guide walks through each step of starting to sell on Amazon in order, with what it costs and how long it takes, from Amazon's own pages and from the businesses we research.
The steps at a glance
| Step | What it costs | How long it takes |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Choose a model and a product | Your time | As long as it takes; this decides every cost below |
| 2. Open a seller account | Free to open; $39.99 a month for Professional | A few hours, then identity checks that usually take three business days or less |
| 3. File a trademark and join Brand Registry | $350 per class at the USPTO; Brand Registry is free | Amazon accepts a pending trademark |
| 4. Get samples and place the first order | $100 to $300 of samples; first orders of $63 to $17,280; moulds up to $9,000 | Factory lead time, which we do not have data on |
| 5. Ship it to the US and pay duty | Freight from 7 cents to $3.45 a unit in our models; duty from 0% to over 40% | Depends on the route |
| 6. Create the listing | $200 to $800 for photos and copy, or your time | Can be ready before stock arrives |
| 7. Send stock to FBA and enrol in Vine | Inbound fees from $0; Vine $0 to $200 | Amazon advises stock in place three weeks before launch |
| 8. Run the sales test with ads | $268 to $1,714 of ads in our plans | 35 to 60 days |
| 9. Judge the result and reorder | The next order | Production time again |
Our setup estimates for a new business, covering the plan, trademark, samples, photos and packaging, come to $790 to $2,420. What the whole launch costs, business by business, is in how much Amazon FBA costs to start.
Step 1: Choose how you will sell, and what
There are three common ways to sell on Amazon. Private label means having a product made under your own brand and selling it on a listing you control. Wholesale means buying another brand's products in bulk and selling them on the existing listing. Dropshipping means having a supplier ship each order, which Amazon allows only under strict conditions. Seventeen of the 18 businesses we have researched are private label, so that is the route this guide follows; how the three compare is in private label vs wholesale vs dropshipping.
The product choice sets almost every cost that follows. In our data three things decide it:
- The factory's minimum order. A printer will run 100 card decks; Highmark Collective's gift-set factory wants 1,000.
- Whether it needs a mould. A product the factory already makes needs none; Draft Top's can opener needs about $9,000 of moulds before the first unit.
- Size against price. Amazon's fees are set by size and weight, so a light product keeps more of each sale. Amazon's FBA and referral fees take 29.9% of Draft Top's $25.99 opener and 45.1% of a $19.99 jigsaw; see Amazon FBA fees 2026.
To compare products on revenue, see the best products to sell on Amazon; for research software, the best product research tools. Before committing, put the product's price, size and expected cost into our FBA calculator to see what is left after Amazon's fees.
Step 2: Open your seller account
Opening the account is free; you choose a plan as you sign up. The Individual plan costs $0.99 per item sold and has no monthly fee. The Professional plan costs $39.99 a month however much you sell. If you plan to advertise, enrol in Vine or claim Amazon's new-seller incentives, you need Professional; Individual suits someone testing the water with a handful of sales.
Amazon's registration guide lists what to have ready: a government-issued ID, an internationally chargeable credit card, a bank account and routing number, business licence or registration details, proof of residential address dated within the last 180 days, and tax information. You do not need an LLC; you can register as an individual. Amazon says registration usually takes a few hours, followed by identity verification, by photo or by video call with an Amazon associate, that usually takes three business days or less.
One rule has changed recently. Since 2 November 2026, sellers with products in categories Amazon flags for enhanced safety, which include children's products, must carry $1 million of liability insurance before their first sale; everyone else needs it within 30 days of a month with more than $10,000 of sales. We worked out what that adds in Amazon's 2026 insurance requirement.
Step 3: Trademark and Brand Registry
Brand Registry is Amazon's free programme for brand owners. It protects your listing and unlocks A+ content, a brand store, Amazon Vine for branded products, and the new-seller referral bonus of 10% back on your first $50,000 of branded sales. To enrol you need a pending or registered trademark, and Amazon recommends enrolling before you list.
