Walmart vs. Amazon Seller Fees 2025

Aug 7 / Justin Golschneider
Many of the sellers who get accepted to sell on Walmart Marketplace have sold on Amazon already. If this is the case for you, good news: it’s usually less expensive to sell on Walmart.

Note: This article only discusses fees on Amazon.com and Walmart.com for US sellers. All prices shown are based on data retrieved in late August and early September 2025.

TL;DR: What You Really Need to Know

  • Walmart doesn’t charge subscription, per-item, or closing fees.
  • Referral fees on Walmart are always, to the best of our knowledge, either the same as or lower than on Amazon.
  • Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS) often charges less than Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA), sometimes going a drastic 80% lower on specific fees.

The only exceptions we were able to identify are a few FBA wins over WFS:

  • Very small, light items are often significantly cheaper to sell via FBA than WFS.
  • Items sold for less than $10 get FBA discounts but WFS penalties.
  • Storage fees for oversized items can sometimes be lower with FBA than WFS.
  • Walmart’s return processing fees tend to be more punishing than Amazon’s, with some exceptions.

With so many fees to remember, finding products that will actually turn a profit on either Amazon or Walmart is always a challenge. Seller 365’s Tactical Arbitrage 2.0 Beta and FeedbackWhiz Profits are the secret weapons of sellers who succeed on both platforms. Find high-ROI products for both marketplaces and verify that each SKU is actually making a profit—no guesswork, no surprises.

Subscription & Per-Item Fees

Amazon

Amazon’s Individual Selling Plan and Professional Selling Plan might as well be carved in stone. Since time immemorial, new sellers have used the Individual Selling Plan for free, paying $0.99 per item sold. Successful sellers soon upgrade to Pro and pay $39.99 a month instead.

Walmart

Walmart has no subscription or per-sale fees. It’s that simple!

Closing Fees

Amazon

Amazon charges a $1.80 closing fee on most media products, such as books, movies, and video games. This can be a significant chunk of the profit margins on competitive listings.

Walmart

Walmart doesn’t charge closing fees.

Referral Fees

Here it at least looks like we have a fight. Both Amazon and Walmart charge referral fees on every item sold, and these will often make up the largest chunk of fees you pay.

It turns out Walmart ties or wins every clear-cut battle between categories. Here are the categories where there’s a definitive difference between the two platforms.
Category Amazon Referral Fees Walmart Referral Fees Difference Lowest Cost
Clothing & Accessories / Apparel & Accessories > $20 = 17% > $20 = 15% Walmart wins, charging 2% less than Amazon on items sold for over $20. Walmart (15% vs. 17%)
Compact Appliances / Appliances – Compact ≤ $300 = 15% ≤ $300 = 12% Walmart wins, charging 3% less than Amazon on the first $300. Walmart (12% vs 15%)
Computers / Personal Computers 8% 6% Walmart wins, charging 2% less than Amazon. Walmart (6% vs 8%)
Musical Instruments 15% 12% Walmart wins, charging 3% less than Amazon. Walmart (12% vs 15%)
Office Products 15% 15%, except 12% for printer cartridges Walmart wins, charging 3% less for sales of printer cartridges than Amazon. Walmart (12% vs 15%)
Sports & Outdoors / Outdoor Products & Sports 15% 15%, except 8% for trail monitors, binoculars, telescopes, spotting scopes, and night vision goggles Walmart wins, charging a full 7% less for these outdoor optics subcategories. Walmart (8% vs 15%)
Watches ≤ $1,500 = 16% ≤ $1,500 = 15% Walmart wins, charging 1% less on the first $1,500. Walmart (15% vs 16%)

The Questionable Categories: What We Couldn’t Confirm

There are other areas where there may be a difference between Walmart and Amazon that is less clear-cut than in the cases above. For example, Amazon’s referral fee for Eyewear is 15%. However, Amazon doesn’t offer Eyewear as a browsable category, and Walmart doesn’t have an Eyewear category at all.

Reading glasses, as one possibility, are considered Health products on Walmart. So they would only be charged 8% if they had a total sales price of less than $10. It looks like another win for Walmart if that’s the case, but the lack of clarity on Amazon’s side makes this challenging to verify. And as we’ll see in Fulfillment Fees, Amazon wins for essentially all products under $10 if you’re using FBA/WFS.

