Walmart Marketplace vs Amazon: Fees, Fulfillment, Brand Tools

Amazon and Walmart are both places a US shopper can buy your product without visiting you. They are not the same shelf, the same fee, or the same brand tool. Opening both on day one, with one set of images and one price, is how a brand teaches two retailers that it will match whoever is cheaper.

Short answer: For a $20 beauty item, both marketplaces take the same 15 percent referral fee. The real differences are the plan fee (Amazon charges $39.99 a month on Professional; Walmart lists none), separate fulfillment networks, a different trademark bar for brand tools (Walmart needs a registered USPTO mark), a stricter entry gate on Walmart, and price rules on both that punish a higher price elsewhere. Lead with Amazon when the trademark is still pending or the brand has no e-commerce record. Add Walmart when the mark is registered, US inventory sits outside FBA, and the price holds on both.

This page compares the two marketplaces. The wider choice between Amazon, Walmart, a direct store, and wholesale is Amazon, Walmart, and a Shopify store.

Amazon vs Walmart Marketplace at a glance

Checked against each marketplace’s own pages on November 9, 2026. Fees change. Confirm them before you build a cost file.

	Amazon (Seller Central)	Walmart Marketplace
Plan fee	Individual: $0.99 per item sold. Professional: $39.99 a month. (Amazon)	Signup is free. Walmart charges a referral fee on each item sold and lists no plan fee. (Walmart)
Referral fee, beauty, health and personal care	8% at a total sales price of $10.00 or less, 15% above $10.00, minimum $0.30 per item. (Amazon)	8% at a total sales price of $10 or less, 15% above $10. (Walmart)
What the referral fee is charged on	Total price: list price plus shipping and gift-wrap charges. Fee category can differ from the category shown to shoppers.	Total sales price: item price plus shipping and handling, gift wrap, and other charges. Walmart assigns the contract category at item setup.
Fulfillment	FBA. Fee set by product price, weight, and dimensions. A 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge has applied to FBA fulfillment fees since April 17, 2026. (Amazon, Amazon notice)	WFS. Published rate card: $3.45 at a shipping weight of 1 lb or less, $4.95 at 2 lb, $5.45 at 3 lb. Add $1 under a $10 retail price and $0.50 for hazardous materials. (Walmart)
Inbound rules	Separate FBA network and Send to Amazon workflow.	Inventory must ship from the US or clear customs first. No temperature-controlled items. (Walmart)
Brand tools	Brand Registry, free. Pending or registered trademark from an office in a country with an Amazon store. Brand name on the product or packaging. (Amazon)	Brand Portal. An active USPTO trademark registration for each brand. Uses Seller Center credentials. (Walmart)
Approval to sell	Open registration. Some products require prior approval. (Amazon)	Application reviewed against Walmart’s requirements, including a history of marketplace or e-commerce success and GS1 GTINs.
Ads	Sponsored Products for sellers. Sponsored Brands and Brand Stores come with Brand Registry. (Amazon)	Sponsored Search, Onsite Display, and Brand Shop and Shelf. (Walmart)
Price rules	An offer can lose Featured Offer eligibility when its price plus shipping is above the Competitive External Price, the lowest recent price at another reputable retailer. (Amazon)	The Pricing Rule unpublishes offers priced egregiously above recent prices on Walmart.com or a competing site. Substantially higher prices lose the Buy Box. (Walmart)

Illustrative example: one $20 beauty product

This is arithmetic on published fees, not a forecast and not client data. Assumptions: a face cream sold at $20.00 with free shipping, so the total sales price is $20.00. It is categorized as beauty on both marketplaces. It weighs 0.5 lb in its packaging, has no hazardous-materials classification, and is fulfilled by FBA on Amazon and WFS on Walmart.

