Amazon prep service: Amazon stopped prepping in 2026, so who does it now?

Amazon prep service, officially the FBA Prep Service, was an option in Seller Central that let Amazon prepare your products after they arrived at a fulfillment center: bagging, bubble wrapping, and applying barcode labels, for a per unit fee. The related FBA Label Service applied Amazon barcode labels for $0.55 per unit.

Both ended in the US. Amazon's help page says that starting January 1, 2026, it no longer offers prep and item labeling services for FBA shipments in the US store. The change covers inventory sent directly to FBA and inventory that goes through FBA from Amazon Warehousing and Distribution, Amazon Global Logistics, Amazon SEND and Supply Chain Portal.

Amazon gives its reason on the same page: seller packaging has improved and most sellers now handle their own prep and labeling, themselves, through manufacturers, or through third party providers. So when sellers search for an Amazon prep service today, what they need is a way to get prep done before the shipment reaches Amazon.

Amazon still publishes its last prep fee table, which applied to shipments created before January 1, 2026. It is a useful benchmark when you compare quotes from prep centers today, because it shows what each kind of prep cost per unit at Amazon.

Amazon's help page says prep is required when a product's packaging is not enough to protect it during shipping and handling. Determining the right prep is your responsibility, even if Amazon has no prep guidance for your product, and Amazon may refuse, return or repackage non-compliant inventory at your expense.

Amazon names two routes on its FBA Prep Service page, and repeats them in its Seller Forums: do it yourself, using its guide to preparing products for FBA shipping, or use a service provider, either your own preferred provider or one of the third party providers Amazon has vetted, listed on its FBA Prep Providers page.

There is a third route in practice: have the factory prep and label before the goods ship.

An FBA prep center is a third party warehouse between your supplier and Amazon. Your supplier ships to the prep center; the center receives and inspects the goods, preps and labels each unit to Amazon's requirements, packs and labels the boxes, and sends the shipment on to Amazon's fulfillment centers. Many also store overflow stock and ship orders for other channels.

Prep center pricing is usually built from several parts, and the headline prep rate is only one of them. Common charges are receiving per unit or per box, prep and labeling per unit, storage per pallet or cubic foot per month, and outbound shipping or handling per box when the shipment goes to Amazon. Some centers add a monthly minimum or an account fee.

The cost effective comparison is the total per unit landed at Amazon, including the inbound freight to the prep center. Amazon's own final prep fees, from $0.55 for a label to $1.25 for bagging and labeling a standard item, are a fair reference point for the prep part alone.

Amazon's own explanation for ending its service is that most sellers already prep through their own teams, their manufacturers or third party providers. For a growing business, a prep service turns a manual job into a line on an invoice.

It also adds a check between the supplier and Amazon that catches wrong items, damage and missing labels before they become refused shipments or lost inventory.

Prep centers also help with multi channel selling, since one warehouse can feed FBA, your own website and other marketplaces, and with location, since a center near your port of entry or supplier cuts inbound freight costs.

Some sellers who buy retail goods choose centers in states without a statewide sales tax, such as Oregon, Delaware, Montana or New Hampshire; tax treatment depends on your situation, so check with a tax adviser. The solutions that fit best are the ones that let you focus on selling while the operations run to Amazon's compliance rules without daily supervision.

Doing your own prep is realistic for low volumes and simple products. You need a label printer, labels of the right size, poly bags with suffocation warnings where required, bubble wrap for fragile items, and boxes within Amazon's size and weight limits. Amazon's guide recommends a laser printer at 300 DPI for barcode labels.

Ships in Product Packaging, or SIPP, lets eligible products ship to customers in your own branded packaging without extra prep or Amazon packaging. Amazon lists the benefits as lower FBA fulfillment fees for SIPP certified products, a better brand experience, and less packaging. Amazon's FBA Prep Service page points sellers to SIPP as a way to reduce prep needs after the service ended.

SIPP needs packaging that protects the product on its own, which is where the 3 foot drop test and Amazon's testing requirements come in. For private label brands designing packaging anyway, it is worth building in from the start. Our guide to Amazon private label covers packaging design.