At a glance
Amazon’s headline judgement of your seller account:Good,At Risk, orSuspended. The composite of Order Defect Rate, Cancellation Rate, Late Shipment Rate, Valid Tracking Rate, and policy violations. The single status that determines whether your account stays open and Buy Box-eligible.
| What it counts | The categorical Account Health Rating returned by SP-API getAccountHealth (or scraped from the Account Health Dashboard for accounts where the API isn’t enabled). One of Good, Fair, At Risk, Critical, Suspended. |
| API endpoint + report | SP-API Notifications API subscription to ACCOUNT_STATUS_CHANGED, plus the Account Health Reports API endpoint. Account Health Dashboard scrape used as a fallback for marketplaces where the API is not yet GA. |
| ASIN vs account scope | Account-level only. Account Health is computed by Amazon across all ASINs and all marketplaces tied to the seller account; there is no per-ASIN view. |
| Buy Box impact | Direct and severe. An At Risk rating reduces Buy Box win rate immediately on most ASINs. Critical or Suspended removes Buy Box eligibility entirely until the rating recovers. |
| FBA vs FBM | Both contribute. Late Shipment Rate is FBM-specific (FBA orders ship from Amazon warehouses, so the seller can’t be late). Order Defect Rate, Cancellation Rate, and Valid Tracking Rate apply to both. |
| Fees / commission | Not applicable. |
| Refunds | Refunds inflate Order Defect Rate (one of the four ODR inputs is “negative customer experience” which includes A-to-Z claims, chargebacks, and certain refund types). Watch ODR and Return Rate together. |
| Cancellations | Pre-fulfilment seller cancellations directly inflate Cancellation Rate, one of the inputs to this status. |
| Currency | Not applicable. |
| Marketplace dynamics | Account Health is per-marketplace-region, not global. Amazon Europe (UK + DE + FR + IT + ES + NL + SE + PL + TR) shares one rating; Amazon US is separate; Amazon Japan is separate. A US-only At Risk does not affect EU Buy Box, but it does affect cash flow if both regions feed the same brand. |
| Return-window vs refund-window | Returns inside Amazon’s return window count toward ODR; out-of-window goodwill refunds typically don’t but Amazon’s algorithm is opaque. |
| Time window | RT (real-time, the rating reflects Amazon’s most recent computation, refreshed roughly hourly). |
| Alert trigger | AtRisk or Suspended, driven by sentiment_key: defect_rate. |
| Roles | owner, operations. |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Amazon (Selling Partner) data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A US FBA seller running 320 ASINs in apparel and accessories on amazon.com only. Settlement currency USD. Card snapshot at 16:40 PT on 18 Apr 26 transitioned fromGood to At Risk.
Drilling into the Account Health Dashboard at the moment of the flip:
| Metric | Threshold (Good) | Current value | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Order Defect Rate (60D) | <1% | 1.34% | At Risk |
| Cancellation Rate (7D, FBM only) | <2.5% | 0.4% | Good |
| Late Shipment Rate (10D, FBM only) | <4% | 1.1% | Good |
| Valid Tracking Rate (30D, FBM only) | >95% | 98.2% | Good |
| Policy Violations (rolling) | 0 | 0 | Good |
| Customer Service Dissatisfaction Rate (30D) | <25% | 18% | Good |
| Overall | At Risk (ODR breach) |
- Buy Box loss = sales loss, instantly, and
At Risktriggers it across most ASINs. Within 4 hours of the flip toAt Risk, the seller’s Buy Box win rate dropped on roughly 60% of their ASINs. Total Revenue for the next day was 31% lower than the prior Tuesday baseline. The Account Health flip caused more lost revenue in 24 hours than the underlying ODR issue had in the prior 60 days. - Commission erodes 12 to 15% of headline, but Account Health flips erase ~30 to 60% of revenue overnight. This is in a different league of impact. ODR breaches are existential; fee questions are tactical. Always treat an
At Riskrating as the highest-priority operational issue regardless of its arithmetic dollar impact. - The 60-day ODR window means recovery is slow. Even if the seller fixed the root cause (a defective batch from a supplier) on 18 Apr 26, the elevated defect rate stays in the rolling 60-day window for 60 days. The earliest the rating can return to
Goodis roughly mid-Jun 26. Pair with ODR to watch the daily moving average decay. - Amazon-first buyers don’t migrate to your DTC site. During the 60-day recovery window, the seller’s instinct was to push DTC ads to recover the lost Amazon revenue. Click-through was decent (1.8%) but conversion was 0.3% (vs Amazon’s 14% on the same SKUs). The customer cohorts are different; you can’t substitute one for the other on short notice.
