How Much Does Amazon Associates Pay? Commission Rates by Category (2026)

The short answer: Amazon Associates pays between 1% and 10% of the sale price, and most of the categories affiliate sites actually write about sit between 3% and 4.5%. On top of that there are fixed "bounty" payments for things like Prime and Audible sign-ups.

The longer answer is that the rate is only one of three numbers that decide what you earn. The other two are how much the shopper spends and how many of your visitors buy. Amazon's rates are low compared with most private affiliate programs, and it still out-earns them for a lot of sites, because a click to Amazon converts like nothing else. This guide gives you the full 2026 rate table, then walks through the math that actually turns those percentages into a monthly number.

Amazon Associates commission rates by category (2026)

These are the standard fixed rates for the Amazon.com program, taken from Amazon's official fee schedule at the time of writing. Other Amazon marketplaces (UK, Canada, Germany and so on) run their own programs with their own tables.

A few things about that table that trip people up. The rate depends on the category of the item the shopper buys, not the item you linked to. If you link to a $30 kitchen gadget and the shopper adds a $900 TV to the same order, you earn 4.5% on the gadget and 2% on the TV. And "all other categories" at 4% is a real line: anything Amazon hasn't specifically listed, which covers a surprising amount of what people buy, defaults to it.

The highest and lowest paying categories

Luxury Beauty at 10% is the standout, more than double the typical rate. The catch is that it's a specific Amazon storefront (premium skincare, fragrance and cosmetics brands), not the general beauty category, which pays 3%. If you write about high-end skincare, this is the best deal on the platform.

Kitchen, Automotive and Physical Books at 4.5% are the sweet spot for most content sites. Kitchen especially: prices run from $20 gadgets to $500 appliances, the buying intent is clear, and there's endless comparison material. Automotive has similarly high average order values.

Electronics are the trap. Televisions pay 2%, PCs and components 2.5%, and video game consoles 1%. These categories have big price tags, which makes the rate look survivable, but they're also the most competitive keywords on the internet, dominated by publishers with hundred-person editorial teams. A $1,000 TV earns you $20, and you'll fight harder for that sale than for a $40 kitchen scale that earns $1.80 with a fraction of the competition.

Grocery and Health & Personal Care at 1% are essentially not worth targeting directly. They earn as incidental cart additions, but nobody builds a site around them.

Bounties: fixed payments that aren't in the table

Beyond percentage commissions, Amazon pays fixed amounts, called bounties or "special commission income," when a visitor you referred signs up for a service. At the time of writing, examples include an Audible membership sign-up, Amazon Business registration, and various Prime and Kindle Unlimited trials, with payments that typically range from a few dollars to around $20–30 per sign-up depending on the program.

Bounties are a nice supplement, particularly for sites that naturally lead into a subscription (a books site recommending Audible, a small-business site recommending Amazon Business). They're not a business model on their own, and the specific programs and amounts change often enough that you should check the current bounty page rather than plan around a figure.

How the commission is actually calculated

This is where most "how much does Amazon pay" articles stop short, and it's the part that decides whether the rate table means $50 a month or $5,000.

• The 24-hour cookie. When someone clicks your link, you're credited for anything they buy on Amazon in the next 24 hours, in any category, whether or not you linked to it. That's the whole cart, not just your product. It's also the reason the rate matters less than it looks: a lot of your commission comes from things you never wrote about.
• The 90-day cart rule. If the shopper adds an item to their cart inside that 24-hour window but doesn't check out until later, you're still credited as long as they buy within 90 days.
• Commission is on the item price only. Shipping, taxes, gift wrap and any promotional discounts are excluded. A $100 item that ships for $8 earns commission on $100.
• Returns are clawed back. If the order is returned or cancelled, the commission is reversed. Categories with high return rates (apparel, shoes) quietly earn less than their listed rate.
• Payment timing. Amazon pays roughly 60 days after the end of the month the sale happened in. January's commissions arrive around the end of March. The minimum payout is $10 for direct deposit or Amazon gift card, and $100 by check.

What $100 in sales earns, category by category

Putting the rates against real prices makes the differences concrete. Here's what you'd earn on a single typical purchase in a handful of common categories.

