Should a new Amazon seller choose Individual or Professional?
Individual costs £0.75 per item sold, Professional £25 a month. The fee arithmetic settles at 34 items — but the plan also decides whether any seller tool can connect to your account at all.
The short answer
On fees alone, the Individual plan is cheaper until you sell 34 items a month. At £0.75 per item sold, 33 items cost £24.75 and 34 items cost £25.50 — past the £25 flat charge of the Professional plan. Amazon's own UK pricing page draws the line in the same place: Individual if you sell fewer than 35 items a month, Professional if you sell more.
The fee is the smaller half of the decision. Individual accounts cannot run adverts, cannot list in bulk, cannot apply for restricted categories and — the one new sellers find out last — cannot connect to any seller software through Amazon's API. Every repricer, profit tracker and inventory tool that syncs with Seller Central, Eve included, needs a Professional account on the other end.
What each plan costs
Both plans pay the same selling fees underneath — the referral fee on every sale (a percentage of the price, set by category) and, if you use Fulfilment by Amazon, the FBA fee per unit. The plan fee sits on top.
| Plan | Plan fee, excl. VAT | Including 20% VAT | Plus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Individual | £0.75 per item sold | £0.90 per item sold | Referral fee, FBA fee if used |
| Professional | £25 per month | £30 per month | Referral fee, FBA fee if used |
Amazon has charged UK VAT on its seller fees since August 2024. If you are VAT-registered you reclaim it and the excl. VAT column is your real cost. If you are not registered — which is most people in their first months — the VAT is a cost you keep, so read the second column. The ratio between the two plans does not change either way, so the break-even stays at 34 items. How the VAT on fees works.
The 34-item break-even, month by month
| Items sold in the month | Individual, excl. VAT | Professional, excl. VAT | Cheaper plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | £7.50 | £25.00 | Individual, by £17.50 |
| 20 | £15.00 | £25.00 | Individual, by £10.00 |
| 33 | £24.75 | £25.00 | Individual, by £0.25 |
| 34 | £25.50 | £25.00 | Professional, by £0.50 |
| 50 | £37.50 | £25.00 | Professional, by £12.50 |
| 100 | £75.00 | £25.00 | Professional, by £50.00 |
| 200 | £150.00 | £25.00 | Professional, by £125.00 |
Two things the table does not show. The £0.75 is charged per item, so an order of three units is three fees, not one. And the Professional fee is charged whether or not you sell anything — a month with zero sales still costs £25. If you are listing stock that has not arrived yet, or testing whether one product sells at all, Individual is the cheaper place to wait.
What Individual accounts cannot do
Amazon's UK plan comparison lists these as Professional-only. None of them is about volume — a seller shipping ten units a month can still need any of them:
- Bulk listing. Individual sellers create listings one at a time.
- Feeds, spreadsheets and reports for managing inventory.
- API integration — covered in the next section, because it is the one that decides which software you can use.
- Your own shipping rates on non-media products.
- Advertising — no Sponsored Products or other on-site ads.
- Promotions, including free-shipping offers.
- Multiple users on one account.
- Applying for restricted categories. If your products sit in a gated category, Individual is not an option at all.
Amazon's own pricing tool, Automate Pricing, is also part of the Professional plan. Individual sellers change prices by hand.
Why seller tools cannot connect to an Individual account
Software that works with your Amazon account — repricers, profit and fee trackers, inventory planners, shipment tools — reads your orders, listings and fees through Amazon's Selling Partner API (SP-API). You connect a tool by authorising it in Seller Central, and it only ever sees what that authorisation allows.
Amazon restricts that door to one plan. Its developer documentation states: "Only Professional Selling Accounts can register to develop or integrate with Selling Partner API". An Individual account has no authorisation to give, so there is nothing for the tool to connect to — whichever tool it is, and whatever that tool's own pricing says.
This is why Eve cannot connect an Individual account. Eve is built entirely on SP-API: it pulls your catalogue, stock and orders from Amazon and calculates profit from Amazon's own fee figures. That is also what keeps your account safe — Eve never asks for your Seller Central password, and the access you grant can be revoked from Seller Central at any time. The trade-off is that without a Professional account there is no access to grant.
What you can still use on Individual
Anything that does not need to read your account still works:
- A fee and profit calculator before you buy stock. The Eve FBA calculator needs no account and no login: enter a UK price, your cost and the size of the item, and it returns the referral fee, FBA fee, VAT and break-even. It assumes the Professional plan, so on Individual add £0.75 per unit to the fees (£0.90 if you are not VAT-registered).
- Seller Central's own pages — the business reports and the Payments pages are there on both plans.
- A spreadsheet. At under 34 items a month, a sheet with price, referral fee, FBA fee, the £0.75, your cost and VAT is honestly enough. The break-even worked through on one SKU shows every line it needs.
When to switch to Professional
Switch when any one of these becomes true — you do not need all of them:
- You are selling 34 or more items a month, or will be once your next shipment lands.
- You want to advertise, run promotions or use coupons.
- Your products are in a restricted category.
- You want to list in bulk — typical for anyone sourcing wholesale or retail arbitrage by the pallet.
- You want software to reprice, track profit, plan stock or build FBA shipments for you.
The plan is not a one-way door. Amazon lets you upgrade or downgrade from the account settings in Seller Central, so a seller who starts on Individual to test a product loses nothing by moving later — and one who upgrades and has a quiet month can move back.
Where Eve helps, and where it does not
On an Individual account, Eve can help only through the tools that do not touch your account: the FBA calculator and the answers on this site. Registering an Eve account will not get you further, because the connection step needs a Professional account on the Amazon side.
On a Professional account, Eve connects through SP-API in a few minutes. The Free plan covers catalogue sync and profit after Amazon's real fees, with no card and no end date; repricing, sourcing, FBA shipments and recoveries are on the paid plans. If you have just upgraded, that is the moment to connect — before your first busy month, not after it.
Common questions
Is the Amazon Individual plan free?
There is no monthly fee, but it is not free: Amazon charges £0.75 excluding VAT for every item sold, on top of the referral fee and any FBA fees. A month with no sales costs nothing on Individual, which is its real advantage.
How many sales a month make the Professional plan worth it?
34 items. At £0.75 per item, 33 items cost £24.75 and 34 cost £25.50, just over the £25 Professional fee. Amazon's UK page recommends Professional above 35 items a month. Advertising, bulk listing, restricted categories or seller software can make Professional worth it well below that.
Can I use repricers or profit tools on an Individual seller account?
Not the ones that connect to your account. Amazon only allows Professional selling accounts to integrate with the Selling Partner API, which is how these tools read your listings, orders and fees. Calculators that work from a price you type in, like the Eve FBA calculator, work on any plan.
Why can't I connect my Amazon account to Eve?
The most common reason is that the account is on the Individual plan. Eve connects through Amazon's Selling Partner API, and Amazon only lets Professional accounts authorise API apps. Upgrade the plan in Seller Central, then connect again.
Can I switch from Individual to Professional later?
Yes. Amazon lets you upgrade or downgrade your selling plan from the account settings in Seller Central at any time, and your listings stay in place.
Sources and scope
Checked 26 September 2026. Plan fees, the 35-item guidance and the Professional-only feature list come from Amazon's UK page Selling on Amazon: fees and pricing; Automate Pricing as a Professional feature is from Amazon's US plan comparison. The Selling Partner API restriction is quoted from Amazon's developer guide Getting started with SP-API. Amazon changes fees and plan features; check the pricing page before you rely on a figure here. VAT treatment described is for a UK-established seller. Nothing here is tax advice.