For a different scenario, Amazon charges a 22% referral fee on veterinary diets, while Walmart charges 15% on all pet supplies. However, at the time we’re writing this, Walmart has delisted pet ingestibles from third-party sellers. A win for Amazon?

Minimum Referral Fees

Amazon charges a minimum referral fee of $0.30 on most items. Walmart doesn’t charge a minimum referral fee.

This isn’t a serious difference. Fulfillment fees or shipping costs alone generally mean that it’s impossible to make any profit on an item sold for less than $3.00. At that point, the referral fee is already at $0.45 for most items on either Amazon or Walmart.

Walmart WFS vs. Amazon FBA Fulfillment Fee Comparison

Amazon FBA and Walmart WFS are both optional services, so these fees don’t matter if you’re planning to handle your own fulfillment. For everyone else, here’s how it works.

Standard Items

Things are rarely as straightforward as weighing your item and using the chart below to see the shipping costs. But in some cases, that really is all you need to do. So, here’s how fulfillment costs will work if you’re that lucky:
Weight Walmart WFS Amazon FBA Amazon Size Tier Winner Cost Difference
1 lb$3.45$3.65Small Standard (16 oz)WFS$0.20
2 lb$4.95$5.77Large StandardWFS$0.82
3 lb$5.45$6.62Large StandardWFS$1.17
4 lb$5.75$7.24Large StandardWFS$1.49
5 lb$6.15$7.56Large StandardWFS$1.41
6 lb$6.55$7.88Large StandardWFS$1.33
7 lb$6.95$8.20Large StandardWFS$1.25
8 lb$7.35$8.52Large StandardWFS$1.17
9 lb$7.75$8.84Large StandardWFS$1.09
10 lb$8.15$9.16Large StandardWFS$1.01
11 lb$8.55$9.48Large StandardWFS$0.93
12 lb$8.95$9.80Large StandardWFS$0.85
13 lb$9.35$10.12Large StandardWFS$0.77
14 lb$9.75$10.44Large StandardWFS$0.69
15 lb$10.15$10.76Large StandardWFS$0.61
16 lb$10.55$11.08Large StandardWFS$0.53
17 lb$10.95$11.40Large StandardWFS$0.45
18 lb$11.35$11.72Large StandardWFS$0.37
19 lb$11.75$12.04Large StandardWFS$0.29
20 lb$12.15$12.36Large StandardWFS$0.21
21 lb$15.55$17.21Large BulkyWFS$1.66
22 lb$15.95$17.59Large BulkyWFS$1.64
23 lb$16.35$17.97Large BulkyWFS$1.62
24 lb$16.75$18.35Large BulkyWFS$1.60
25 lb$17.15$18.73Large BulkyWFS$1.58
26 lb$17.55$19.11Large BulkyWFS$1.56
27 lb$17.95$19.49Large BulkyWFS$1.54
28 lb$18.35$19.87Large BulkyWFS$1.52
29 lb$18.75$20.25Large BulkyWFS$1.50
30 lb$19.15$20.63Large BulkyWFS$1.48
31 lb$14.55$21.01Large BulkyWFS$6.46
32 lb$14.95$21.39Large BulkyWFS$6.44
33 lb$15.35$21.77Large BulkyWFS$6.42
34 lb$15.75$22.15Large BulkyWFS$6.40
35 lb$16.15$22.53Large BulkyWFS$6.38
36 lb$16.55$22.91Large BulkyWFS$6.36
37 lb$16.95$23.29Large BulkyWFS$6.34
38 lb$17.35$23.67Large BulkyWFS$6.32
39 lb$17.75$24.05Large BulkyWFS$6.30
40 lb$18.15$24.43Large BulkyWFS$6.28
41 lb$18.55$24.81Large BulkyWFS$6.26
42 lb$18.95$25.19Large BulkyWFS$6.24
43 lb$19.35$25.57Large BulkyWFS$6.22
44 lb$19.75$25.95Large BulkyWFS$6.20
45 lb$20.15$26.33Large BulkyWFS$6.18
46 lb$20.55$26.71Large BulkyWFS$6.16
47 lb$20.95$27.09Large BulkyWFS$6.14
48 lb$21.35$27.47Large BulkyWFS$6.12
49 lb$21.75$27.85Large BulkyWFS$6.10
50 lb$22.15$28.23Large BulkyWFS$6.08
51 lb$17.55$40.12Extra-largeWFS$22.57
52 lb$17.95$40.87Extra-largeWFS$22.92
53 lb$18.35$41.62Extra-largeWFS$23.27
54 lb$18.75$42.37Extra-largeWFS$23.62
55 lb$19.15$43.12Extra-largeWFS$23.97

