The number that sinks most new wholesale sellers is a fake one: the gap between your cost and the Amazon price, before fees. A product that looks like “buy at $10, sell at $15, easy $5 profit” can actually lose money once Amazon takes its cut. This guide shows how to read a wholesale deal correctly and calculate the profit that's really yours.
Every honest deal has these parts:
“Buy Box minus cost” is not profit. Subtract:
Per unit: Profit = Amazon price − referral fee − fulfillment − storage/prep − your unit cost. Divide profit by your cost to get ROI. A common trap: using the FBA fee model while planning to ship FBM (self-fulfilled), where your own shipping on a cheap, heavy item can wipe out the margin entirely.
Say a product costs you $10.25/unit and the Amazon Buy Box is $14.99/unit. That looks like $4.74. Now subtract ~15% referral (~$2.25) and an FBA fee (~$3.50) — you're at roughly −$1.01. It's a loss, not a deal. The same product at a $10.25 cost with a $24.99 Buy Box, though, clears real profit. The math — not the headline spread — decides.
Our deal sheets do this math for you honestly: prices are compared per unit, we require a real sales rank, we screen out one-off spike prices that haven't held across multiple days, and we never publish a “spread” from a mismatched listing. You can also run any product yourself through our free Amazon Profit Calculator.
Our live catalog shows real distributor pricing with the Amazon Buy Box on file — and every order ships with a paid wholesale invoice you can use for ungating. No random stats, just current prices.
View the Live Catalog →See real, per-unit, stability-checked spreads on the live wholesale catalog.