Most new Amazon sellers spend their first six months paying full price for everything — full referral fees, full FBA fees, full cost per click on every Sponsored Products campaign — without realising Amazon runs a standing set of incentive programmes specifically designed to get new sellers and new brands off the ground. None of it is automatic. Most of it has a narrow eligibility window, and once that window closes, it does not reopen.
At StoreStride we check for unclaimed new-seller incentives on almost every onboarding audit we run, because the pattern is consistent: sellers who are three, six, even twelve months into their first ASIN usually have at least one programme sitting unclaimed in Seller Central that could have funded their first few months of advertising. This guide walks through what is actually available, who qualifies, and the order to claim things in so you don't disqualify yourself from one programme by claiming another first.
Eligibility windows are the catch. Almost every incentive here is tied to a trigger event — your first unit sold, your Brand Registry approval date, your account's registration date — and counts down from there regardless of whether you noticed it existed. Check Seller Central's "Growth" or "Incentives" dashboard in your first week, not your first quarter.
Why Amazon Runs These Programmes at All
Amazon makes money when sellers succeed on the platform — more successful ASINs mean more referral fees, more FBA fees, and more advertising spend over the lifetime of an account. New sellers are the highest-risk, highest-dropout segment: a large share list a handful of ASINs, struggle to get initial traction, and give up within the first year. The incentive programmes exist to lower the cost of that critical early period enough that more sellers survive it and become long-term, fee-paying accounts. Understanding that motivation helps explain why the incentives cluster so heavily around the first 12 months of a brand's life on Amazon, and around the specific actions — Brand Registry enrolment, first PPC campaign, first FBA shipment — that correlate with sellers who stick around.
The Main Incentive Categories
Exact thresholds, currencies and caps change periodically and vary by marketplace, so always confirm the live terms in your own account's incentives dashboard before planning around a specific figure. The categories themselves, however, have been stable for several years:
PPC Advertising Credit
A one-off advertising credit, typically unlocked after Brand Registry enrolment and your first live Sponsored Products campaign, meant to subsidise the data-gathering phase of a new launch before organic sales exist.
Discounted Referral Fees
A reduced referral fee rate on a seller's first tranche of branded sales in a category, lowering the effective take-rate while a new brand is still establishing sales velocity.
FBA Fee Discounts
A per-unit discount on fulfilment fees for a capped number of units per new ASIN, intended to offset the cost of testing FBA before a product has proven its sell-through rate.
Brand Registry Fast-Track Tools
Once trademark-approved and Brand Registered, new brands get immediate access to A+ Content, Brand Store, Sponsored Brands and Vine — tools that are otherwise gated or far less effective without an established catalogue.
Amazon Vine Enrolment
New-to-Vine ASINs (with few or no reviews) get a limited allocation of free units sent to Vine reviewers in exchange for honest reviews — the fastest legitimate way to build initial social proof.
Account Health Support
Newer Seller Central accounts are often routed to dedicated new-seller support queues with faster response times than the standard Seller Support channel — worth using while it lasts.
Where to Actually Find Them
These programmes are scattered across Seller Central rather than centralised in one obvious place, which is the single biggest reason sellers miss them:
- Seller Central home dashboard — incentive banners often appear here in the first few weeks of an account, then disappear once the window passes
- Growth tab / "Grow Your Business" — where Amazon surfaces account-specific offers, including advertising credit and fee discount enrolments
- Brand Registry dashboard — shows which brand-gated tools (A+ Content, Brand Store, Vine, Posts) you have just unlocked
- Advertising console notifications — PPC credit offers are frequently delivered as a banner inside Campaign Manager rather than email
- Email from Amazon Selling Partner Support — genuine incentive notifications come from Amazon's own domain; treat any "claim your bonus" email asking for login details or payment outside Seller Central as a phishing attempt
Set a calendar reminder for day 3 and week 2 of a new account or new brand enrolment to manually check the Growth tab and Brand Registry dashboard. Relying on Amazon to proactively flag everything to you is how these get missed.