The USPTO's base fee is $350 per class for an electronic application; our estimates allow $350 to $700, for one or two classes. You can sell without it, but you give up the tools above, and on a small launch the Vine credit alone recovers more than half the fee.
Step 4: Samples and the first order
Budget $100 to $300 for samples, which is our range, not a quote. Order from two or three suppliers and judge the product in your hands before the main order. What we learned from 36 Alibaba suppliers is in is Alibaba legit.
The first order is the biggest line for most businesses. Our launch estimates assume the smallest order that can test the product: 50 units where the factory allows it, more where its minimum forces it.
| Business | First order | Cost | Moulds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spite House Games | 100 card decks | $63 | None |
| White Mountain Puzzles | 200 jigsaw puzzles | $680 | None |
| Songbird Specialties | 500 wine pourers | $2,045 | $1,200 |
| Draft Top | 50 can openers | $92 | $9,000 |
| Highmark Collective | 1,000 baptism gift sets and 50 jars | $12,795 | None |
| Restoration Games | 500 copies of a board game | $17,280 | $8,800 |
Costs are landed: product, freight and duty. Our data does not include factory lead times, so we cannot tell you how long production takes; ask each supplier, and add it to your plan twice, once for the first order and once for the reorder.
Step 5: Freight and import duty
Freight is priced by volume. Our margin models use Freightos rates of about $497 per cubic metre from China to the US West Coast, which puts a Spite House deck at 7 cents a unit and a 34-inch Virora Mahjong rubber mat at $3.45.
Duty depends on the product's tariff code and where it was made. At the rates in force on 10 November 2026, a deck of cards from China pays 12.5% of its factory price, a plastic kitchen tool 15.9% and a steel one 41.2%. Small shipments are no longer exempt: the $800 de minimis rule is suspended, so even samples pay. How to find your rate is in how much tariffs add to Amazon products.
Step 6: Create the listing
Most products need a product ID to create a new listing, usually a UPC barcode, which you can get from GS1. Then come photos, title, bullets and description. Our estimates allow $200 to $800 for photos and copy; you can do them yourself. The listing can be built before the stock arrives, and should be, because several of Amazon's new-seller credits count their deadlines from the day you list.
Step 7: Send stock to FBA, and enrol in Vine
With Fulfilment by Amazon, you send stock to Amazon's warehouses and Amazon picks, packs and ships each order, handles returns and answers customers. You pay a fulfilment fee per unit, a monthly storage fee, and possibly an inbound placement fee if you send everything to one location. New sellers get $400 of credit against that placement fee and $100 off shipments through Amazon's partner carriers, and eligible new products get free storage through the FBA New Selection programme. The full schedule is in our 2026 fee guide.
A new listing with no reviews sells poorly, so testing it with ads straight away would fail a good product. Amazon Vine sends free units to invited reviewers. You can enrol as soon as the FBA listing exists, even before stock arrives, and Amazon recommends having stock in its network at least three weeks before launch. Enrolling up to 2 units is free, 3 to 10 costs $75 and 11 to 30 costs $200 per parent product, charged only after the first review appears; new sellers with Brand Registry get a $200 credit. Our plans send 30 units to Vine and wait for about five reviews before any ads.
Step 8: Run the sales test
This is the step that tells you whether you have a business. Our plans buy enough Sponsored Products clicks, never fewer than 300, to see whether 20 units sell at the rate competing listings sell them. The clicks go on small, specific searches the product clearly matches, and the cost is set by what those searches cost per click.
| Business | Main search tested | Cost per click | Ad budget | Days of ads |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spite House Games | "funny games" | $1.02 | $332 | 35 |
| Restoration Games | "heat board game" | $0.78 | $324 | 38 |
| White Mountain Puzzles | "fun puzzles for adults" | $1.10 | $268 | 44 |
| KALOTOYS | "personalized name puzzle" | $1.48 | $444 | 49 |
| Songbird Specialties | "wine pourer" | $1.64 | $492 | 51 |
| Draft Top | "beer can opener smooth edge" | $2.28 | $684 | 57 |
Across all 15 plans, ad budgets run from $268 to $1,714 and the tests last 35 to 60 days. Amazon also offers new sellers an ad credit equal to their first $50, $200 or $1,000 of Sponsored Products spend, if the campaign starts within 90 days of listing. To see what your ads must return to break even, use our ROAS calculator.
