Amazon Associates Requirements: How to Get Approved and Stay Approved
Amazon Associates is easy to get into and surprisingly easy to fall out of. The application approves you on the spot, which makes the requirements feel like a formality, and then two things quietly decide whether you keep the account: whether your property met the bar Amazon actually checks, and whether you make three real sales in the first 180 days. Most people who lose an account in year one never read the rules that closed it.
This guide lists every requirement in one place, with Amazon's own numbers: what qualifies a website or a social account, the content and follower minimums, the categories Amazon refuses outright, the sales deadline, the ongoing rules that keep an account open, and why applications get rejected. The requirements come from Amazon's application help page and its Program Policies, and where Amazon gives a figure, it's quoted rather than guessed.
The short answer
You need a public property with real content: a website or app with original content (Amazon suggests at least ten posts, updated recently), or a public social page with a substantive organic following (in most cases at least 500). It can't be in a prohibited category. Approval is instant and provisional; you then have 180 days to make three qualifying sales, and personal orders don't count. After that, staying approved is a matter of following the Participation Requirements: disclose, keep links on your approved property, never buy through your own links, and don't copy prices or reviews off Amazon by hand.
Requirement 1: a qualifying property
Amazon accepts three kinds of property, and it checks each differently.
Websites and mobile apps
The site must be publicly available, not under construction, and not behind a paywall or login. Amazon's application help says it should have "robust original content", gives at least 10 posts as the baseline, and expects the content to be recent, generally within the last 60 days. Original means written by you or for you; a site of scraped product descriptions or spun articles doesn't clear this bar even with hundreds of pages. Apps are held to the same content standard and must be live in a public app store.
Social media accounts
Amazon lists exactly which platforms it accepts: Facebook (an open group or fan page, not a personal profile), Instagram, X, YouTube, TikTok and Twitch. The account must be public, meaning posts and follower counts are visible to people who don't follow you, and it needs "a substantive number of organic followers/likes (in most cases, at least 500)". Organic is the operative word; a bought following that doesn't engage is the kind of account Amazon declines. The full list is on Amazon's application requirements page.
Which one to apply with
Whichever already has traffic. If you have both, list both; Amazon lets you register several sites and channels under one account, and links are only permitted on properties you've listed. A common mistake is applying with a placeholder site and then posting links on a channel you never registered.
Requirement 2: not an unsuitable site
Section 1 of the Participation Requirements lists the properties that "cannot participate under any circumstance". A site is unsuitable if it:
- promotes or contains sexually explicit or obscene material;
- promotes violence, or promotes or incites dangerous or harmful acts;
- contains false, deceptive, libellous or defamatory material;
- contains material that is hateful, harassing, abusive, invasive of privacy or discriminatory;
- promotes or undertakes illegal activities;
- is directed at children, or collects personal information from children under 13;
- uses an Amazon trademark or a variant of one in its domain, subdomain, tag or social handle;
- otherwise violates intellectual property rights.
Most affiliates never come near these. The one that catches real people is the trademark rule: a domain like amazon-deals-daily.com or a handle like @amazonfinds is an automatic no, however innocent the intent.
Requirement 3: the details Amazon asks for
The application itself takes about ten minutes and asks for: your account and payee details; the URLs of every site, app and social account you'll use; a short description of what the property is about and who it's for; how you drive traffic and how you plan to build links; roughly how many monthly visitors you get; your preferred Store ID (this becomes your tracking ID, so choose carefully, since it can't be renamed); tax information (a W-9 for U.S. persons, a W-8 for everyone else); and a payment method. None of the answers has a "wrong" value that fails you at this stage; approval is provisional and immediate. The answers matter later, when Amazon reviews the account after your first sales.
Requirement 4: three qualifying sales in 180 days
This is the requirement that actually decides most accounts. After provisional approval you have 180 days to generate at least three qualifying sales. If you don't, Amazon closes the account. Two details, both from Amazon's own wording:
- Personal orders don't count. Buying through your own links, or having friends and family do it, is disqualified and is separately banned under the Participation Requirements. Every grey area, from a spouse's account to products you buy to review, is covered in can you earn commission buying for yourself.
- You can reapply. A closed-for-inactivity account isn't a ban. But the second application is reviewed against the first, so the right move is to reapply once the site has real traffic.
