Account health is the check engine light of Amazon selling. Ignore it long enough and it stops being a light and becomes a tow truck. [Pats dashboard. Hears something rattle.]
Amazon account health is the set of performance and policy targets Amazon tracks to decide whether you can keep selling. In Amazon's policy document, the headline targets are an order defect rate under 1%, a cancellation rate under 2.5% and a late shipment rate under 4%, with the last two applying to seller-fulfilled orders. Check the Account Health page for exceptions daily and review the trends weekly.
All targets below come from Amazon's published account health document, last checked November 2026. That version uses some marketplace-specific wording, and Amazon can change targets or windows, so read the numbers on your own Account Health page before you act on them. Where a figure is a vendor suggestion rather than an Amazon policy, we say so.
- 01What Is Amazon Account Health?
- 02Which Account Health Metrics Matter, and What Are the Targets?
- 03What Else Is on the Account Health Page?
- 04How Should You Run a Weekly Account Health Routine?
- 05What Should You Do When a Metric Slips?
- 06How Do Account Health Problems Show Up in Your Sales?
- 07Who Should Watch Account Health?
- 08Why Account Health Is an Account Management Problem
- 09FAQ
What Is Amazon Account Health?
It is a page in Seller Central, under Performance, that shows how your account stacks up against Amazon's targets for customer experience and policy compliance. Amazon uses it to review sellers and notify them when they are off target. Per the document, the intent is to give you the chance to improve before the issue affects your ability to sell, though accounts with very poor performance are sometimes deactivated immediately.
The point for account management is that account health sits underneath everything else. A suspended listing does not convert, no matter how good the ads are. A deactivated account does not sell at all. That is why it is the first line of our daily checklist.
Which Account Health Metrics Matter, and What Are the Targets?
The table summarizes the metrics in Amazon's document. Windows and wording are as Amazon states them.
| Metric | Amazon's target | Window | Applies to | What Amazon says can happen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Order Defect Rate (ODR) | Under 1% | 60 days | All orders | Above 1% may result in account deactivation |
| Cancellation Rate | Under 2.5% | 7 days | Seller-fulfilled orders | Above 2.5% may result in deactivation |
| Late Shipment Rate | Under 4% | 10 or 30 days | Seller-fulfilled orders | Above 4% can result in deactivation |
| Valid Tracking Rate | Above 95% | 30 days | Seller-fulfilled orders | May restrict selling non-FBA items in that category |
| On-Time Delivery Rate | Above 97% (recommended) | Not stated | Seller-fulfilled orders | No penalty stated; affects the transit times you can set |
| Return Dissatisfaction Rate | Under 10% | Not stated | Returns | No penalty stated; unresolved returns raise the risk of negative feedback |
Three things to take from the table. First, ODR covers every order and is built from three kinds of defect: negative feedback, A-to-z Guarantee claims that are not denied, and credit card chargebacks. Second, four of the metrics apply only to seller-fulfilled orders, so a brand that sells entirely through FBA mostly watches ODR and policy compliance. Check which metrics your page actually shows. Third, you may see a score or rating on your page. Some vendor sites publish score thresholds that we could not find in Amazon's own document, so we do not treat them as policy.
What Else Is on the Account Health Page?
Beyond performance metrics, the page shows adherence to product policies. In practice that means notices about listings that may violate a policy. Left unresolved, those can pull a top ASIN out of search. You find them by looking, which is why the daily check exists.
How Should You Run a Weekly Account Health Routine?
Daily is for exceptions. Weekly is for trends. A simple routine, about 30 minutes.
1. Record each metric from the Account Health page in a simple sheet. A trend is invisible if you only look at today.
2. Compare each against its target and against your own internal alert line. Some vendors suggest internal targets around half of the limit, such as 0.5% ODR and 2% late shipment. That is a sensible buffer, not an Amazon rule.
3. Review every new negative feedback and A-to-z claim from the week. These are your ODR inputs.
4. Open every policy notice and decide the same day whether it needs a listing fix or an appeal.
5. Check inventory accuracy and stock levels on seller-fulfilled items, since stockouts feed cancellations. See our inventory management guide.
6. Write two lines in the account log: what moved, and what you did about it.
What Should You Do When a Metric Slips?
Find the cause before you fix the number. A rising ODR from negative feedback is a different problem from one driven by A-to-z claims, and the fix is different.
How Do Account Health Problems Show Up in Your Sales?
Usually before you see a notice. A suppressed listing stops converting overnight, and the ad spend pointed at that ASIN keeps running until someone notices. A rising defect rate often has a visible cause upstream: a listing that over-promises, an inventory count that does not match the shelf, or a carrier problem. That is why a sales dip is a reason to open the Account Health page, not only the ads console.
If sales are already down and you are not sure why, our guide to what to do when Amazon sales are down walks through the diagnosis in order, and the profit leaks playbook covers the margin side.
Who Should Watch Account Health?
A named person, daily. In-house, that is whoever owns the Seller Central login. With an outside team, make it an explicit line in what they report to you each week. Our guide to the FBA management service model covers how account health and compliance fit in, and the account management agency guide covers what to ask of a provider. If your team cannot tell you your current ODR without looking it up, that is the answer.
Why Account Health Is an Account Management Problem
Brands treat it as compliance paperwork, which is how they end up reading a deactivation notice. Every metric on the page traces back to something you control: listing accuracy drives A-to-z claims, inventory accuracy drives cancellations, and shipping discipline drives late shipments. Fix those and the numbers follow. [Check engine light: off. Tow truck: not required.]
That is the work inside Amazon account management, and it is why we put it on the first line of the checklist and not the last.
FAQ
Amazon account health is a page in Seller Central, under Performance, that shows how your seller account performs against Amazon's targets for customer experience and policy compliance. Amazon uses it to decide whether to take action on an account.
Amazon's policy document says sellers should maintain an order defect rate under 1%, measured over 60 days, and that an ODR above 1% may result in account deactivation. Some vendors suggest an internal target near 0.5% as a buffer. That figure is a vendor suggestion, not an Amazon rule.
Amazon's document says sellers should maintain a late shipment rate under 4%, measured over 10 or 30 days, and that it applies to seller-fulfilled orders only. Confirm the current figure on your own Account Health page, since targets can vary by marketplace and change over time.
Several do not. Per Amazon's document, cancellation rate, late shipment rate, valid tracking rate and on-time delivery rate apply to seller-fulfilled orders. The order defect rate and policy compliance matter for all sellers. Check which metrics your account page shows.
Look at the page daily for new notices and drifting metrics, which takes a few minutes. Do a weekly review of trends and write down what changed. Our account management checklist covers the full routine.
Amazon's document says you may be eligible for reinstatement and can appeal by providing a plan of action for correcting the problems that led to the enforcement action. The details depend on the notice you receive, so read it carefully and respond within the time allowed.