The Order to Claim Things In
The sequence matters because some programmes are prerequisites for others, and some have fixed windows that start ticking the moment an earlier step completes.
Register Your Trademark First
Before anything brand-related becomes available — Brand Registry, Vine, A+ Content, PPC credit tied to branded advertising — you need a registered (or pending, in some marketplaces) trademark. File this as early as possible; it is the long pole in the sequence and everything else waits on it.
Enrol in Brand Registry Immediately on Approval
The moment your trademark is approved, enrol in Brand Registry the same day. This is what unlocks the Growth tab's brand-specific incentive offers, A+ Content, Brand Store and Vine eligibility in one step.
Check the Growth Tab Before Your First FBA Shipment
FBA fee discounts are typically capped per ASIN for a set number of units. If you ship a full batch before confirming whether a discount applies, you may burn through the discounted allocation on units that were never going to count, or miss enrolling before the shipment closes the window.
Launch Your First PPC Campaign Only After Confirming Credit Eligibility
If an advertising credit is on offer, it is usually tied to spend after a specific enrolment date — spend that happens before you enrol will not retroactively qualify. Confirm eligibility in the advertising console before your first campaign goes live, not after.
Enrol New ASINs in Vine While Review Count Is Still Zero
Vine is designed for ASINs with no or very few reviews. Enrol as early in the ASIN's life as possible — the allocation and the value of the reviews it generates are both highest before you have any organic social proof at all.
Common Mistakes That Forfeit an Incentive
It's Not Only Brand-New Accounts
Several of these incentives reset at the brand or ASIN level, not just the Seller Central account level. An established seller launching a genuinely new brand, or a new ASIN under an existing Brand Registry enrolment, can still be eligible for Vine allocation, FBA fee discounts on that specific new ASIN, and in some cases advertising credit tied to that brand's first campaign — even if the parent account has been active for years. If you are expanding your catalogue with a new sub-brand or category, it is worth checking the Growth tab against that specific brand or ASIN rather than assuming "we're past the new-seller stage" rules it out.
Multi-marketplace sellers: incentive eligibility and terms are set per marketplace, not account-wide. A brand that has already used its PPC credit allocation on Amazon.co.uk may still be eligible for a separate allocation when launching on a different Amazon marketplace for the first time. Check each marketplace's Growth tab independently.
Not sure what your account is eligible for?
StoreStride audits every new client's account for unclaimed incentives as a standard part of onboarding — advertising credit, fee discounts, and the right sequencing for Brand Registry and Vine. Book a free audit and we'll tell you exactly what's sitting unclaimed in your account.
Get Free Amazon PPC Audit →Common Questions About New Seller Incentives
Do I need Brand Registry to get any of these incentives?
No, but most of the higher-value ones — PPC credit tied to branded advertising, Vine, A+ Content, and several fee discount programmes — are gated behind Brand Registry. A small number of general FBA and referral fee offers are available to any new seller account regardless of brand status, but the bulk of the value sits behind Brand Registry enrolment, which is why registering your trademark early matters so much.
What happens if I miss the eligibility window?
In almost every case, the specific offer simply disappears from your Growth tab and cannot be retroactively claimed. There is generally no appeals process for a missed incentive window, which is a different situation from a suspended account or a withheld payment — there is no case to open. This is why checking early and acting promptly matters far more than it does for most other Seller Central processes.
Can my PPC agency check this for me?
Yes. A competent account manager should be checking the Growth tab and Brand Registry dashboard as a standard part of onboarding any new client, precisely because these windows are easy to miss and genuinely affect how far an early advertising budget stretches. If your current agency has never mentioned it, ask them directly.
Are these incentives the same across every Amazon marketplace?
The categories are broadly similar, but exact figures, caps and currencies differ by marketplace, and availability can lag between Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and EU marketplaces. Always check the live terms inside each specific marketplace's Seller Central account rather than assuming a UK offer matches a US one.