Doozly
Amazon Associates pays between 0 % and 10 % depending on what the customer buys, and the category that pays best is not one most people write about. Below is Amazon’s own table, reproduced from the Standard Commission Income Statement — and then the part that actually decides what you earn, which is not the percentage.
The current rates, by category
From the Associates Program Standard Commission Income Statement for amazon.com, Table 1:
| Category | Rate |
|---|---|
| Luxury Beauty, Luxury Stores Beauty, Amazon Explore | 10.00 % |
| Digital Music, Physical Music, Handmade, Digital Videos | 5.00 % |
| Physical Books, Kitchen, Automotive | 4.50 % |
| Amazon devices, Apparel, Luxury Stores Fashion, Watches, Jewelry, Luggage, Shoes, Handbags & Accessories | 4.00 % |
| All other categories | 4.00 % |
| Toys, Furniture, Home, Home Improvement, Lawn & Garden, Pets, Headphones, Beauty, Musical Instruments, Business & Industrial Supplies, Outdoors, Tools, Sports, Baby, Amazon Coins | 3.00 % |
| PC, PC Components, DVD & Blu-Ray | 2.50 % |
| Televisions, Digital Video Games | 2.00 % |
| Amazon Fresh, Grocery, Health & Personal Care, Physical Video Games & Consoles | 1.00 % |
| Gift cards, wireless service plans, alcohol, Kindle subscriptions, vehicles, pet prescriptions, restaurant delivery, Amazon Appstore, Coach | 0.00 % |
Two things about this table. Amazon publishes no effective date on it, so treat any rate table you read anywhere — including this one — as “correct when checked” rather than permanent. This copy was last checked against the page linked above on September 25, 2026.
And it is the table for amazon.com. Every national programme publishes its own, and they do not match.
Why “all other categories” is the number to remember
Look at where the 4 % line falls. Anything Amazon has not put in a named band earns 4 % — and five of the nine named bands earn less than that.
Being named is usually bad news. Furniture, tools, sports equipment, headphones, baby products: all things people write buying guides about, all sitting at 3 %. Televisions at 2 %. Groceries at 1 %. Meanwhile a product in a category nobody bothered to list quietly earns a third more than the furniture your whole site is about.
This is worth knowing before you pick a niche, and it is almost never mentioned, because the interesting-sounding answer is the 10 % at the top of the table.
The categories that actually pay
If you are searching for things with a high Amazon commission, the honest list is short:
- Luxury Beauty and Luxury Stores Beauty, 10 %. The only double-digit band. It is also curated — you are competing with editorial sites and Amazon’s own placement, and the audience is not the one that reads gear reviews.
- Handmade, music and digital video, 5 %. Handmade is the interesting one: real products, low competition, and an audience that arrives with intent. Order values are modest.
- Books, Kitchen and Automotive, 4.5 %. Kitchen is the outlier here — high search volume, high order values on appliances, and a rate above the default. If somebody asked me where to start on rate alone, it would be this row.
And the anti-list: gift cards, alcohol, restaurant delivery, wireless plans, vehicles and pet prescriptions pay nothing at all. Not a low rate — zero. People link them without checking, and a gift-card recommendation is a perfectly good way to send Amazon a customer for free.
One more clause worth knowing: commission on fine art is capped at $200 per product, however expensive the piece.
The arithmetic nobody does
Here is why the rate is the least interesting number on this page. Commission is rate × order value, and order value moves far more than rate does.
| What they buy | Rate | You earn |
|---|---|---|
| A $25 lipstick, Luxury Beauty | 10 % | $2.50 |
| A $400 stand mixer, Kitchen | 4.5 % | $18.00 |
| A $900 sofa, Furniture | 3 % | $27.00 |
| A $1,200 television | 2 % | $24.00 |
| A $60 grocery shop | 1 % | $0.60 |
The sofa at the third-lowest rate on the table earns ten times the lipstick at the highest. Chasing the percentage is chasing the smaller variable.
Then run it the other way, which is the calculation that changes plans. At 3 % on a $60 average order — a realistic figure for a home or outdoors site — each sale earns $1.80. Making $1,000 a month means roughly 550 completed purchases, every month. That is the number worth writing on a wall, and it is why the categories with high order values matter more than the ones with high rates.
It is also worth remembering these rates are what remains after the April 2020 cuts, when furniture went from 8 % to 3 % and groceries from 5 % to 1 %. The famous case studies were built before that.
Not everything pays a percentage
The rate table is only half the programme, and the half most articles stop at. Amazon also pays flat bounties for sign-ups to its own services, and those amounts have nothing to do with basket size. From the same fee statement:
| Bounty event | Pays |
|---|---|
| Audible Standard Free Trial | $20.00 |
| Audible Standard Monthly Membership | $20.00 |
| Audible Premium Plus Annual Membership | $25.00 |
| Prime for Young Adults, trial or paid | $30.00 |
| Amazon Business account | $15.00 |
| Audible Premium Plus Monthly Membership | $10.00 |
| Prime Video First Stream | $5.00 |
| Audible Premium Plus Free Trial | $5.00 |
| Amazon Haul, first purchase | $4.00 |
| Prime Free Trial or Paid Membership | $3.00 |
| Kindle Unlimited Free Trial | $3.00 |
| Baby Registry, Wedding Registry, Amazon Kids+ | $3.00 |
| Prime Video Free Trial | $2.00 |
Put those next to the percentages and the comparison is uncomfortable. A single Audible free trial pays $20. To earn the same from a 3 % category — furniture, tools, sports, pets — somebody has to spend about $667.
