The Amazon Channel Audit
An independent expert's read on the true state of your Amazon business — its real health, profit, and long-term sustainability.
Is the profit you're being shown real? Are the wins the whole picture? Are the headaches the whole story? A senior leader needs an honest, outside read on the actual state of this business — not a dashboard that flatters it. And Amazon is uniquely hard to read: even a capable team, doing everything right, can't know where you truly stand without an Amazon-specific lens — on the real economics, the real position, and the real risks. That's what we bring. One powerful component of that read is the real economics: what your dashboard shows is revenue; it doesn't show co-op and marketing allowances, chargebacks and deductions, returns and return-processing fees, fulfillment and storage and placement fees, and the advertising you now have to spend to be findable at all. Assemble those into one view and the all-in cost to serve Amazon routinely runs 25–45% of revenue — and almost no leader has ever seen the real number clearly. You can't manage a margin you can't see — and the real economics are one component of the full read, not the whole of it.
This is a paid, independent audit of your Amazon channel. We work for you. Nobody else's name is on the answer.
It is built to do one of two jobs, depending on who you are:
If you allocate the capital (CEO, GM, owner, board): you get a decision-grade business case — an independent read on the real health and economics of the channel, a clear verdict, and what to do about it. Not a to-do list. A decision: invest, fix, renegotiate, or stay the course.
If you run the channel (Amazon lead, brand manager): you get an independent expert review that helps you run this channel better — support to be more effective, confirmation of where you're doing a good job, and the business case you can take to your leadership. The answer is yours, verified, with your name on the recommendation upstairs.
Same audit underneath, either way.
What you get
The full seven-pillar audit, verified against your actual data — not a checklist, and not the self-reported scorecard. We pull the truth from Vendor/Seller Central and a live walk-through of your account — working on your real net contribution (Amazon revenue minus every cost Amazon extracts), so the only thing we need from you is account access, not your books. Across:
Commercial Performance & True Economics — the real P&L, Net PPM by ASIN, your all-in cost to serve Amazon, which products quietly lose money.
Market & Competitive Position — where you stand in your category and who's actually beating you.
Marketing & Retail Media — whether your ad spend grows the business or just shifts sales you'd get anyway.
Brand, Catalog & Content Control — whether you control your listings and pricing, and whether your pages convert the traffic you pay for.
Supply Chain & Operational Performance — what you lose to stockouts, chargebacks, and the 2026 fee changes — and how much is recoverable.
Organization, Capability & Governance — whether your team, structure, and financial controls are built for how Amazon actually works.
Risk, Compliance & Account Resilience — what could take this channel down overnight, and how exposed you are.
A Strategic Verdict. One clear conclusion — invest to grow, fix the control problems, turn it around, build the capability, or stay the course — not a pile of findings you have to interpret.
A sized Opportunity Register and Investment Case. Every opportunity with its value-at-stake, the investment to capture it, and the cost of doing nothing — in conservative/base/upside ranges, one-time vs. recurring.
A high-level, actionable, executable plan — and three ways to act on it. A sequenced path (stabilize, strengthen, accelerate) across 90 / 180 / 365, plus direct answers to the specific questions you raised at intake. It's yours to run three ways: do it yourself, hand it to your agency, or hire us. You're buying a plan you can take anywhere — not a sales funnel.
If you want us to do it, the price is already in your hands. A pre-priced phase-2 proposal arrives with the readout — no "let us go work up a quote," no claim that isn't already in your report. It's simply the number for the "hire us" path, sitting alongside do-it-yourself and hand-it-to-your-agency. The audit fee stands on its own; there's nothing to credit and nothing you're locked into.
This is the audit's method from The Manufacturer's Guide to Amazon, applied to your own account — the credibility spine no agency's free account review can claim. We wrote the book.
How it runs
Intake call (30 minutes, free). A few questions about your business — and about what you most need answered. Two of those questions set the price: your US Amazon revenue band, and whether you run one channel or both (Seller / Vendor / hybrid). Nothing else does. (The audit covers one marketplace — US by default.)
You get an exact price on that call. $4,000, $5,250, or $6,500 — set by how much there is to evaluate (one P&L or two, channel conflict), not how deep we go. The audit itself is the same at every price — all seven pillars, every time. Same facts, same price, for everyone. No discounts, no pilots — for anyone, ever.
Sign and pay. 50% at signing to begin; the remaining 50% on delivery of your audit. Same full price either way — it's a schedule, not a discount.
We do the work. You grant account access (administrative is recommended — it's the only level that exposes your agreements, which a full payments investigation needs; read-only works for most of it). The clock starts at access, not signing: readout in ~3 weeks (Tier A), 3–4 weeks (B), or 4–6 weeks (C) of access. We work on your net contribution — Amazon revenue minus every Amazon-extracted cost — so we don't need your org chart, your agency contracts, or your company P&L.
Readout. The verdict, the business case, the executable plan, your questions answered — about an hour, but as much time as you need. You leave with three ways to act on the plan (do it yourself / hand it to your agency / hire us); if it's "hire us," the pre-priced proposal is already in hand — and you're free to ignore it.
The fee is the fee
We don't credit the audit fee against anything. You pay for the audit; you get an impartial answer and a plan you can act on. Whether you then hire us is an entirely separate decision.
That's deliberate, and it's the whole point. The fee is exactly what buys you an answer with no thumb on the scale — we have no financial stake in converting you, so "stay with your current setup, change nothing" is a verdict we're paid the same to deliver. A free agency audit can never say that honestly; a fee that "comes back only if you hire us" would quietly put the sell-incentive right back. The fee removes it. That's what makes the read independent.
And to prove it: we publish the share of our audits that conclude you should not hire us — "stay with your current setup" or "fix it elsewhere," either way no engagement with us. [Published once we have five audits on file.] If that number ever reads 0%, you should treat us like every agency that ever "audited" you for free. So should we.
Who this is for
Built for manufacturers doing $3M–$50M/year on Amazon, 1P or 3P — that's the best fit, and it's who the audit is designed around. Smaller than that and the free Channel Health Scorecard may get you most of the way; but if you're under $3M and you want the full Tier A audit anyway, you can have it — we'll be straight with you on the intake call about whether it's the right tool for where you are. Materially larger than $50M and there's more to evaluate than a standard tier covers — that's a quick "let's talk" to scope it.