Line	Amazon	Walmart
Sale price	$20.00	$20.00
Referral fee (15% of $20.00)	$3.00	$3.00
Plan fee	$39.99 a month, spread across the month’s units	None listed
Fulfillment	FBA fee for this size and weight from Amazon’s Revenue Calculator, plus the 3.5% surcharge	$3.45 (0.5 lb + 0.25 lb packaging = 0.75 lb, rounded up to 1 lb)
Left before product cost, storage, ads, and returns	$17.00, minus the FBA fee and the plan share	$13.55

Four things the example shows:

The referral fee is not the difference. At $20 both take $3.00. A cost file that says “Walmart is cheaper” has to point at another line.
Shipping charges move the fee. Charge $4.99 shipping on Walmart and the total sales price becomes $24.99. The 15 percent fee rises to $3.75. Amazon also includes shipping charges in the total price.
The $10 line matters on both. At $9.99 the beauty rate drops to 8 percent on both marketplaces, about $0.80. WFS then adds $1 to fulfillment for an item priced under $10.
A hazardous classification changes the WFS fee. Walmart adds $0.50 when an item is or contains a chemical, aerosol, pesticide, or battery. Check the classification before you price a fragrance, a spray, or a device.

Amazon prints its FBA rate card in Seller Central, not on its public pricing page. Use the Revenue Calculator with the same dimensions and weight. Storage is a separate charge on both. WFS publishes $0.75 per cubic foot per month from January to September, with a higher rate for units held more than 30 days from October to December. The full contribution method is the pricing essay.

Fulfillment is not portable

FBA picks and ships Amazon orders. It does not become Walmart inventory. WFS is a separate network with its own inbound shipments. A container addressed to FBA is not a Walmart launch.

WFS has two gates that matter for an imported brand. Goods must ship from inside the United States or clear customs before they arrive. Temperature-controlled products are excluded. Walmart also accepts sellers that ship from their own US B2C warehouse with returns capability.

One pool that feeds both retailers has to sit upstream of both, at a 3PL or in a program built for it. Amazon describes Amazon Warehousing and Distribution as bulk storage that distributes to the Amazon store and to non-Amazon channels. Price it before you plan on it. The buildings and the placement fee are the AWD essay.

Brand tools need different trademarks

Amazon Brand Registry accepts a pending or registered trademark. The mark must come from an office in a country with an Amazon store, be a word mark or a design mark with words, letters, or numbers, and match the brand name on the application. The trademark owner enrolls. An agent is added afterwards.

Walmart Brand Portal requires an active USPTO registration for each brand. A pending application that got you into Amazon Brand Registry will not get you into Walmart’s portal. File toward a registration if both shelves are real. The sequence is US trademark, then Brand Registry.

The tools are not equivalent either. Brand Registry unlocks A+ Content, Brand Stores, Sponsored Brands, Brand Analytics, and Transparency. Brand Portal manages brands, intellectual-property claims, and who may update brand content through Brand Portfolio.

What Walmart asks before you can sell

Amazon registration is open. Walmart reviews an application. Walmart’s onboarding guide, updated September 2, 2026, lists:

a copy of a personal ID
a business tax ID or business license number (an SSN is not accepted)
the business entity classification
documents that verify the business name and address
a history of marketplace or e-commerce success
products with GTINs from a GS1 company prefix
a catalog that meets Walmart’s Prohibited Products Policy
either WFS or a US B2C warehouse with returns capability that can meet Walmart’s Seller Performance Standards

Category approval is a separate question on each marketplace. An Amazon approval to sell a topical does not approve the Walmart item. The Amazon side is restricted categories. Product-safety documents often have to be produced for both, because the law is US law, not a marketplace rule.

Price rules work the same way on both

Both marketplaces compare your price with other retailers. On Amazon, an offer priced above the Competitive External Price can lose Featured Offer eligibility. On Walmart, an offer priced well above recent prices can lose the Buy Box, and an egregious gap gets it unpublished with the reason code “Reasonable Price Not Satisfied.” Walmart can also unpublish an offer for an egregious shipping charge.

The consequence is simple. A discount on one marketplace can become the ceiling on the other. Set one price architecture for the same SKU and pack size. How Amazon picks the offer is the Featured Offer essay. Keeping price, product data, and images aligned is brand consistency across channels.

What the shopper is doing

On Amazon, the shopper is often comparing three brands in one search. The Featured Offer, the title, and the price do most of the work. You are renting a comparison page.

On Walmart, you are on a retailer’s site with its own search, its own content standards, and its own customer. Some of those customers will never open Amazon. That is the reason to be there: a second group of people, reached on a second set of terms.

Copy the Amazon listing across and you bring Amazon’s title habits into a system that did not ask for them. Rewrite the title to Walmart’s spec. Keep the facts identical: count, size, material, and the claims you can support. The facts are the brand. The formatting is the channel.