Before you rebuild your site around Audible. A bounty pays once per customer rather than per action — the same person signing up again earns nothing, and a trial cancelled inside the qualifying window does not count. Bounties also fit a narrower kind of content: recommending a book is a natural place for an audiobook trial, a router review is not.
The honest reading is that bounties are worth knowing where they fit rather than a strategy to chase. But an article that quotes rates and never mentions a $20 line is giving you half the picture. Checked September 25, 2026.
What you are paid is less than what you earned
There is a gap between the number in your reports and the number in your bank, and it catches everybody once.
- Commission confirms on shipment, not on the order. An item ordered today and shipped next week is reported now and confirmed later. Anything cancelled in between simply disappears.
- Returns are reversed. The commission on a returned item is deducted from a later payment, which is why a strong month can be followed by a thin one for no visible reason.
- Each item is paid at its own category rate. A reader who arrives through your 3 % furniture link and fills the basket with groceries earns you the 1 % grocery rate on those — not 3 %.
None of this is hidden and none of it is unusual for affiliate programmes. It just means the sensible planning figure is your paid commission over a few months, not the running total on the dashboard.
The rate is not the same in every country
Every Amazon marketplace runs its own programme with its own fee schedule. The table above is amazon.com. Amazon.de, amazon.co.uk and the rest publish separate ones, and the bands differ — both in percentage and in how categories are cut.
And not every programme publishes its table at all. The amazon.com fee statement is open to anyone; India’s rate card sits behind the Associates login, which is why the figures quoted for it around the web contradict each other. If a page gives you Indian rates without saying where they came from, it copied them from another page that did the same. Why the Indian rates are not public, and how to read your own.
For most publishers this is academic, because their tag only works in one country anyway. That is the more expensive problem: a reader outside your marketplace earns you no rate at all, not a different one. If your traffic is international, the rate table is the second thing to fix. The piece on your store ID covers where per-country tags come from, and the OneLink comparison covers the two ways of routing readers to the right store. If you do not know how much of your traffic that is, the audience check works it out from your own country report.
Common questions
What is the Amazon affiliate commission rate?
It depends on the product category and runs from 0 % to 10 % on amazon.com. Categories Amazon has not named specifically earn 4 %. The most common bands are 3 % for home, toys, tools and sports, 4.5 % for books, kitchen and automotive, and 1 % for grocery and health.
Which Amazon category has the highest commission?
Luxury Beauty, Luxury Stores Beauty and Amazon Explore, at 10 %. In practice Kitchen at 4.5 % often earns more per sale, because order values there are several times higher.
Do I earn commission on gift cards?
No. Gift cards pay 0 %, along with alcohol, wireless service plans, vehicles, pet prescription medication, restaurant delivery and Kindle subscriptions.
How much does an Amazon affiliate make per sale?
Rate times order value. At the common 3 % band, a $60 order pays $1.80 and a $900 order pays $27. There is no average worth quoting, because the spread across categories and order values is larger than the spread across rates.
Are the commission rates the same in every country?
No. Each Amazon marketplace publishes its own fee schedule and the bands differ. The table on this page is amazon.com; check the Associates Central of the country in question for its own.
Do I earn on the whole order or only the product I linked?
On qualifying purchases made during the session, not only the linked product — but each item is paid at its own category rate. A visitor who arrives through your 3 % furniture link and buys groceries earns you the 1 % grocery rate on those.
Does Amazon pay a fixed amount for anything?
Yes. Alongside the percentage rates, Amazon pays flat bounties for sign-ups to its own services — $20 for an Audible Standard free trial, $30 for Prime for Young Adults, $15 for an Amazon Business account, $3 for a Prime trial. They pay once per customer and suit only certain kinds of content, but a single Audible trial is worth roughly a $667 basket at the common 3 % rate.
Why is my paid commission lower than my reported commission?
Commission confirms on shipment rather than on the order, so cancellations vanish before they are paid, and returns are deducted from a later payment. Each item is also paid at its own category rate, so a mixed basket earns a mixture.
When did Amazon last change the rates?
The big reduction was 21 April 2020, when most categories fell and some more than halved. Amazon publishes no effective date on its current table and can revise it at any time, so re-check the source before relying on a figure.
The summary worth keeping: 4 % is the default, most named categories earn less than the default, and the percentage matters less than what the basket costs. Pick the niche for its order values and its readers — the rate will be what it is, and Amazon can change it on a Tuesday.
