A realistic income goal for year one on Amazon is one you build from your own product numbers, not one you borrow from a survey. Most founders we speak to end their first year with real revenue, a modest profit on paper, and far less cash in hand than they expected, because stock and advertising absorb most of what comes in. The useful target is three numbers rather than one, and you can work out all three this afternoon.
Income on Amazon means three different things, and mixing them up is where most year-one plans go wrong. Revenue is what customers pay at checkout, including any VAT. Profit is what remains after Amazon’s fees, your product cost, taxes, and your advertising. Cash is what you can actually withdraw once you have paid for the next batch of stock. A sensible goal names all three.
Why the average Amazon seller income figures do not fit your year one
The figure you will see quoted most often is a US-dollar survey average covering sellers of every age and size, not a UK business in its first twelve months. It is a fair snapshot of the wider seller population. It tells you very little about what your brand should expect from its first year on Amazon.co.uk.
The number in question comes from tool vendor Jungle Scout, whose seller survey headline puts average annual profit at close to $30,000. Read the method and the picture changes. The survey ran from December 2023 to January 2024, drew on respondents in more than 100 countries and 20 marketplaces, and the average covers small and mid-sized sellers at any stage, with a reported average monthly sales figure of $11,671 and an average margin of 21%.
The same survey found 31% of sellers made under $500 a month in sales when they first started out. That spread, from a few hundred dollars to six figures, is the honest finding. An average drawn across it is a number nobody actually earns, and it says nothing about UK VAT, UK fees, or the category you sell in.
The three numbers in a realistic income goal for year one on Amazon
A realistic year-one goal names your expected revenue, your profit per unit after every Amazon cost and your advertising, and the cash you plan to withdraw after restocking. Set all three and you can judge the year properly. Set only revenue and a busy first year can look like success while losing money.
Start with revenue, and remember that the sales figure in Seller Central (Amazon’s dashboard for third-party sellers) includes VAT. If your company is already VAT-registered, as most established brands are, one sixth of every VAT-inclusive sale belongs to HMRC. If you are not registered, GOV.UK sets the registration threshold at £90,000 of taxable turnover over the last 12 months as of October 2026, and that figure counts your whole business, not just Amazon.
Profit per unit is where Amazon’s fees land. Amazon’s UK pricing page shows, as of October 2026, a Professional selling plan of £25 a month excluding VAT, and referral fees (Amazon’s commission on each sale) of between 8% and 15% in most categories. On top of that sits the FBA fee, which is what Amazon charges to store, pick, pack, and ship each order through Fulfilment by Amazon.
Cash is the number founders tend to forget. Every pound of profit in year one competes with the next stock order, and stock has to be paid for weeks before it sells. A year can be profitable and still return almost nothing to the business owner, which is fine as long as that was the plan.
How to set your target in four steps
Work out what one unit earns after every cost, estimate how many units you will sell in each month you are actually live, take off your advertising and fixed fees, then decide how much stock you need to hold at year end. What remains is your realistic cash income for year one.
Step 1: profit per unit. Take your selling price, remove VAT if you are registered, then deduct the referral fee for your category, the FBA fee for your size tier, and your landed cost (the product plus shipping it to Amazon). Our breakdown of Amazon seller fees in the UK walks through each one.
Step 2: units by month, not by year. Count only the months you are live and stocked. Setup, stock production, and listing approval can take a quarter of the year, and new listings sell slowly until reviews and sales history build.
Step 3: advertising and fixed fees. New listings rarely sell without paid ads early on. Estimate your ad spend per unit sold, and our guide on how to set an Amazon advertising budget from your margin gives you the sum to run.
Step 4: stock held at year end. Decide how many units you need on hand to keep selling into year two, and subtract what that stock costs.
Here is the method applied to a hypothetical VAT-registered brand selling a kitchen product at £24.99. The price, product cost, ad cost, and monthly units are assumptions for illustration, not benchmarks. The fees are Amazon’s published UK rates as of October 2026: a 15% referral fee in the Kitchen category, and a £3.00 standard FBA fee for a small parcel up to 400 g, from Amazon’s UK FBA rate card effective 1 July 2026.
| Line | Per unit | Year one |
| Selling price including VAT | £24.99 | 2,850 units, £71,222 |
| VAT (one sixth) | £4.16 | |
| Referral fee (15%) | £3.75 | |
| FBA fee (small parcel, up to 400 g) | £3.00 | |
| Landed product cost (assumed) | £6.00 | |
| Profit before advertising | £8.08 | |
| Advertising (assumed) | £4.00 | £11,400 |
| Profit after advertising | £4.08 | £11,618 |
| Professional plan, 12 months | £300 | |
| Stock held at year end (1,000 units) | £6,000 | |
| Cash available to withdraw | about £5,318 |
The units assume nothing sold in months 1 to 3, then 150 a month in months 4 to 6, 300 in months 7 to 9, and 500 in months 10 to 12. Swap in your own assumptions and the shape usually holds: revenue that sounds healthy, a profit line in the low five figures, and withdrawable cash a fraction of either.
Two details move this sum more than founders expect. Amazon’s rate card adds a festive peak fee between 15 October 2026 and 14 January 2027, taking that same small parcel to £3.11. A brand below the VAT threshold keeps the £4.16, which lifts profit before advertising to £12.24 a unit.
What moves the number most in year one
Four things decide where your year-one income lands: whether you stay in stock, how quickly your listing converts, how efficiently your advertising runs, and whether your price point qualifies for cheaper fulfilment. Each one shows up in the four-step sum, so you can test them before you commit.
Running out of stock is the most expensive mistake in year one. A listing that goes out of stock loses the sales history and ranking it has been building, and the ad spend that bought that momentum is gone with it. Plan the reorder date before launch, not when the warehouse runs low.
Conversion (the share of visitors who buy) decides how far each pound of advertising goes. A listing with a full image set, clear copy, and a handful of early reviews turns the same traffic into more orders, which lowers your ad cost per unit in Step 3.
Price point matters more than most founders realise. Amazon’s Low-Price FBA rates apply automatically to eligible products priced at £20 (£10 in some categories) or less including VAT, up to 35 x 25 x 12 cm and 400 g, according to the UK FBA rate card linked from the same pricing page, as of October 2026. A product sitting just above £20 pays the standard fee, so the right price can be worth more than a few extra sales.
For when that money arrives rather than how much, our post on how long it takes to make money on Amazon FBA sets out a realistic timeline.
What to do first
Run the four steps on your own best-selling product before you set any figure. Write down your price, category referral fee, size tier, landed cost, and a cautious monthly unit estimate. The result is a year-one goal you can defend to a board, a bank, or yourself.
If you would rather build the model with someone who has done it many times, our one-to-one Expert Coaching puts you with a senior Amazon consultant who researches your brand before the call, so the session goes straight to your numbers. For a steadier stream of practical Amazon advice, you can also follow Steve Herrington on LinkedIn, where he shares what we see across the accounts we manage.