The Weird Wins of Walmart

Walmart’s standard WFS fulfillment fees use easy-to-understand weight calculations that consistently wipe the floor with FBA. But, although they’re clear, they’re not straightforward at all. Some examples of the wonkiness:

  • 19-pound item: $11.75
  • 20-pound item: $12.15
  • 21-pound item: $15.55

And then there’s this:
  • 30-pound item: $19.15
  • 31-pound item: $14.55

You read that right, and no, we didn’t miscalculate it. You can save $4.60 on WFS shipping per unit by increasing the weight of a 30-pound item to 31 pounds. And you can save a dollar by adding 10 pounds to a 21-pound item!

But there is a reason for this. Once you hit that over-30-pounds tier, your items are shipped via ground and two-day delivery is no longer a guarantee. All that work your engineers put in to shave off that extra pound still does mean something. (Plus, as we’ll see later, there are plenty of other fees that get consistently higher with size and weight.)

FBA’s fulfillment fees don’t do the crazy up-and-down thing Walmart does, but you can see big jumps at certain thresholds:

  • 19-pound item (counts as large standard): $12.04
  • 20-pound item (counts as large standard): $12.36
  • 21-pound item (counts as large bulky): $17.21

With Amazon, you consistently get rewarded with lower fees for keeping your item lighter. It’s critical to stay below certain thresholds like the 20-pound line whenever possible.

Dimensional Weight: When Your Item Weighs More Than It Weighs

An explorer going mad from the revelation that with dimensional weight, 8 ounces can equal 2 pounds (ChatGPT-generated illustration)
Exploring the outer reaches of dimensional weight has driven many an intrepid seller to madness.

There are countless ways for your item’s shipping cost to increase. Let’s look at the special kinds of insanity around a 10” x 8” x 3” product.

The most important thing we have to be aware of is dimensional weight, which is calculated the same way by both Walmart and Amazon:

[length x width x height, all in inches] / 139 = dimensional weight in pounds.

So for example, a 10” x 8” x 3” product has a dimensional weight of 1.73 pounds.

Additionally, to account for packing materials, Walmart recommends adding 0.25 pounds and rounding up. 1.73 + 0.25 = 1.98, so rounded up, we’re at 2 pounds even in our case.

Now, let’s say our item is a nice fluffy pillow that weighs only 8 ounces.

With Walmart, if it weighs less than a pound, dimensional weight doesn’t matter, and you’re charged for an item that weighs less than or equal to a pound. That’s currently $3.45.

With Amazon, the only way to escape dimensional weight on the low end of the spectrum is if the item is “small standard-size.” That means it weighs no more than a pound and stays under 15 inches long, 12 inches wide, and 0.75 inches high. Since our 3-inch-thick pillow is too big, it counts as “large standard-size” and is subject to dimensional weight.

Amazon therefore counts this item as weighing 2 pounds and will charge for it as such. The cost is therefore $5.87. That’s $2.42 more than the cost charged by Walmart, meaning Amazon charges 70% more than Walmart in this scenario.

But let’s say the item weighs 5 pounds with packaging and is the same size. Then, we can go off Amazon and Walmart’s weight alone. The cost is $7.56 with FBA and $6.15 on Walmart, a $1.41 difference. Amazon charges 23% more than Walmart in this scenario.

Low-Price FBA Fees vs. WFS’s Retail Price Less Than $10

Ready for a real surprise? Amazon’s Low-Price FBA fees offer a $0.70 discount on items priced below $10, while Walmart’s Retail Price Less Than $10 adds $1.00 to the fee.

Now, even with Amazon’s discount, it’s often impossible to charge much less than $10 and make a profit. FBA currently charges at least $2.29 to ship an item weighing 2 ounces or less. Then you have the sourcing costs, prep costs, inbound shipping charges, etc. But, it’s entirely possible to sell a lightweight product worth $8 or $9 through FBA and keep solid margins.

Walmart, on the other hand, would charge $4.45 for the same item—$3.45 for weighing less than a pound + $1.00 because you charged less than $10 for it.