Notice how the $250 office chair at 3% out-earns the $150 headphones at the same rate, and nearly matches the $120 mixer at 4.5%. The rate and the price multiply. That's the lens to use when choosing what to write about.

What an Amazon affiliate site realistically earns

Take a site getting 10,000 visitors a month to its product content. Roughly 30% of those visitors click through to Amazon, which is normal for well-targeted buyer guides. That's 3,000 clicks. Amazon converts around 8% of referred clicks into an order for a typical site (it can run higher in the holiday season). That's 240 orders. At a $70 average order value, you've referred $16,800 in sales. At a blended 3.5% rate across the categories in those carts, that's about $590 a month.

Now change one variable. Write about kitchen instead of home décor, so the blended rate moves to 4.5%, and the average order climbs to $90 because appliances cost more. Same traffic, same click rate, same conversion: 240 orders × $90 × 4.5% = $972 a month. Category choice alone moved the number by two thirds.

Or change the traffic. The same kitchen site at 40,000 visitors is around $3,900 a month. Nothing about the rate table changed; you just published more pages that rank. This is the part of the math that sites control completely, and it's why the ones that win publish consistently rather than agonising over a percentage point.

The 2020 rate cut, and why it still matters

In April 2020 Amazon cut rates across the board, and the cuts were brutal in some categories: Furniture and Home went from 8% to 3%, Grocery from 5% to 1%, Headphones from 6% to 3%, and Sports and Outdoors from 5.5% to 3%. Sites built entirely on furniture reviews lost more than half their income overnight.

The table has been stable since, but the lesson holds: Amazon can change the rates whenever it likes, and it has. The defence is diversification, both across categories and, once a site has traffic, across programs. Many products in kitchen, tools and outdoor gear are also sold through brand or retailer affiliate programs paying 8–12%, and a site that ranks can send traffic wherever it earns most.

Choosing categories with the rate in mind

The rate table is a starting point, not a decision. The categories that make money for content sites tend to share three things: a rate of 3% or better, average prices high enough that a single sale is worth a few dollars, and enough product variety to support dozens of comparison articles. Kitchen, tools, home improvement, outdoors, baby products and automotive all fit. We covered how to pick specific products worth reviewing within a category in a separate guide, including the ones to skip.

Once you've picked a category, the constraint stops being the commission rate and becomes volume: a category is a few hundred keywords, and ranking for them means a few hundred buyer guides, reviews and comparisons, each built around real products with current prices. That's the job AffSERP is designed for. It takes a list of keywords, pulls live Amazon product data for each one, writes the buyer guide or comparison the search intent calls for, puts your Associates tag in every link, and publishes straight to WordPress. Covering a category becomes a matter of weeks rather than years, and a bigger footprint in a 4.5% category beats a perfect page in a 2% one.

FAQ

Is Amazon Associates still worth it in 2026?

For content sites, yes. The rates are lower than most private programs, but Amazon converts far better than almost anything else, because shoppers already trust it and frequently add more to the cart than the item you linked. Low rate × high conversion × a full cart is the formula, and it still works. If you're new to the program, start with our Amazon Associates beginner's guide, which covers the sign-up, the 3-sale requirement and the rules that get accounts closed.

Do rates differ by country?

Yes. Every Amazon marketplace runs its own Associates program with its own fee table. The rates here are for Amazon.com. If your audience shops on Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.ca, join those programs separately and check their tables, which differ in places.

Is there a cap on commission per sale?

Not in the standard fee table. Commission is a flat percentage of the qualifying item price, so a $2,000 sale in a 4% category earns $80. Some categories had caps in the program's earlier years, but the current table doesn't apply one.

What counts as a qualifying purchase?

An item bought within 24 hours of the click (or within 90 days if it went into the cart during that window), not returned or cancelled, and not bought by you. Purchases you make through your own links, or that family members make, don't qualify and are a fast way to lose the account.

Keep reading

Amazon Affiliate Amazon Associates Program: A Beginner's Guide Sign-up, the 3-sale rule, tracking IDs, disclosures, and the mistakes that get new accounts closed.

Amazon Affiliate How to Choose Amazon Products Worth Reviewing (and Which to Skip) Price, reviews, availability and competition: a repeatable filter for products that earn.