7 Most Critical Metrics to Track On Amazon Account Health
Your Amazon account health dashboard is the single most important page in Seller Central. It determines whether you can sell, whether you win the Buy Box, and whether Amazon will eventually suspend or deactivate your account. Most sellers only check it when something goes wrong — by which point the damage is already done.
This guide covers every metric on the dashboard, the exact thresholds that trigger enforcement, what the Account Health Rating score means, and the steps experienced sellers use to catch problems before Amazon does.
What Is Amazon Account Health and the Account Health Rating (AHR)?
Amazon Account Health is a dashboard in Seller Central that shows your performance across three categories: customer service, shipping, and policy compliance. Together, these feed into a single composite score called the Account Health Rating (AHR).
The AHR runs from 0 to 1,000. Here is what each range means for your selling status:
| AHR Score | Status | What It Means |
|---|---|---|
| 200–1,000 | Green — Healthy | No risk of deactivation. Full selling privileges active. |
| 150–199 | Yellow — At Risk | Amazon may reach out. Selling privileges can be restricted at any time. |
| Below 150 | Red — Unhealthy | Account deactivation review triggered. Immediate action required. |
A single metric breach can override your color status even if your overall score looks fine. The AHR updates continuously on a rolling 180-day window — meaning every order placed today affects your score for the next six months.
How to Access Your Amazon Account Health Dashboard
Log in to Amazon Seller Central
Click Performance in the top navigation bar
Select Account Health from the dropdown
Review each section: Customer Service Performance, Shipping Performance, and Policy Compliance
Check this dashboard at least weekly. A metric issue caught on Tuesday is far cheaper to fix than one Amazon flags and acts on by Friday.
The Three Categories of Amazon Account Health
| Category | Metrics Included | Who It Applies To |
|---|---|---|
| Customer Service Performance | Order Defect Rate, Invoice Defect Rate | All sellers |
| Shipping Performance | Late Shipment Rate, Pre-Fulfillment Cancel Rate, Valid Tracking Rate, On-Time Delivery Rate, Return Dissatisfaction Rate | Seller-fulfilled (FBM) orders only — FBA sellers skip this section entirely |
| Policy Compliance | IP complaints, listing violations, restricted products, authenticity issues, review manipulation flags | All sellers |
If you sell exclusively through Amazon FBA, all shipping metrics are handled by Amazon and won't drag your account health down. Your primary exposure is ODR and policy compliance.
Customer Service Performance Metrics
1. Order Defect Rate (ODR) — The Most Critical Metric
ODR is the single metric most responsible for Amazon account suspensions. It measures the percentage of orders that result in a poor customer experience, calculated over a rolling 60-day window.
An order counts as "defective" if it results in any one of the following:
A negative feedback rating (1 or 2 stars)
An A-to-Z Guarantee claim filed against you — whether granted or not
A credit card chargeback
Multiple defect types on a single order count as one defective order, not three.
Amazon's threshold: ODR must stay below 1%. Exceeding this for a sustained period can trigger account suspension and loss of Buy Box eligibility for up to 60 days.
Recommended internal alert: Set an alert at 0.5% — half the threshold. At 0.5%, you still have buffer to investigate and correct before Amazon acts. In high-return categories like apparel (20–30% return rates), your margin for error on ODR is significantly tighter than in books or home goods.
2. Invoice Defect Rate (B2B Sellers)
The Invoice Defect Rate applies specifically to sellers who receive orders from Amazon Business customers — those who require a tax invoice or receipt for accounting purposes.
IDR is calculated as the percentage of B2B orders where the seller fails to provide a downloadable tax receipt within one business day after shipment confirmation.
Amazon's threshold: IDR must stay below 5%. No automatic penalty is announced for exceeding this, but consistent failure damages your B2B seller credibility and may affect your visibility to business buyers.
Shipping Performance Metrics (FBM Sellers)
3. Late Shipment Rate (LSR)
LSR measures the percentage of seller-fulfilled orders where shipping confirmation was posted after the expected ship date. Amazon calculates this across both a 10-day and a 30-day rolling window.
Important: Amazon calculates LSR based on when you confirm shipment in Seller Central — not when the carrier actually picks up the package. Confirming late, even if the package leaves on time, counts against you.
Amazon's threshold: LSR must stay below 4%. Two consecutive months above 4% typically triggers a performance notification. A single bad week during Q4 when order volume spikes can push a low-volume seller past this threshold with just 3–4 late shipments.
4. Pre-Fulfillment Cancellation Rate
This metric counts only cancellations initiated by the seller before shipment — stock-outs, pricing errors, supplier issues. Customer cancellations before processing do not count against you.
