Amazon Account Health is the Seller Central dashboard that shows whether your seller account meets Amazon’s performance targets and policies. You use it by checking the Account Health Rating (AHR), reviewing customer service performance, policy compliance and shipping performance metrics, setting up notifications so warnings reach the right person, and acting on any issue before it leads to listing removals or account deactivation. A weekly review routine keeps most problems small.
Where is the Account Health dashboard?
In Seller Central, open Performance > Account Health. The page is split into three main areas: Customer Service Performance, Policy Compliance and Shipping Performance. At the top, sellers see their Account Health Rating, a single score that reflects policy compliance. The dashboard also links to the Seller Performance team’s messages and to the appeal or plan-of-action tools.
Each marketplace has its own Account Health page. If you sell in the US and Europe, switch marketplaces using the selector at the top of Seller Central and review each one separately.
Step 1: Understand the Account Health Rating
The AHR runs from 0 to 1,000. Amazon describes three bands: Healthy (200 to 1,000), At Risk (100 to 199) and Critical (0 to 99). A rating below 100 may lead to deactivation. The score is driven by policy issues such as intellectual property complaints, product authenticity complaints, safety issues, restricted products and listing policy violations. Each issue type has a weight, and older issues gradually stop counting.
Hovering over or opening the rating shows which issues affect it. Resolved issues with an accepted appeal usually no longer count against you.
Step 2: Which performance metrics must you watch?
Customer service and shipping metrics are measured separately from the AHR. Amazon publishes targets for each, and the commonly cited ones for professional sellers are:
- Order Defect Rate (ODR): under 1 percent. Includes negative feedback, A-to-z Guarantee claims and credit card chargebacks.
- Late Shipment Rate: under 4 percent, for seller-fulfilled orders confirmed as shipped after the expected date.
- Pre-fulfilment Cancellation Rate: under 2.5 percent, for orders cancelled by the seller before shipping.
- Valid Tracking Rate: above 95 percent for seller-fulfilled shipments in many categories.
- On-Time Delivery Rate: a target of above 90 percent, used as a guidance metric in some marketplaces.
Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) orders are handled by Amazon for shipping metrics, but negative feedback and A-to-z claims on FBA orders can still affect your account in some cases. Check each metric’s details page for current rules, since Amazon updates them.
Step 3: Set up notifications so nothing is missed
Many account problems become serious because a warning email went to an unused inbox. Go to Settings > Notification Preferences and review the Account Notifications and Listing Notifications sections. Add at least two recipients for performance notifications, including someone who checks email daily.
Also install the Amazon Seller app on a phone and enable push notifications for account health. For larger teams, give users access through Settings > User Permissions with the right roles, so the person handling compliance can see the dashboard without full admin rights.
Step 4: How do you handle a policy warning?
When a new issue appears in Policy Compliance, open it and read exactly which ASIN, policy and evidence are involved. Do not delete the listing or relist the product under a new ASIN; that does not remove the issue and can make things worse.
A practical response sequence:
- Identify the root cause: an IP complaint from a rights owner, a product missing safety documents, a restricted keyword in the listing or a customer complaint about authenticity.
- Gather evidence: supplier invoices, certificates of compliance, test reports, letters of authorisation or brand registry proof.
- Fix the listing or the product if needed, for example by removing a claim such as “antibacterial” that needs approval.
- Submit an appeal through the issue page with clear documents, or contact the rights owner if the complaint came from them and you believe it was filed in error.
- Record what happened and what you changed, so similar issues can be prevented.
Writing a plan of action
If Amazon asks for a plan of action, keep it factual and specific. Explain the root cause, the immediate fix and the long-term preventive steps. Avoid generic statements such as “we will be more careful”. For example: “The listing used a supplier image showing a third-party logo. We removed the image, audited all 120 listings for third-party marks and added a logo check to our listing approval process.”
Step 5: Build a weekly review routine
A weekly check takes around fifteen minutes for a small account. The routine below works for most sellers:
- Check the AHR and note any change from last week.
- Open Policy Compliance and review every new or open item.
- Review ODR, Late Shipment Rate, cancellation rate and Valid Tracking Rate against targets.
- Read new negative feedback and request removal where it is about FBA fulfilment or is otherwise eligible under Amazon’s rules.
- Respond to A-to-z claims within the deadline.
- Check the Voice of the Customer dashboard (Performance > Voice of the Customer) for products with rising complaint rates.
- Review inventory for expired or near-expiry items in categories with dating rules.
Using Voice of the Customer alongside Account Health
The Voice of the Customer page shows a Customer Experience Health rating per product, based on returns and complaints. Products marked “Poor” or “Very Poor” can be blocked from sale. Read the comments to find patterns, such as sizing problems or items arriving damaged.
Fixing the cause, for example better size charts or stronger packaging, usually improves both Voice of the Customer and Account Health over time, because fewer customers leave negative feedback or file claims.
What are the most common Account Health mistakes?
A few patterns cause many avoidable problems:
- Ignoring IP complaints because the seller believes the product is genuine. Without documentation, the complaint stands.
- Buying stock without invoices from authorised distributors, which makes authenticity appeals hard to win.
- Copying competitor listings, including images or brand terms.
- Letting seller-fulfilled orders ship late during peak season.
- Running several seller accounts without Amazon’s approval, which violates policy.
- Responding to suspension emails with emotional messages rather than evidence.
Where to start this week
Log in to Seller Central and open Performance > Account Health for each marketplace you sell in. Write down your AHR and every open policy item. Then go to Notification Preferences and add a second email recipient for account notifications. Finally, set a recurring fifteen-minute calendar slot each week for the routine above. These steps take less than an hour and protect the account from the issues that grow when nobody is watching.
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