Amazon Brand Referral Bonus: how it works and what it pays

How the Amazon Brand Referral Bonus works

The Amazon Brand Referral Bonus runs on two tools: enrollment on the Brand Referral Bonus page in Seller Central, and Amazon Attribution tags from the Amazon Ads console. A tagged click from outside Amazon makes anything the shopper buys from your brand in the next 14 days a qualifying sale, and the bonus, set by category, can never exceed the referral fee on the transaction.

1. You enroll your brand. One click in Seller Central, then a tax interview. Only purchases made after you enroll can earn the bonus.
2. You tag each piece of outside marketing. An Amazon Attribution tag for every ad, post, email or link that sends shoppers to your product page or Brand Store.
3. A shopper clicks and buys within 14 days. The promoted product counts, and so does anything else from your brand they buy over the next two weeks. Cancelled and returned orders drop out.
4. Amazon credits the bonus two months later. On the 10th of the month, so a July sale is credited in September, after the window for cancellations and returns.
5. The credit reduces your referral fees. Amazon deducts it from the referral fees on your next sales until it is used up.

Who can earn the Brand Referral Bonus

Any seller with a Brand Representative role for a brand in Amazon Brand Registry, selling in Amazon’s US store, can enroll, including sellers based outside the US with an eligible US selling account. Amazon’s blog adds a Professional selling plan. Resellers can’t earn it: Amazon points them to the Associates program instead.

• US store only: Amazon publishes the program only for the US store, and its staff confirmed that to a Canadian seller in March 2024.
• Tax information: required before any bonus is paid. Bonuses held for missing information expire six months after they are earned.
• Your team: other users need permission from the primary user, under Settings, User Permissions, Brand Referral Bonus.
• Vendors: can use Amazon Attribution, but Amazon’s pages tie the bonus to seller accounts and referral fees, and don’t say vendors can earn it.

How much the Brand Referral Bonus pays

Amazon says the Brand Referral Bonus averages 10% of qualifying sales, but the rate depends on the product’s category and, in some categories, its price. Most categories earn 10%, clothing 11% and consumer electronics 5%. However high the rate, the bonus can never exceed the referral fee on the transaction.

Condensed from Amazon's Brand Referral Bonus rate card, checked in September 2026. Collectibles, fine art, gift cards and Amazon Explore have their own rates. Shipping and gift-wrap charges can change the actual bonus, and Amazon can change the rates.

The bonus is easiest to judge against your referral fee. Say a shopper clicks the tag in your email newsletter, buys your $30 product, and comes back nine days later for a $20 refill.

A scenario, not a forecast. The credit arrives two months later and reduces the referral fees on later sales; returned orders earn nothing.

On tagged sales, a 10% bonus against a 15% referral fee cuts your effective referral fee by two-thirds, which matters most to brands already paying to send traffic to Amazon.

How to enroll and create Amazon Attribution tags

Amazon Attribution is Amazon’s free tool for measuring the traffic you send from outside Amazon: each tag records clicks and the purchases that follow within 14 days, crediting the last tagged click. Earning the bonus takes enrollment in Seller Central plus one tag per placement, and only purchases after you enroll count, so set up both before a campaign or an influencer post goes live.

1. Enroll in the Brand Referral Bonus. Open the Brand Referral Bonus page in Seller Central, which Amazon’s guide places under the Brands tab, enroll with one click and complete the tax interview.
2. Open Amazon Attribution. In the Amazon Ads console, go to Measurement & Reporting and select Amazon Attribution. You need an Amazon Ads account; Attribution itself is free.
3. Create a campaign. Under Campaigns, select Create campaign and create it manually. Bulk upload works only for Google search and Facebook ads.
4. Select the products. Choose the products you promote and select Add variations. Products that are out of stock or missing a photo or price cannot be measured.
5. Create one ad group per placement. Name it, pick the publisher (select New for an influencer or site that is not listed), the channel, and a click-through URL to your product page or Brand Store.
6. Copy each tag into its link. Select Create, then copy the tag or download them all as a CSV. Paste each one into its post, ad or email exactly as it is.
7. Check it after a day or two. Amazon shows rows with fewer than 10 clicks as zero, so early tags can look empty until they pass 10 clicks.

Traffic that earns the bonus, and traffic that doesn’t

Only traffic from marketing you run outside Amazon, carrying an Amazon Attribution tag and landing on your product page or Brand Store, earns the Brand Referral Bonus. Social posts and ads, search and display ads, email, SMS and your own website all count. Amazon’s own ads don’t, and neither does traffic that also earns an Amazon Associates commission.

From Amazon's Brand Referral Bonus terms, its blog, the Amazon Attribution help pages and Amazon staff on the Seller Forums, checked in September 2026.

Traffic that starts on Amazon is not outside traffic. A video on an influencer’s Amazon storefront or on your product page cannot carry your tag, so the sales it drives never earn the bonus.

