Amazon ended FBA prep: your three options and what each costs per unit

Amazon stopped prepping and labeling inventory at its US fulfillment centers on January 1, 2026. Every unit now has to arrive polybagged, bubble wrapped and FNSKU labeled before it reaches the dock. You have three ways to get there: prep it yourself, send it to a prep center, or have the 3PL that already holds your stock prep it on the way out. The right one depends on your unit count and your SKU count, and the per-unit math below shows where each wins.

What Amazon changed, and when

Amazon told sellers in late July 2025 that its optional prep and item labeling services would end for shipments created on or after January 1, 2026. The notice covers inventory sent to US FBA directly and through AWD, AGL, Amazon SEND and the Supply Chain Portal. Amazon's reason was a "significant improvement in seller packaging capabilities" (text of the notice, Packaging Insights).

Two details matter more than the date. First, shipments created after January 1 that arrive without proper prep are no longer eligible for reimbursement if the units are lost or damaged. Second, since March 31, 2026, resellers outside Brand Registry must put an FNSKU label on every unit, because Amazon ended pooled manufacturer-barcode inventory (GS1 UK).

What the old service cost, for comparison

Amazon's prep fees were never cheap. The last published schedule charged $0.55 per unit for labeling, $0.70 for bagging and $0.80 for bubble wrap, so a fragile unit that needed wrap and a label cost $1.35 before it was even stored (BQool's copy of Amazon's fee table, Aura). Any option that lands under those numbers is a cost cut.

The three options, per unit

Option	Label	Polybag	Bubble wrap	Receiving	Best fit
Self-prep at home or in your own space	Your time plus a few cents in label stock	Your time plus the bag	Your time plus the wrap	None	Under a few hundred units a month, few SKUs
Dedicated FBA prep center	$0.20 to $0.55	$0.30 to $0.60	$0.50 to $1.00	$0.25 to $0.50 per unit, or $2 to $5 per carton	Amazon-only sellers moving thousands of units
3PL that already holds your inventory	Quoted as a per-unit add-on	Quoted as a per-unit add-on	Quoted as a per-unit add-on	$0 at BoxHero	Brands selling on Shopify and Amazon from one stock pool

Prep center ranges are 2026 market figures from PrepVia. Full-service prep, meaning receive, inspect, label and ship, typically runs $0.75 to $1.50 per unit across the industry, and advertised rates under $0.60 often leave out receiving or materials.

Option 1: self-prep

Self-prep costs labor and supplies. Put a real hourly figure on the labor. If a unit takes 90 seconds to bag, label and box, and your time or a helper's is worth $20 an hour, that is $0.50 per unit before supplies. At 300 units a month it is seven and a half hours. At 3,000 units it is 75 hours, which is half a job.

Polybags must be at least 1.5 mil thick, and any bag with an opening of 5 inches or more needs a printed suffocation warning. Cushioned items must survive a 3-foot drop. Sets need a "Sold as Set, Do Not Separate" sticker and one barcode only (Tinuiti's summary of Amazon's packaging rules). Get one of these wrong and the shipment is flagged at receiving, and any damage is yours.

Self-prep works when you have a handful of SKUs, volume under a few hundred units a month, and the time. It stops working the month a 5,000-unit container lands in your garage.

Option 2: a dedicated prep center

Prep centers are built for one job. You ship your inbound to them, they inspect, label, bag and forward to Amazon, usually in one to three days. Per-unit rates fall with volume. One prep center publishes about $0.95 per unit at 5,000 units a month and about $0.50 at 50,000 (PrepVia pricing guide).

The catch is the second leg. A prep center does not hold your DTC inventory, so the same product gets split into two stock pools in two buildings. Your Shopify orders ship from one place, your FBA stock sits in another, and you pay freight twice. For an Amazon-only seller that is fine. For a brand that also sells on its own site, the two pools are where the money leaks.

Option 3: the 3PL that already holds your stock

If a 3PL already receives, stores and ships your DTC orders, FBA prep is one more outbound flow from the same shelves. Units are already counted and barcoded on the way in. Prepping for Amazon means pulling the quantity, applying the FNSKU, bagging or wrapping where the rules require it, and building the cartons or pallets against the shipment plan.

We do this at BoxHero from our warehouse at 905 Remsen Ave in Brooklyn. There are no receiving fees, so the inbound leg costs $0 before prep starts, and there are no monthly minimums. Prep itself is quoted per unit before your first shipment, based on what each SKU needs. One pool of inventory feeds Shopify, wholesale and FBA, so you order one container instead of two and the stock that sells faster on one channel gets moved without a freight bill. If you are deciding whether to move fulfillment at all, the five numbers that decide it cover that question, and the per-order cost breakdown shows our DTC rates next to the industry.

How to pick in five minutes

1. Count the units per month going to FBA. Under 300 with few SKUs: self-prep is viable.
2. Count channels. Amazon only: a prep center is the lowest per-unit rate at scale.
3. Amazon plus your own store, wholesale or TikTok Shop: one 3PL with one stock pool, so prep is an add-on and you avoid a second warehouse.
4. Whichever you choose, get the defect liability in writing. Amazon will not reimburse a badly prepped unit, so the provider should.
5. Check the peak calendar. FBA inbound cutoffs for BFCM are in our ops checklist, and prep time now sits in front of every one of them.

Amazon's prep service is gone and it is not coming back. The cost of replacing it ranges from your own evenings to under a dollar a unit. If you want our team to prep from the same shelves that ship your DTC orders, start on the fulfillment page or request a quote.