Advertising does not transfer either. Amazon Ads and Walmart Connect are separate accounts and separate budgets. An ACoS you trust on Amazon is not a Walmart target. The ratio, and why it is not a margin, is ACoS vs TACoS.

When to lead with each marketplace

Lead with Amazon when:

the US trademark is pending, not registered
the brand has no marketplace or e-commerce sales record to show Walmart
the product wins in side-by-side search, where Brand Registry content and Sponsored Brands do the work
the first US inventory is going into FBA

Add Walmart, or lead with it, when:

the USPTO registration has issued, so Brand Portal is available
US inventory sits in WFS or in a US B2C warehouse that handles returns, not only inside FBA
the GTINs come from a GS1 company prefix
the price is built from Walmart’s referral schedule and fulfillment cost, not matched to an Amazon coupon
the product suits WFS: not temperature-controlled, and within its size and weight limits

For most of the brands we see, Amazon leads, because that is where the comparison happens. It does not have to. A brand with a registered mark, US warehouse stock, and a retail buyer who already knows Walmart can reasonably start there.

A sequence that does not split the brand

Get the US contribution right on one lead marketplace.
File the trademark in the owner’s name, far enough along that the second marketplace’s brand tool will accept it.
Stand up a US inventory pool that is not trapped inside FBA.
Open the second marketplace on the hero SKUs, with a price built from its own fees.
Check both catalogs monthly for drift: titles, images, and a price that only works because one side is discounting.

US Market-Entry Strategy is the decision of which channel leads. Adding Walmart because a pitch deck said “marketplace expansion” is how thin teams end up with two half-run accounts.

Questions

Is Walmart Marketplace cheaper than Amazon?

Not on the referral line for beauty and personal care. Both marketplaces publish 8 percent at or under $10 and 15 percent above $10 for that category. The difference is elsewhere: Amazon’s Professional plan is $39.99 a month, Walmart lists no plan fee, and FBA and WFS price fulfillment on different rate cards. Compare the same unit after both fees.

Does Walmart Brand Portal accept a pending trademark?

No. Walmart says an active USPTO trademark registration is required for each brand. Amazon Brand Registry accepts a pending application from a trademark office in a country with an Amazon store.

Can FBA inventory fill Walmart orders?

Not through WFS. FBA and WFS are separate networks with separate inbound shipments. A pool meant for both has to sit upstream, in a 3PL or a program built for more than one channel, such as Amazon Warehousing and Distribution.

What does Walmart ask for before approving a seller?

Walmart lists a personal ID, a business tax ID or business license number (an SSN is not accepted), the business entity type, documents for the business name and address, a history of marketplace or e-commerce success, GS1-prefixed GTINs, a catalog that meets its Prohibited Products Policy, and either WFS or a US B2C warehouse with returns capability.

We already sell on Amazon. Does the Amazon account carry over?

No. Walmart Seller Center is a separate registration, and Brand Portal uses those Seller Center credentials. Your Amazon login, FBA labels, and Brand Registry enrollment do not carry over. Plan it as a new account with a shared trademark and a shared inventory policy.

Sources

All checked November 9, 2026.

Amazon: Standard selling fees. Referral fees by category, the $0.30 minimum, and what total price includes.
Amazon: Seller Central. Individual and Professional plan prices.
Amazon: Fulfillment by Amazon. What sets FBA fees, the Revenue Calculator, AWD, and approval for some products.
Amazon: Fuel and logistics-related surcharge. The 3.5% FBA surcharge from April 17, 2026.
Amazon: Brand Registry. Trademark and logo requirements, and the tools enrollment unlocks.
Amazon: Product Pricing API FAQ. Featured Offer eligibility and the Competitive External Price.
Walmart: Before you start selling. Application requirements and ad formats. Updated September 2, 2026.
Walmart: Referral fee schedule. Fees by contract category and the definition of total sales price. Updated March 9, 2026.
Walmart: Pricing. Referral fees and the WFS fulfillment and storage rate card.
Walmart: Walmart Fulfillment Services. Inbound, size, and temperature rules.
Walmart: Brand Portal. The USPTO registration requirement.
Walmart: Pricing rules. The Pricing Rule, Buy Box ineligibility, and egregious shipping costs.

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