The practical consequence is about timing. Don't apply the week you buy the domain. Get your buyer-intent pages published and indexed first, so the 180-day clock starts when sales are realistic rather than when the site is empty.
Requirement 5: the rules that keep the account open
Approval is the start. The Associates Program Participation Requirements are the ongoing terms, and any violation is a material breach that lets Amazon withhold fees and terminate. The ones that matter day to day:
| Rule | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Disclose | State "As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases" clearly and prominently where your links appear, and meet FTC endorsement rules. The wording and placement are covered in our disclosure guide. |
| Links only on approved properties, online | No affiliate links in email, printed material, eBooks or PDFs, and none on sites or channels you didn't register. |
| No cloaking (6(v)) | Don't "cloak, hide, spoof, or otherwise obscure" that a link goes to Amazon. Redirects that hide the destination are out. |
| Prices only from the API (2(b)) | You may show prices and availability only if Amazon serves the link or you pull them through the Creators/Product Advertising API, with a timestamp and a "subject to change" note. Typing "$49.99" into a post is a violation the moment the price moves. |
| No copied reviews or star ratings (6(t)) | Amazon's customer reviews and ratings can't be displayed on your site unless they come through the API. |
| No incentives (6(g)) | No rewards, rebates or "click my link and I'll…" offers for using your links. |
| No self-purchases (6(u)) | Not for you, not for anyone else, not via friends, family or employees. |
| No trademark bidding (6(e)) | Don't buy "amazon" or its variants as paid-search keywords, and keep Amazon's marks out of your domain and handles. |
| Don't imply endorsement | No "official Amazon partner", no Amazon logos used as if you're affiliated with the company. |
Three of these, prices, reviews and disclosure, are broken by accident far more often than on purpose, usually because content was written by hand and pasted from the product page. That's worth knowing when you decide how your pages get produced.
Why applications get rejected, and the fix
- Not enough content. A handful of posts, or pages that say "coming soon". Fix: publish real articles first, then apply.
- Not public. A site behind a login, a private Instagram, a closed Facebook group, a personal Facebook profile. Fix: make it public, or use a page/open group.
- Below the follower threshold. Fix: grow the account, or apply with a website instead; websites have no follower requirement.
- Prohibited category. Rarely fixable; choose a different property.
- Amazon in the name. Fix: new domain or handle. There's no exception.
- Wrong or missing URLs. The property you listed doesn't resolve or isn't the one you'll post on. Fix: list every live property exactly.
Pre-application checklist
- Property is public, live and not under construction.
- Website: 10+ original posts, at least some published in the last 60 days. Social: 500+ organic followers, public page or open group.
- Nothing in the unsuitable categories; no Amazon trademark in the domain or handle.
- Disclosure already on the pages where links will go.
- Tax and payment details ready (W-9 or W-8; bank account or the alternatives).
- A plan to send real traffic within 180 days, ideally pages already ranking.
Meeting the requirements at scale
Read the list again and a pattern shows: almost every requirement is either "have enough real content" or "don't hand-copy things from Amazon". Ten original posts to apply, fifty or more to cover a niche and make three sales before the deadline, every one with a disclosure, live prices via the API, and your tracking ID in each link. Doing that by hand is where sites either stall short of the content bar or drift into violations.
That's the job AffSERP is built for. Give it a keyword list and it pulls product data live through Amazon's API (so prices and details are compliant by construction), writes the buyer guide, review or comparison each keyword calls for, puts your tracking ID in every link and the disclosure at the top of every article, and publishes to your site. A site that covers its niche in the first weeks meets the content requirement on day one and gives the 180-day clock something to work with.
FAQ
What are the requirements to join?
A public website or app with original content (10+ posts, recently updated) or a public social page with roughly 500+ organic followers, not in a prohibited category. Then three qualifying sales within 180 days.
How many followers do you need?
In most cases at least 500 organic followers on a public Facebook page or open group, Instagram, X, YouTube, TikTok or Twitch account. Websites have no follower requirement.
What if I don't make three sales in 180 days?
The account is closed. Personal and friends-and-family orders don't count. You can reapply, ideally once the site has traffic.
Why was my application rejected?
Usually too little content, a non-public property, a personal Facebook profile, too few followers, a prohibited category or Amazon's name in the domain. Most are fixable.
Turn a keyword list into Amazon buyer guides built from live product data, published to your site with your tracking ID and disclosure in place.
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