Why is my FBA profit lower than my spreadsheet said?
You did the math. The payout still came up short. It's almost always one of these three — and all of them are findable in an afternoon.
Find your gap: import one real shipment and see exactly which line is eating your payout.
Save it as a real shipment →The audit: five checks, one afternoon
Each check shows its typical margin impact from real shipments
If shared freight is divided equally (or by units) across different-sized products, your bulky SKUs are being subsidised by your compact ones.
A rate pasted in at budgeting time drifts for months. Every payment should convert at the rate on the day the money actually moved.
Inspection, pallets, port storage, returns reserve — each too small to bother with, together a steady 1–2 points of margin.
Amazon adjusts fulfilment and storage fees at least twice a year. A fee change on a high-velocity SKU can outweigh all three errors above.
Import your latest shipment as-is and compare the result against your spreadsheet line by line — the gap identifies itself.
Common questions
How long does the audit take?expand_more
One real shipment, about ten minutes of entry (or paste from Excel). The comparison against your spreadsheet is then side-by-side — most people find their gap the same afternoon.
Which error is most common?expand_more
The freight split, by far — because equal division is the spreadsheet default and it looks harmless until you have products of different sizes in one container.
Can I stop it happening again?expand_more
Set a margin floor per product — any new cost that pushes a SKU below it gets flagged the day it happens, not months later in a payout report.
Find out on the water, not at the warehouse.
A margin that dies at sea can still be saved — reprice, re-quote or redirect before the container lands. One that dies in your warehouse is just a loss with a receipt.