The message is clear: Amazon wants you to sell your low-cost items with FBA, while Walmart doesn’t want WFS to deal with anything worth less than $10.

FBA’s Ultralight Wins

We can’t skip over this detail: FBA’s “small standard” category offers a lot of opportunities to save over WFS. If it weighs 10 ounces or less and measures under 15” x 12” x 0.75”, FBA will save you anything from $0.02 to $0.49 per unit sold. Combined with the FBA discount for ultra-cheap items vs. Walmart’s penalty for the same, this makes FBA the clear winner on small, light, affordable items.

Inbound Fees

Yet another FBA fee is the inbound placement service fee. This usually adds anywhere from $0.12 to $0.68 per item. The good news is that if you take advantage of Amazon-optimized shipment splits, you can avoid paying this fee. One way to qualify for this by packing at least 5 identical boxes with the same contents.

WFS doesn’t have any inbound fees. No hoop-jumping required.

Storage Fees

Both Amazon and Walmart charge storage fees per cubic foot. For Walmart, these range from $0.75 for fresh inventory from January through September to $3.75 for year-old inventory during the peak season. For Amazon, these range from $0.56 for carefully stocked oversized items to $5.51 if you have a mountain of hazardous goods in peak season (October–December).

It’s important to note that FBA wins for oversized items, beating WFS by up to $0.19 or 25% per cubic foot.

However, in general, WFS wins. Their base storage fee is a little lower—$0.75 vs FBA’s $0.78 (for Professional sellers with over 25 cubic feet of inventory and one year of FBA experience) or $0.87 (for just about everyone else). The savings are often significantly larger than that $0.03 to $0.12 difference.

But this is not a true apples-to-apples comparison. This is because of Amazon's storage utilization surcharge.

Walmart’s version of this is simple. Items that have been sitting around in WFS warehouses for over 30 days in peak season, or for over a year anytime, will incur a long-term storage fee.

Amazon uses the… well, not especially popular “storage utilization ratio.” Let’s call it the SUR to save ourselves a mouthful of marbles.

The Amazon Storage Utilization Ratio (SUR)

The SUR divides your average cubic feet of inventory by your average cubic feet shipped over the last 13 weeks, then divides that number by 7. That, believe it or not, is the number of weeks of inventory you’re considered to have. It’s split into standard-size and oversize categories, but not by product.

With FBA, aging inventory faces a creeping barrage of surcharges as soon as its SUR hits 22 weeks. These start at an extra $0.44 per cubic foot and swiftly climb to $1.88 at one year. Combined with the base storage fee, that one-year amount typically comes to a total of $2.66, or $4.28 in peak season.

The one bright spot is that inventory aged less than 30 days is not subject to the SUR. It only gets charged on older inventory. You’re also immune under a few circumstances, such as if you’ve been using FBA for less than a year.

The Amazon Aged Inventory Surcharge (Long-Term Storage Fee)

Amazon also charges an additional aged inventory surcharge, originally called the long-term storage fee. This can range from an additional $0.50 to $6.90 per cubic foot, with the possibility of even higher fees for small items on a $0.15 per-item basis. And yeah, it’s charged monthly on top of all your other storage fees.

WFS Surcharges for Older Inventory

WFS has two similar surcharges.

The first occurs on inventory over one year old, but instantly triples the cost from $0.75 to $2.25. That’s still less than FBA with a one-year SUR!

The second occurs on inventory over 30 days old during peak season. This is an additional $1.50 on top of the other fees, bringing your cost up to $2.25 or $3.75. Yet it still beats FBA, which would charge $2.40 to $4.28 for the same products.

Again, this isn’t exactly apples-to-apples. Amazon is more about your overall performance as a seller; Walmart cares about which items are performing well. In the end, though, it would likely average out to a Walmart win.

Comparing Walmart vs. Amazon Fees

Amazon’s fees are so complicated that we literally could not calculate a sample scenario in time for this article’s deadline. However, we were able to calculate the WFS fees and have AI generate an estimate of what Amazon would arrive at.

Here’s the scenario. Alice has the following inventory:

  • 240 13-month-old 6” red cubes (30 cubic feet).
  • 120 6-month-old 6” blue cubes (15 cubic feet).
  • 120 2-week-old 6” green cubes (15 cubic feet).

