Amazon measures every seller against a set of performance and policy targets. Together they make up Account Health, which you find in Seller Central under Performance. Most suspensions follow a pattern that was visible on this page long before the email arrived.
The Account Health Rating
The Account Health Rating (AHR) sums up how well you follow Amazon's selling policies. It runs from 0 to 1,000:
- 200 to 1,000: Healthy. No action needed, but keep an eye on new warnings.
- 100 to 199: At risk. Open issues need attention now.
- 0 to 99: Critical. The account is at risk of deactivation.
Policy violations lower the rating. Resolving them, or showing that a complaint was wrong, can bring points back. The rating does not include the performance metrics below, so check both.
Customer service performance
The main figure here is the order defect rate (ODR). It is the share of orders that received negative feedback, an A-to-z Guarantee claim or a credit card chargeback. Amazon's target is under 1%.
Because the rate is a percentage, a small seller with a few bad orders can exceed it quickly. Answering buyer messages within 24 hours, solving problems before they become claims and writing accurate listings that set the right expectations all help.
Shipping performance for orders you ship yourself
If you fulfil orders yourself rather than through FBA, Amazon also watches how you ship:
| Metric | Target | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Late shipment rate | Under 4% | Orders confirmed as shipped after the expected ship date |
| Pre-fulfillment cancel rate | Under 2.5% | Orders you cancel before shipping, usually because of stock problems |
| Valid tracking rate | Over 95% | Shipments with a tracking number that the carrier recognises |
FBA orders do not count towards these metrics, because Amazon handles the shipping.
Policy compliance
This is where most serious problems start. Amazon groups policy issues into areas such as:
- Suspected intellectual property infringement and received IP complaints
- Product authenticity and product condition complaints
- Product safety and restricted products
- Listing policy violations, such as wrong categories or prohibited claims
- Customer product reviews policy violations
Each issue has its own page in Seller Central with the affected listings and, often, a button to appeal or respond. Some come with a deadline.
A weekly routine that prevents most problems
- Open the Account Health page once a week, and the same day after any new email from Amazon.
- Answer buyer messages within 24 hours, including weekends.
- Keep supplier invoices for every product you sell. Authenticity complaints are much easier to answer with documents to hand.
- Check new listings for words that can trigger restricted product reviews, such as medical or pesticide claims.
- Never offer gifts, refunds or discounts in exchange for reviews, and do not ask only happy buyers to leave one.
- Watch your inventory so you do not have to cancel orders you cannot ship.
When a warning or deactivation notice arrives
Do not reply in a hurry. A rushed appeal that misses the point can make the next one harder. Instead:
- Read the notice carefully. Note the exact policy, the listings or orders involved and any deadline.
- Find the root cause. Why did it happen? A supplier, a listing error, a process that failed?
- Fix what you can immediately. Remove or correct listings, refund affected buyers and collect documents.
- Write a plan of action. Three short parts: the root cause, the steps already taken and the changes that will prevent it from happening again.
- Send it once, through the right channel, with supporting documents attached.
If your account has already been deactivated, or several appeals have been rejected, it is worth getting experienced help before sending another. Our account reinstatement service starts by reviewing what was sent before.
Make it part of the routine
Account health is not a project you finish. It works best as a short weekly habit owned by one person. If nobody on your team has time for that, it is one of the first jobs worth handing over. See what Amazon account management includes.