- Out-of-stock punishes you for weeks, even after Account Health recovers. The same seller had two top ASINs go OOS during the 60-day rebuild because they over-corrected on QC and rejected supplier deliveries. By the time Account Health returned to
Goodin Jun 26, those two ASINs had lost their organic search rank and took another 4 to 6 weeks to fully recover Buy Box win rate. Account Health and inventory have to be managed in parallel; sequential rebuild does not work.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Account Health is the single most-watched Amazon KPI for hybrid and Amazon-first sellers. Pair it with these to diagnose and recover:| Card | Why pair it with Account Health |
|---|---|
| ODR (Order Defect Rate) | The single largest input to Account Health. A breach here is the most common path from Good to At Risk. |
| Cancellation Rate | Pre-fulfilment cancellations (FBM only) are a direct contributor. |
| Late Shipment Rate | FBM-only metric, but a rapid degradation here can flip the rating fast. |
| A-to-Z Claims Open | A-to-Z claims feed into ODR. Close them before they age. |
| Negative Feedback | Public negative feedback is a leading indicator of ODR pressure. |
| Account Health Creep alert | Burst alert for any rating downgrade or threshold creep. |
| Buy Box Trend | Account Health flips manifest as Buy Box drops within hours. The two cards together are the operational dashboard during a recovery. |
| Total Revenue | The downstream consequence. An At Risk rating typically takes 30 to 60% off Total Revenue until recovery. |
| Shopify Total Revenue | DTC counterpart. Useful for hybrid brands to see whether DTC can absorb a temporary Amazon revenue loss (usually no, see worked example). |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in Amazon Seller Central:- Performance → Account Health is the canonical view, with the headline rating, every input metric, and the threshold for each.
- Performance → Customer Service Performance shows the customer-service contributors (response time, late response rate).
- Performance → Notifications lists the policy violations and warnings that contribute to the rating.
| Reason | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Time zone | Boundary hours | Amazon computes Account Health on Pacific Time. The rolling 60-day ODR window therefore boundary-shifts at 00:00 PST, which is 08:00 BST. Our card mirrors what the API returns, so we agree with Seller Central; manual rebuilds in spreadsheet land often differ. |
| Settlement-period lag | Not applicable | Account Health is unrelated to settlement. |
| API rate limits | Ours can lag by up to 1 hour | The getAccountHealth SP-API endpoint is throttled; we poll every 30 to 60 minutes. A rating change in Seller Central typically reaches our card within an hour, sometimes faster via the Notifications API push. |
| Reports API generation latency | Not applicable | This card does not use the Reports API. |
| Per-region rating | Ours splits by region | Amazon Europe (UK + DE + FR + IT + ES + NL + SE + PL + TR) shares one rating; Amazon US is separate. The card displays each region separately when both connectors are connected; Seller Central also shows them separately but you have to switch the marketplace dropdown. |
| Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence |
|---|---|---|
shopify.total_revenue | Downstream impact | When Amazon Account Health flips to At Risk, hybrid brands sometimes try to push DTC volume to compensate; Shopify Total Revenue may rise temporarily, but rarely fully replaces the lost Amazon revenue (different cohorts). |
bigcommerce.total_revenue | As above. | Same dynamic. |
amazon_ads.aads_acos | Inverse: ACOS spikes during At Risk periods | Buy Box loss inflates ACOS because clicks don’t convert to your seller. Pair with Ad Spend on OOS ASINs. |
shipbob.fulfilment_rate | Direct upstream for FBM accounts | Slow ShipBob fulfilment inflates Late Shipment Rate, one of the four Account Health inputs. Watch the two together for FBM-heavy accounts. |
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
My rating just flipped toAt Risk. What do I do in the next hour?
