Vendor Central vs Seller Central: Who Sets the Price and Which P&L Lines Change

Vendor Central and Seller Central are not two logins for the same business. Vendor Central is wholesale. You sell to Amazon. Amazon is the seller of record, sets the retail price, and owns the customer relationship on those units. Seller Central is retail. You, or your partner, sell to the customer. You set the offer price. You hold the inventory until it sells, unless you pay Amazon to fulfill it.

Amazon states the distinction on its Seller Central page: Seller Central is open to third-party sellers, and Vendor Central is by invitation. An Individual selling plan is $0.99 per item sold. A Professional selling plan is $39.99 a month. Either plan still pays a category referral fee and, if you use it, Fulfillment by Amazon. Those figures are Amazon’s, from sell.amazon.com/tools/seller-central and the pricing page. They are not a margin.

AEG’s work is the US brand, not a preference for one login. Established manufacturers often arrive with a vendor account already in place. Emerging brands often start as sellers. The useful question is who should set the US price, and whose P&L the inventory sits on. A 1P to 3P comparison that keeps 1P’s lines and only changes the login is not a P&L.

What does each model put on the P&L?

On 1P, your revenue is the purchase order. The lines you control are cost, terms, shortages, and chargebacks. Amazon’s retail price, Amazon’s ads on that retail, and Amazon’s margin are not your lines. A “Net PPM” target in a vendor negotiation is Amazon’s profitability on the buy. It is not your gross margin. Do not copy it into a board deck as if it were.

On 3P, your revenue is the shopper’s payment. Then subtract, in this order, for the units you actually sold:

1. The referral fee for the category. Amazon publishes the schedule. It is not one number.
2. Fulfillment, if you use FBA, or pick, pack, and postage if you do not.
3. Returns and refunds. Not a category average. Your rate.
4. Advertising. On 3P you pay for the click and you also pay the fees on the order.
5. Duty, freight, and the cost of the goods.
6. The $39.99 Professional plan, if that is the plan you are on. It is noise on a real catalog and material on a trickle of orders.
7. Storage, aged-inventory charges, and inbound placement when those apply. The placement choice is in the inbound and AWD essay.

What is left is contribution. That is the number a 3P brand can manage. A 1P brand does not have this number. It has a wholesale margin and a set of deductions. The 1P to 3P profit and loss is this rewrite of the lines, not a single margin you can copy. Comparing “Amazon margin” across the two models without rewriting the lines is how teams convince themselves of a fantasy spread. The operating side of the same move is the transition essay.

Amazon’s 2026 fee letter says US referral and FBA fees were unchanged in 2025, that 2026 FBA fees rise by an average of about $0.08 per unit, that no new FBA fee types were introduced, and that sellers have at least 90 days’ notice before increases. Use the Revenue Calculator on the ASINs you sell. The average is not your unit.

Who sets the price?

On Vendor Central, Amazon sets the retail price on the units it bought. You can discuss cost. You do not hold the featured offer the way a seller does, because you are not the seller. When purchase orders stop, you cannot refill the page by wanting to. That situation has its own list: what to do when purchase orders stop.

On Seller Central, you set the offer price, including shipping if you fulfill the order yourself. Amazon then decides whether that offer is featured. The Offer Display can show more than one featured offer. Price, delivery speed, in-stock status, and order experience are the inputs Amazon describes. The mechanics are in the Featured Offer essay. A price floor you abandon in week six teaches every reseller the real price.

This is the actual trade. 1P trades price control for a wholesale purchase order and for Amazon carrying the inventory it ordered. 3P trades the purchase order for the right to set the offer, and takes on the fees, the ads, and the stock risk. Neither trade is free.

Why is an advertising dollar not the same dollar?

A vendor-funded campaign buys demand for a retail price the brand does not set. A seller campaign buys demand for a price the brand set, and the contribution has to survive the click. An ACoS target copied from a vendor review will overspend on a seller account if the contribution is thinner, and it will look “fine” on a vendor account while the brand earns nothing but a cost. How to read the ratio is the ACoS essay. How not to let ads decide the brand is the advertising essay. The search and repeat reports behind those numbers are Amazon Brand Analytics. Path questions a ratio cannot answer are Amazon Marketing Cloud.

What has to be true before a 1P to 3P switch?

Moving is an operating change. The decision list, including the overlap of vendor stock and seller stock, is the transition essay. Four gates belong in this comparison because they change the P&L, not just the project plan.

The trademark owner enrolls the brand. If a distributor owns the vendor relationship and the listing, “switching to 3P” can mean opening a second offer on someone else’s page. File in the name of the company that should own the US brand. Sequence: US trademark, then Brand Registry.

The catalog fits a retail price. Products that only worked because Amazon carried them at a thin wholesale cost may not survive referral fees and FBA. Park them. Do not import the whole vendor file.

Operations can take a customer. Seller-fulfilled orders put late shipment and cancellation on your Account Health. FBA moves the ship. It does not move product compliance. If the category is gated, approval is a predecessor, not a footnote. See gated categories and product compliance.

Cash can fund the inventory Amazon used to buy. On 1P, Amazon’s purchase order is your revenue event. On 3P, you own the units until a shopper buys them. A factory that thinks of production as already paid for will overship. The forecast has to be the brand’s, not the plant’s. The method is in the forecasting essay.

How do you choose?

Write two sentences.

“We want Amazon to buy the product, set the US retail price, and carry the inventory it orders.” That is Vendor Central, for as long as the orders continue, and it is a rational choice.

“We want to set the US price, keep the customer relationship, and accept the fees and the stock.” That is Seller Central. The P&L above is the test. If contribution after fees and ads is not a number you can say out loud, you do not have a 3P model yet. You have a spreadsheet with a blank.

Running both is allowed. It is a catalog decision, ASIN by ASIN, with one price logic. It is not a hedge you invent the week the purchase orders stop.

US Market-Entry Strategy is where this choice sits for a brand or factory that does not yet have a US P&L. The call for expanding into the US is the shorter start. Ecommerce and distribution is the build that follows.

Questions

Is 3P always a better margin than 1P?

No. 1P margin is wholesale margin minus deductions. 3P margin is retail contribution minus fees, returns, ads, and stock. A brand can clear more cash per unit on a purchase order than on a seller offer, or the reverse. You only know after you write both P&Ls with your cost and Amazon’s current fee schedule. We do not publish a typical spread. It would be fiction.

Does Seller Central require an invitation?

No. Amazon’s public page says you register at sell.amazon.com. Vendor Central is the one that is invitation-only. An invitation is not a strategy, and the absence of one is not a verdict on the product.

Can the same ASIN be 1P and 3P at once?

Yes. Amazon can hold vendor units while a seller offer is live. Shoppers then see more than one offer. If the prices diverge, you have taught the market the lower one. Plan the overlap. Do not discover it on the detail page.

Sources

• What is Seller Central, and how it differs from Vendor Central. Invitation rule, and Individual versus Professional plan prices.
• Amazon selling fees. Where referral fees and FBA sit beside the plan price.
• 2026 US referral and FBA fee update. The average FBA change and the notice period.
• Featured Offer (formerly Buy Box). How Amazon describes the offer a seller is trying to win.

Book a strategy call

If you are choosing between a wholesale relationship and a seller account, or you are being forced to, send a brief or Book a strategy call.