The Brand Referral Bonus with influencers: your link or theirs

With influencers, the link decides who earns. If an influencer posts your Amazon Attribution link, you can earn the Brand Referral Bonus and measure their post; Amazon’s forum moderators point brands to Attribution tags for influencer campaigns. If they post their own Amazon affiliate link, Amazon pays them an Associates commission and you earn no bonus on that traffic. Amazon forbids both on the same click, whoever receives each payment.

The same clause sets the penalty: Amazon can withhold the bonus on the transaction, end your place in both the Brand Referral Bonus and Associates programs and, in serious or repeated cases, close the selling and Associates accounts involved.

Amazon's Associates policy says the same from the other side: an affiliate may not claim a commission and another program on the same traffic.

Creator Connections counts as affiliate traffic: Amazon’s guide for influencers has them promote campaigns with their standard Amazon affiliate links, so those sales cannot also earn the bonus.

• One tag per influencer: give each influencer their own ad group, so you can compare what each post sold.
• No edits, no Associates tag: ask them to paste your link exactly as given. Amazon does not support combining an Attribution tag with an Amazon affiliate link.
• In-app browsers: Attribution only measures sessions inside TikTok’s or Instagram’s browser when the shopper is signed in or sent on to the Amazon app. Amazon suggests a mobile deep-linking service for social links.
• Write it down: put the link, the fee and the posting date in the agreement you send before a sample ships.

The best candidates for a tagged post have an audience outside Amazon. Spreesy lists the social links each influencer publishes on their storefront, so you can find influencers who already feature products like yours and post on the platforms your buyers use, then offer them a paid post with your tag.

How to track the bonus and each tag

You can follow the Brand Referral Bonus in three places: the weekly bonus report on the Brand Referral Bonus page, generated every Friday; your transaction details, where the credit appears once applied; and Amazon Attribution, which reports each tag’s clicks, detail page views, add-to-carts, purchases and sales over a 14-day window.

• The bonus report: three tabs, Bonus Earned, Bonus Paid and Bonus Used, the last listing the orders where the credit was applied.
• Your brand halo: Attribution counts sales of your other products in its Total metrics, the same halo the bonus pays on.
• Last click wins: Attribution credits the most recent tagged click within 14 days.
• Expect gaps: Amazon warns of 10% to 20% differences between Attribution and a platform’s own click counts.
• Report limits: the bonus report covers the trailing 365 days, and none is generated without a qualified sale in the last 90 days.
• In your transactions: the credit shows as a discount on the referral fee line; when it covers the whole fee and there is no tax on the fee, the fee line disappears instead.

Why a Brand Referral Bonus goes missing

Before you contact Selling Partner Support about a missing Brand Referral Bonus, check whether one of Amazon’s own rules explains it: the sale came before you enrolled, the click carried no tag or an Associates link too, the order was returned, or the credit is still inside its two-month wait.

• Timing: a sale is credited on the 10th of the month two months later, never sooner.
• Enrollment: sales before the day you enrolled never earn the bonus.
• Tax interview: without it, bonuses are held, and held bonuses expire after six months.
• The tag: edited, missing, or combined with an Amazon affiliate link on the same click.
• The landing page: a link to search results or a page other than your product page or Brand Store.
• The product: listed under another brand or “Generic”, out of stock, or missing a photo or price, so Attribution cannot measure it.
• The app: shoppers who stayed in TikTok’s or Instagram’s browser without signing in are not measured.
• Small numbers: rows under 10 clicks show as zero until they pass 10.
• The shopper: bought more than 14 days after the click, or cancelled or returned the order.

Don’t judge the tags against an affiliate dashboard. A seller on Amazon’s forums who moved their own site’s links from Amazon affiliate links to Attribution tags saw measured purchase rates fall from 30-40% to 1%. Amazon’s moderator answered: “These are different tracking systems, so some variation is expected.”

Is the Brand Referral Bonus worth it?

For a brand-registered seller in the US store, the Brand Referral Bonus is worth it the moment you send any traffic to Amazon from outside: enrolling and tagging are free, and every tagged sale earns a credit against your future referral fees. The work is tagging each link and keeping Amazon affiliate links off your own campaigns.

• You don't send traffic from outside Amazon yet.The bonus pays only on tagged outside traffic. Start with one channel, such as a paid influencer post with your tag.
• You resell other brands.Only Brand Representatives earn the bonus. Amazon points resellers to the Associates program.
• You sell outside Amazon's US store.The bonus is US only. Amazon Attribution still measures your outside traffic in more countries.
• Your influencers earn Amazon affiliate commission.Their Associates sales cannot earn the bonus. Pay a flat fee with your tag where you want the bonus, or keep affiliate deals where commission motivates them.

Brand Referral Bonus questions sellers ask