Amazon's threshold: Cancellation rate must stay below 2.5%. Four cancellations out of 150 orders pushes a seller past this limit. The fix is maintaining accurate inventory levels and building buffer stock for high-velocity SKUs before adding them to your listings.
5. Valid Tracking Rate (VTR)
VTR calculates the percentage of shipments assigned a valid tracking number within 30 days. "Valid" means the tracking number is accepted by the carrier and updates in real time — a made-up tracking number or one that shows no carrier scans will not count.
Amazon's threshold: VTR must stay above 95%. The simplest way to maintain VTR is to always purchase shipping labels through Amazon Buy Shipping, which auto-confirms shipments with valid tracking at purchase.
6. On-Time Delivery Rate (OTDR)
OTDR measures the percentage of tracked shipments delivered within the estimated delivery date shown to the customer at checkout. It only applies to seller-fulfilled orders and measures actual delivery, not shipment date.
Amazon's threshold: OTDR must stay above 97% for Prime-eligible sellers (tightened in early 2026). For standard seller-fulfilled orders, the threshold is 90%. Underpromising on delivery estimates and using faster shipping services for high-demand periods keeps OTDR clean.
7. Return Dissatisfaction Rate (RDR)
RDR reflects how poorly you handle the return process. Three behaviors raise RDR:
Receiving negative feedback specifically about the return experience
Failing to respond to a return request within 48 hours
Incorrectly refusing a return that should have been approved
Amazon's threshold: RDR should stay below 10%. No automatic penalty currently announced, but high RDR feeds into A-to-Z claims over time, which directly impact ODR. Respond to every return request within 24 hours — not 48 — as a habit.
Policy Compliance
Policy compliance violations are the second most common cause of account suspension, after ODR. Unlike performance metrics, policy violations don't come with warning thresholds — Amazon can act on a single complaint from a rights holder.
Common policy compliance issues that appear on the account health dashboard:
Intellectual property complaints: Brand owners filing infringement claims against your listings. One unresolved IP complaint can suppress listings; multiple complaints can trigger account review.
Authenticity issues: Complaints that products received don't match what was listed. Particularly common in branded reselling without invoices from authorized distributors.
Listing violations: Products listed in restricted categories without approval, prohibited claims in listings (health benefit claims, "FDA approved" on non-approved products), or product safety concerns.
Review manipulation: Any attempt to incentivize reviews, remove negative reviews, or inflate ratings — now detected algorithmically, not just through complaints.
Every policy violation must be acknowledged in Seller Central immediately. Ignoring a violation notice — even one you believe is incorrect — starts a countdown that ends in restriction or suspension.
Voice of the Customer (VOC) Dashboard — Added October 2025
Amazon added the Voice of the Customer dashboard to Seller Central in October 2025, replacing the older Customer Reviews dashboard. It gives you ASIN-level visibility into customer experience issues before they compound into ODR problems.
The VOC dashboard assigns each ASIN a CX Health rating:
Excellent / Good: Customer experience meets or exceeds category benchmarks — no action needed
Fair: Some customer concerns — monitor and investigate return reasons
Poor / Very Poor: Significant customer experience issues — address immediately before returns and A-to-Z claims accumulate
Access it in Seller Central under Performance → Voice of the Customer. Filter by "Poor" and "Very Poor" ASINs weekly. A single ASIN with consistent Very Poor ratings can drag your entire account's ODR down if left unaddressed — fixing the product issue (sizing, image accuracy, description accuracy) stops the problem at the source rather than managing its downstream effects.
How to Monitor Amazon Account Health Proactively
Reactive monitoring — checking only after Amazon sends a warning — puts you behind the curve. Here is the monitoring routine that keeps accounts clean:
Daily: Check the Account Health dashboard AHR score. Takes 30 seconds. Catches sudden drops from a cluster of bad orders or a new policy complaint.
Weekly: Pull the Customer Reviews report and the Voice of the Customer dashboard. Flag any ASINs with Poor or Very Poor ratings. Check the Return Reports for unusual return reason clusters.
Weekly: Pull your Search Term Report and look for performance notifications you may have missed. Respond to every notification within 24 hours, even if just to acknowledge receipt.
Monthly: Review ODR trend over the past 60 days, not just the current snapshot. Spot gradual drift upward before it crosses thresholds.
Set internal alerts at 50% of Amazon's thresholds: ODR alert at 0.5% (Amazon's limit is 1%), LSR alert at 2% (limit is 4%), cancellation alert at 1.25% (limit is 2.5%). When your alert fires, you still have buffer before Amazon acts — time to investigate and fix without pressure.