In the last year, Alice sold 240 green cubes, 120 blue cubes, and no red cubes. For Amazon’s last 13 weeks calculation, that’s 60 green cubes, 30 blue cubes, and 0 red cubes.

With WFS, Alice’s fees for January through September would be:

  • $77.50 per month for the red cubes.
  • $11.25 for the blue cubes.
  • $11.25 for the green cubes.
  • Total: $100.

For October through December, the cost would be:

  • $117.50 per month for the red cubes.
  • $33.75 for the blue cubes
  • $11.25 for the green cubes.
  • Total: $162.50.

Now for FBA. We calculated the SUR as follows:

First, we have to get Alice’s average daily inventory volume. She has 60 cubic feet now vs. 71.25 cubic feet 13 weeks ago. 60 + 71.25 / 2 = an average daily inventory volume of 65.625 cubic feet.

Next, we have to calculate the average daily shipped volume. She sold 90 units in 91 days; each unit is 0.125 cubic feet; 0.125 * 90 / 91 = 0.124.

Finally, we divide the inventory volume by the shipped volume, then divide that by seven. 65.625 / 0.124 / 7 = 75.6.

This is Alice’s SUR—Amazon has decided she has 75.6 weeks of inventory. She gets the heaviest fees possible on all inventory aged over 30 days.

From this point forward, we had to rely on Claude AI to calculate all the additional fees for Alice. The estimate came out to ~$180 to $220 per month in January through September. In October through December, it reached $280 to $320 per month.

If Claude’s estimates are correct—which they appear to be—Alice’s FBA inventory storage fees likely total twice as high as for the same inventory in WFS.

Return Processing Fees

The two marketplaces both charge return processing fees, but take very different approaches.

Amazon charges return processing fees on all shoes and apparel. For everything else, there are thresholds.

For example, you won’t have to pay a return processing fee for a specific video game until your return rate hits 6.5%. After that, each additional return will be charged the fee.

Additionally, Amazon won’t charge any return fees for an item that shipped fewer than 25 units in a single month.

Walmart, on the other hand, charges return processing fees on every item for which the seller or, really, the customer is at fault. Returns due to the item getting banged up during final delivery are Walmart’s carrier’s fault, so there’s no return fee. Returns due to the customer deciding they don’t need it are charged the fee.

What’s surprising is how severe Walmart’s return processing fees are. They start at $4.70 for items that weigh up to one pound, while Amazon charges as little as $1.65 for apparel weighing less than 4 ounces and anywhere from $1.95 to $3.39 for a 1-pound item.

In this surprising turnaround, Walmart charges anywhere from 1.4X to 2.8X more than Amazon for lightweight returns. This stacks the deck even more in Amazon’s favor for sellers of small, light, affordable items and makes Walmart even more unappealing to them.

For the most part, Amazon’s return processing fees are more affordable until you hit 31+ pounds, when Walmart sometimes charges significantly less.

Since most sellers tend to target lighter items, we consider this a notable win for Amazon. But if you have very few seller-/buyer-at-fault returns and/or a lot of heavy items, Walmart can still be more affordable.

Removal and Disposal Fees

There’s no contest at all here. WFS charges much, much less for removals and disposals than FBA (FBA disposals) (FBA removals).

Disposal of a 15-pound large bulky item will cost you a shocking $19.62 with FBA—more than a dollar a pound to put something in a dumpster. Walmart will charge only $2.95 for the same thing. In this example, Amazon’s fees are 6.7 times higher than Walmart’s!

In all the sample calculations we ran, Walmart never charged more than half of what Amazon would charge, and the savings for disposals in particular are often in the 80% range.

Additional FBA and WFS Fees

We haven’t covered every possible fee here. Plenty of extra costs are possible. Both Amazon and Walmart have extra charges for apparel, hazmat, and so on. Be sure to research your own niche directly before jumping in. 

Conclusion

There are certain situations where you’ll be better off sticking to FBA and avoiding WFS. Small, light, cheap items are much more profitable through FBA. Likewise, Walmart’s punishing return processing fees can be much worse than Amazon’s more forgiving model. Take a careful look at the numbers if you have a high return rate.

Beyond that, it’s a one-sided fight. Walmart is cheaper under the vast majority of circumstances. It’s also much easier to understand, with simpler, clearer pricing documentation than Amazon.

If you’ve been able to survive as an Amazon seller, dealing with Walmart fees will be like switching to easy mode.