Amazon FBA Prep Cost UK: What You'll Actually Pay in 2026
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Quick answer: Third-party FBA prep in the UK typically costs £0.13–£0.65 per unit for labelling and polybagging, plus £2–£3.50 per outbound box. Amazon's own in-house prep service closed across Europe on 1 July 2026.
If you sell on Amazon FBA, your stock has to meet Amazon's strict prep requirements — correct labelling, packaging, and sometimes bundling — before it's accepted into their fulfilment centres. Until recently, sellers had a fallback if their stock arrived non-compliant: Amazon would prep it themselves for a fee. That's no longer an option.
A Change Worth Knowing About
Amazon's own in-house FBA Prep Service — where you could send unprepped stock directly to a fulfilment centre and Amazon would label or polybag it for you — closed across all European stores on 1 July 2026. That leaves sellers with two options: prep everything yourself, or use an independent third-party prep centre. If your supply chain has been relying on Amazon's internal prep as a safety net, that safety net is gone.
What FBA Prep Actually Involves
A prep centre (or your own prep process) typically covers:
- Receiving and inspecting stock for damage
- Applying FNSKU barcode labels
- Polybagging or bubble-wrapping items that require it
- Bundling multi-item listings
- Breaking down case-packed inventory from distributors
- Boxing and shipping to the correct Amazon fulfilment centre
Typical UK Costs in 2026
| Service | Typical Cost |
|---|---|
| FNSKU labelling | £0.13–£0.35/unit |
| Polybagging | £0.20–£0.40/unit |
| Bundling / kitting | £0.30–£0.65/unit |
| Outbound shipping box | £2–£3.50/box |
Many providers also charge a monthly subscription or minimum storage fee alongside per-unit prep costs — always ask for the full monthly cost, not just the per-unit rate, before comparing quotes.
DIY Prep vs. Using a Prep Centre
For very low volumes, prepping stock yourself at home is often manageable — many sellers start this way. The trade-off is your own time, plus the risk of a rejected shipment if something doesn't meet Amazon's requirements exactly. As volume grows, most sellers find the time cost of DIY prep outweighs the per-unit fee of outsourcing it — particularly once you're scaling from a few hundred units a month into the thousands, where a single mislabelled batch can mean days of delay.
Questions to Ask a Prep Provider
- Is pricing per-unit, per-task, or a blended monthly fee?
- What's the committed turnaround time from receipt to shipped?
- Is there a monthly subscription or minimum fee on top of per-unit rates?
- How do they handle case-packed inventory from distributors?
- What happens if a shipment is rejected by Amazon — who covers the cost of re-prepping?
The Bottom Line
With Amazon's own in-house prep service now gone, getting your prep process right — whether in-house or outsourced — matters more than it used to. Budget roughly £0.50–1.00 per unit all-in for standard labelling and polybagging once box costs are included, and always get the full monthly cost, not just the headline per-unit rate.
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