Amazon Professional Seller vs Individual 

Are you thinking about starting an Amazon business or maybe taking your existing one to the next level? Well, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, I’m going to lay out the key differences between Amazon’s Individual Seller plan and its Professional Seller plan.

It’s an important decision that’ll impact things like what fees you pay, what product categories you can sell in, and what awesome time-saving tools you get access to. Don’t worry, I’ll break it all down in simple terms.

By the end, you’ll have a crystal clear understanding of which seller plan makes the most sense for your business goals and current sales volume. Let’s dive in!

Side by Side Differences Between Amazon Professional Sellers and Individual 

Thinking of starting an Amazon seller business? Or maybe you’re already selling as an Individual but wondering if it’s worth upgrading to a Professional account? Let me break down the key differences between Amazon’s two seller plans.

Fees Need to Pay 

First up, let’s talk dollars and cents. As an Individual seller, Amazon doesn’t charge any monthly subscription fees which is nice. However, you do have to pay $0.99 every time you make a sale per-item fee.

With a Professional seller account, the fee structure is a flat $39.99 per month. No extra per-item fees after that! So for lower volume sellers, the Individual may be cheaper. But if you sell more than 40 items a month, that $39.99 likely will be less than paying $0.99 per sale.

Sales Volume 

Speaking of 40 sales per month, that’s usually the benchmark where a lot of sellers consider upgrading to a Professional plan. Less than 40 sales and the Individual’s per-item fees are manageable. Much more than 40 sales per month though, and you’re leaving money on the table by not having the Professional subscription.

Of course, it depends on your product pricing too. But once you’ve got some momentum and sales volume growing, not having to pay those per-item fees allows you to invest more back into inventory and marketing versus fees.

Fulfillment Handling 

One of the biggest benefits of having a Professional seller account is getting access to Amazon’s FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) program. Essentially, you can send your inventory to Amazon’s warehouses, and they handle all the picking, packing, shipping, customer service, and returns for those orders.

As an Individual seller, you have to handle all of that yourself out of your home or third-party warehouse. That can be a full-time job in itself once you have any sort of sales volume! Using FBA frees you up to just focus on product sourcing, marketing, and growing your Amazon business.

Advertisements Opportunities for Products 

Let’s talk about visibility and marketing for a second. One of the biggest advantages Professional sellers have is the ability to run paid advertising campaigns for their product listings. Amazon has its own pay-per-click (PPC) ad platform that allows you to bid to have your listings show up at the very top of search results for targeted keywords.

For example, if you sell kitchen storage containers, you could bid to have your listings show up first anytime someone searches for “plastic food containers” or other related terms. It’s a powerful way to immediately boost your visibility and sales, but it’s only available to Professional sellers.

Inventory Management 

Speaking of managing your product listings and inventory, that’s yet another area where Professional sellers get access to more advanced capabilities. As an Individual, you have to manually create and edit each product listing one-by-one in your Seller Central account.

With a Professional subscription, you can bulk upload inventory using file templates and take advantage of more robust tools to track, edit, and transfer inventory between your locations and Amazon’s warehouses if using FBA. Definitely a time-saver as your product catalog grows!

Product Category Access 

Another limitation of the Individual seller plan is that you can’t sell in some of Amazon’s more restricted categories like Grocery, Automotive, and others. A Professional Seller account removes those barriers and unlocks every product category on Amazon.

Professional sellers also get access to more data, tools, and reports around advertising performance, shipping insights, restocking guidance, and a lot more that just isn’t available or as robust on the Individual plan.

Brand Registration and Intellectual Property Protection 

One last key difference – brand protection and intellectual property tools. As a Professional seller, you can enroll in Amazon’s Brand Registry program completely free. This gives you powerful reporting tools to monitor if anyone is selling counterfeit versions of your products, the ability to initiate takedowns of listings violating your intellectual property, and increased product content control.

The Brand Registry is only available to Professional sellers, so this is a must if you’ve invested the time and money into building your own brand and product line.

Summary 

Which One to Choose Between Seller and Individual Plan? 

So which selling plan makes the most sense for your Amazon business? Here’s my advice:

For brand new sellers just testing things out on Amazon with just a handful of products, start with the Individual plan. The lack of monthly fees makes it low risk to get your feet wet. The downside is you’ll need to handle all the logistics yourself and pay those per-item fees, but it can make sense when first starting off.

• Choose the Individual Plan if:
  • You’re a new seller with a limited product line.
  • You anticipate selling less than 40 items per month.
  • You’re comfortable with manual fulfillment and basic inventory management.
• Choose the Professional Plan if:
  • You plan to scale your business and sell more than 40 items per month.
  • You value time-saving features like FBA and bulk inventory upload.
  • You want to leverage PPC advertising to boost product visibility.
  • Protecting your brand identity is a priority.

Remember, you can always switch plans later! As your business evolves, your needs might change.  Amazon allows you to seamlessly upgrade or downgrade your plan based on your current situation.

My advice? Start on the Individual plan if you must, get your feet wet and make sure there’s product-market fit. But once you start getting any sort of traction, bite the bullet and upgrade to that Professional plan! The upfront investment is 100% worth it to take your business to the next level.

Wrapping Up

Well, that covers the key differences between Amazon’s Professional and Individual Seller plans. Hopefully, it gives you a clear understanding of which option aligns best with your business goals and growth plans. Feel free to drop any other questions in the comments below!

Thanks for reading, best of luck with whichever seller plan you choose, and here’s to making your Amazon business dreams a reality!