Step 9: Judge it, then reorder
A test in our plans has three outcomes. It passes if all 20 units sell within the planned clicks. It fails if fewer than 10 have sold by the last click: stop, because the problem is the listing, the price or the product, and no amount of ads will fix it. Anything in between sells, but more slowly than competitors; improve the photos, title or price and run another round before reordering.
Then judge the product itself. Once it has 10 reviews it should average 4.2 stars or better, with fewer than 10% of units returned. A listing that starts reaching the top 20 for one of its searches without paying is starting to stand on its own.
A pass does not pay for itself. Spite House's 20 sold decks bring back about $87 after Amazon's fees, against $395 spent on the test. Plan the money for the second order before you start the first, and expect a gap out of stock while it is made.
How long until real sales? What our businesses show
We measure monthly sales from Amazon's "bought in past month" badges, which are floors. The first month we can measure is not the first sale; earlier sales may have been too few to show. With that caveat, the young businesses we track went from first listing to measurable sales like this:
| Business | First listing | First month we measure | Sales that month | September 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Virora Mahjong | November 2025 (first mahjong set) | December 2025 | $27,135 | $170,650 |
| Kajun Loaded Tea | October 2025 | January 2026 | $6,380 | $470,206 |
| Spite House Games | January 2025 | September 2025 | $13,940 | $89,988 |
| Songbird Specialties | February 2025 | November 2025 | $4,498 | $32,989 |
The range is wide. Virora sold measurably within a month of its first mahjong listing; Kajun went from $6,380 in January to $94,105 in February. Spite House and Songbird each took eight to nine months to show up in our data. Spite House had opened its TikTok account seven weeks before its first listing and now has 45,400 followers there; Songbird's pourer is its only product. A new product from an established seller can move faster: KALOTOYS listed four personalised name puzzles in March 2026, and by September they made over half of the brand's Amazon revenue. All of these are estimates from public data; how they compare with the rest of Amazon is in how much Amazon sellers make.
FAQ
How much does it cost to start selling on Amazon?
Opening an account is free; the Professional plan is $39.99 a month. Testing a first private-label product costs $395 to $26,404 in our data, median $3,565, plus $790 to $2,420 of setup. For a tight budget, see the cheapest tests in how much Amazon FBA costs to start.
How long does it take to start selling on Amazon?
The account takes hours to a few days. Most of the time goes on finding a product and having it made, which our data cannot time, then about three weeks for Vine reviews and 35 to 60 days of ads to test it.
Do I need a business to sell on Amazon?
No. Amazon lets you register as an individual. A trademark, which is a different thing, is needed for Brand Registry.
Should I choose the Individual or Professional plan?
Individual if you expect only a few sales a month and will not advertise; Professional if you plan to run ads, use Vine or claim new-seller credits.
Is it still worth starting to sell on Amazon?
The businesses we track run estimated margins from about 21% to 59%. Whether that holds for a new seller is the subject of is Amazon FBA still profitable.
Where these figures come from
Amazon's requirements and fees were read on its own pages on 10 November 2026: the seller registration guide, selling plans and fees, New Seller Incentives and Amazon Vine. The trademark fee is the USPTO's, as cited in our e-commerce startup costs post. First orders, moulds, freight, ad budgets, cost per click and test lengths are from each business's launch estimate in our data, and sales figures from its revenue history, read the same day. All are estimates, and a launch today will not repeat any of these businesses' paths exactly.