Triage in this order: (1) Open Performance → Account Health to identify which input metric breached its threshold. (2) For ODR breaches, pull the underlying complaints (negative feedback, A-to-Z claims, chargebacks) and respond to anything resolvable today. (3) For Cancellation Rate breaches (FBM only), pause any SKU you cannot reliably fulfil within the promised window. (4) For Late Shipment Rate breaches, escalate with your fulfilment partner; this is the fastest input metric to recover. (5) Submit a Plan of Action through Seller Central if Amazon has flagged anything beyond the threshold breach. Don’t wait for Amazon to suspend you, the moment is now.
How does this differ from Net Revenue or Total Revenue dropping?
Account Health is a leading indicator of revenue collapse, not a measurement of revenue itself. A Good rating means Buy Box is unrestricted; At Risk means Buy Box is throttled (you’ll see Total Revenue drop within 24 hours); Critical or Suspended means listings deactivate (revenue can drop to near-zero overnight). The two cards together tell the full story: this card flags the cause, Total Revenue shows the consequence.
FBA fees keep going up, does that affect Account Health?
Not directly. Fees are commercial; Account Health is performance. But high fees can indirectly contribute if they push you to switch a top SKU from FBA to FBM to save margin, then your FBM Late Shipment Rate or Valid Tracking Rate degrades because you’re not set up for self-fulfilment volume. The pattern: brands with At Risk ratings often went there 60 to 90 days after a strategic FBA-to-FBM switch they weren’t operationally ready for.
ACOS, will my Amazon Ads team see the impact?
Yes, immediately. Account Health flips degrade Buy Box, which inflates ACOS (clicks no longer convert to you). Your Amazon Ads team will see ACOS rise 20 to 80% within hours of the flip. Tell them the cause; they’ll otherwise spend a week chasing keyword bids and creative when the issue is performance-side. Cross-check on Amazon Ads ACOS.
Multi-marketplace, do EU and US share a rating?
No. Amazon US (amazon.com) is a separate seller account from Amazon Europe (UK + DE + FR + IT + ES + NL + SE + PL + TR), each with its own rating. Amazon Japan, Canada, Australia, India, Mexico, Brazil are all separate again. A US At Risk does not affect EU Buy Box. The card displays each region separately when both connectors are connected. The exception: a global compliance violation (counterfeit, IP infringement, restricted product) can lead Amazon to take action across regions concurrently, in practice this is rare and triggered by Brand Registry / Legal teams not the Account Health algorithm.
When will the money actually arrive after Account Health recovers? Settlement timing matters.
The disbursement cycle does NOT pause when Account Health degrades; pending settlements continue to clear on the standard 14-day cycle. What changes is future revenue: the ASINs lose Buy Box, fewer orders happen, fewer settlements queue up. Once you recover the rating, the orders flow through normally and disburse 14 days later. So the cash impact lags the revenue impact by 14 days both on the way down and on the way back up. See Pending Settlement.
Return-window confusion, do returns issued outside Amazon’s standard window count toward ODR?
Sometimes. Amazon’s standard return window is 30 days from delivery (longer for some categories during Q4 holiday season). Returns inside the window are baked into the buyer experience and don’t always count toward ODR. Returns outside the window that you accept as goodwill typically don’t count, but if the customer escalates to A-to-Z or files a chargeback, those DO count. The safe rule: minimise A-to-Z claims and chargebacks at all costs; ordinary refunds are operationally costly but not as damaging to Account Health.
Why isn’t the Shopify-Amazon channel app affecting this?
Because the Shopify channel app is a publishing tool, it has no signal on Account Health. The SP-API is the source of truth. Even if you use the channel app to manage listings, this card pulls the rating directly from Amazon’s API, not from anything Shopify-side. Disable the channel app or filter tags = "amazon" in Shopify if you want clean separation; it has no bearing on Account Health.
Why does today’s rating sometimes flicker between Good and Fair?
Two reasons. (1) Amazon’s algorithm computes the rating roughly hourly; a single A-to-Z claim being filed and then resolved within the same hour can cause a brief flicker. (2) The SP-API can briefly return stale state during outages or rate-limit backoffs. If you see flicker, wait 4 hours and re-check, the steady-state rating is what matters. A persistent flicker between Good and At Risk typically means you’re sitting right at one of the threshold edges (e.g. ODR at 0.98% with the threshold at 1%), in which case any single negative customer experience can flip you. Treat that as At Risk operationally.