Consequences of Poor Amazon Account Health
| Stage | What Happens | Timeframe |
|---|---|---|
| Performance notification | Amazon sends a warning email. AHR drops to yellow zone. | Immediate on threshold breach |
| Listing suppression | Specific ASINs may be hidden from search or have Buy Box removed. | Can follow within days of notification |
| Buy Box loss | Lose Buy Box eligibility. Orders drop significantly — most customers buy via Buy Box only. | Can last up to 60 days even after metrics recover |
| Account suspension | Full account deactivation. No sales. Funds withheld during review. | If AHR drops below 150 or ODR sustained above 1% |
| Account removal | Permanent deactivation. All ASINs removed from the marketplace. | Repeat violations or unresolved critical issues |
How to Write a Plan of Action if Your Account Is Suspended
If your account is suspended, Amazon requires a Plan of Action (POA) before reinstatement. A POA is not an apology — it is a structured document showing Amazon you understand what went wrong and have fixed it permanently.
A strong POA covers three components:
Root cause analysis: State exactly what caused the metric or violation to breach the threshold. Be specific and data-driven. Vague answers ("we had some fulfillment issues") are rejected. Specific answers ("our Late Shipment Rate increased to 5.2% because we did not adjust handling time when we added 15 new SKUs in December while our warehouse team was understaffed by 30%") get reviewed seriously.
Corrective actions already taken: List specific changes you have already made — not what you plan to do. "We have reduced our active SKUs from 150 to 80 to match current warehouse capacity" is actionable. "We will improve our processes" is not.
Preventive measures: Explain the monitoring and operational systems now in place to prevent recurrence. Reference the specific thresholds you're now tracking internally.
Submit your POA through the Appeal button on the Performance Notification in Seller Central. After submission, Buy Box eligibility typically restores within 24–48 hours if the POA is accepted, though Amazon can take up to 7 days on complex cases.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good Amazon account health rating?
An Account Health Rating (AHR) of 200 or above puts you in the green zone — healthy, with no risk of deactivation. Scores between 150 and 199 are yellow (at risk), and scores below 150 are red, which triggers deactivation review. The AHR runs from 0 to 1,000 and updates continuously on a rolling 180-day window. Most experienced sellers keep their AHR well above 200 by setting internal alerts at 50% of each metric's Amazon threshold rather than waiting for Amazon's warning.
How is Amazon account health calculated?
Amazon Account Health is a composite score combining three categories: Customer Service Performance (primarily Order Defect Rate), Shipping Performance (Late Shipment Rate, Cancellation Rate, Valid Tracking Rate, On-Time Delivery Rate, Return Dissatisfaction Rate), and Policy Compliance (IP complaints, listing violations, restricted products, authenticity issues). Each metric has a threshold — breaching any single one can drop your AHR and trigger enforcement, even if all other metrics are healthy. A single policy violation can override an otherwise good score.
How do I check my Amazon account health?
Log in to Amazon Seller Central → click Performance in the top menu → select Account Health. The dashboard shows your AHR score (green, yellow, or red), individual metric readings for each category, and any open policy violation notices. Check it at least weekly — daily during Q4 or whenever you're running high order volumes, since a sudden cluster of bad orders can swing ODR quickly when total order volume is low.
How do I improve my Amazon account health?
The fastest improvements come from addressing ODR first — it's the most heavily weighted metric. Reduce negative feedback by fixing product accuracy issues (descriptions and images that don't match what's delivered). Resolve all open A-to-Z claims promptly. For shipping metrics, use Amazon Buy Shipping to auto-generate valid tracking, maintain buffer stock to avoid cancellations, and add realistic handling time to your listings. For policy compliance, respond to every violation notice within 24 hours and appeal incorrect complaints through the correct channel rather than ignoring them.
What happens if my Amazon account health is "at risk"?
An "at risk" status (AHR 150–199, yellow zone) means Amazon has flagged your account for performance issues. You will typically receive a performance notification via email. If you don't improve within the timeframe Amazon specifies (usually 60 days for first-time metric breaches), the account can be suspended. An account suspension requires submitting a Plan of Action through Seller Central before Amazon will reinstate selling privileges. Repeated violations or unresolved critical issues can lead to permanent account deactivation.
Want Proactive Amazon Account Health Management?
Keeping every metric clean across a growing catalog — while managing inventory, listings, and campaigns simultaneously — is where most sellers start to slip. At YourSeller Agency, our team monitors account health metrics for sellers in the US and India as part of our Amazon marketplace management service, catching metric drift before Amazon does and managing performance notifications so account suspensions don't interrupt your sales.
We also handle listing optimization and cataloging — fixing the product accuracy issues that drive negative feedback and A-to-Z claims at the source.
Our 90-day sprint model. No long contracts. Results you can measure from month one.
