Quick answer. Amazon lets you supply a List Price, but it must represent a price at which you or other retailers have recently made, or intend to make, substantial sales, and you must keep it current. Amazon computes the Was Price itself and excludes limited-time promotional prices. Under the Marketplace Fair Pricing Policy, Amazon compares your price and shipping with recent prices on and off Amazon. A misleading reference price, a price significantly above recent prices, a multipack that costs more per unit than the single, or excessive shipping can cost you the Featured Offer, get the offer deactivated, or in serious or repeated cases lead to suspension. Pricing Health in Seller Central shows which offers are affected and why.

Pricing problems rarely look like policy problems at first. A seller finds a dozen listings inactive for “pricing issues,” or notices a best seller has stopped selling because no offer is winning the Featured Offer. The cause might be a strikethrough price set years ago, a repricer that ran overnight with nothing to anchor against, or a six-pack that costs more per unit than the single. Nobody set out to mislead, yet Amazon treated each price as a risk to customer trust.

Below is how reference prices work, what the Fair Pricing Policy prohibits, where the checks show up in Seller Central, and how to fix a pricing error so it stays fixed.

What a reference price is on Amazon

A reference price is any price shown beside your offer as a point of comparison, the thing that turns “$24.99” into “$24.99, List Price $39.99.” Amazon’s policy on reference prices says these appear on detail pages and in search results “to show savings to customers.” A reference price is a claim about value, so the rules around it are strict.

The List Price you supply

In many categories you can provide a List Price, such as a manufacturer’s suggested retail price. Amazon’s standard is that the List Price must represent the price at which you, or other retailers or sellers, have recently made or intend to make substantial sales of the product, and you are responsible for keeping it current. Three consequences follow.

It is a sales claim. A number on a price sheet that no retailer charges does not pass because it is printed.
It ages. A List Price accurate at launch can mislead a year later if nobody sells at that level anymore.
It must be consistent. Amazon says that if you have multiple listings for the same product, details including List Price should match across them.

Amazon also gives a safe default. With no ready List Price, you can use the first price at which you offered or will offer the product, or enter 0 to show you have none. If Amazon cannot verify your List Price, it might not use it, so a missing strikethrough can mean Amazon declined to display it.

The Was Price Amazon computes

The Was Price is computed automatically, changes over time, and excludes prices customers paid while the product was on a limited-time promotion. You cannot type it in. Your own recent pricing history feeds Amazon’s comparisons, which matters when a price suddenly rises.

The other reference points Amazon uses

Amazon’s Pricing Health page lists the reference prices it can measure your offer against. They are the Featured Offer price, the 60-day average selling price, the highest 14-day price (shipped and sold by Amazon), the product’s list price, the price derived from the per-unit Featured Offer price for a smaller bundle of the same product, the typical price, and the 60-day average offer price.

Four reference prices sit beside every Amazon offer and you control one. Pick a price to see who sets it and what it can do to your offer.

What the Marketplace Fair Pricing Policy prohibits

The Amazon Marketplace Fair Pricing Policy starts from the point that sellers set their own prices. Amazon says it regularly monitors prices, including shipping costs, and compares them with other prices available to customers. Where a pricing practice harms customer trust, Amazon can remove the Featured Offer, remove the offer, suspend the ship option, or in serious or repeated cases suspend or terminate selling privileges. The policy names four practices and says the list is not exhaustive.

Setting a reference price that misleads customers.
Setting a price significantly higher than recent prices offered on or off Amazon.
Selling multiple units for more per unit than a single unit of the same product.
Setting an excessive shipping fee, judged against current public carrier rates, reasonable handling charges and buyer perception.

The policy does not require the lowest price and does not ban premium pricing. The risk sits in the comparisons, such as a reference price that overstates savings, a price far above what this product recently sold for, a pack worse in value than its parts, or shipping used to recover margin. Sellers often call this “price gouging” enforcement, but the text is broader. A seller who doubles the price of a slow accessory in a quiet month can trip the same comparison.

How this lines up with the FTC pricing guides

The FTC’s Guides Against Deceptive Pricing (16 CFR Part 233) take the same view. A former price is a fair basis for comparison when it was the actual, bona fide price at which the item was offered to the public on a regular basis, and an inflated price set to enable a large claimed reduction makes the bargain false (section 233.1). A suggested retail price is not fictitious where substantial sales are made at it in the trade area. Amazon’s “substantial sales” test follows the same logic. This is educational information, not legal advice. For a legal question beyond Amazon’s policy, speak with a licensed attorney.

Amazon compares your total price and any List Price with several reference points, then Pricing Health groups the result into three outcomes.

For a closely related case, read Selling Knives, Airsoft, Gun Accessories and Pepper Spray on Amazon.

When the stakes are high, have our Amazon suspension team review your Amazon case before you respond.

How a pricing problem shows up in your account

Amazon’s page on unblocking listings that have pricing errors says it detects potential pricing errors based on factors including legal or compliance issues, the Fair Pricing Policy and the Featured Offer price, notifies you, and in more serious cases might deactivate listings. In practice the action comes in three grades.

Featured Offer loss. The offer is live but ineligible, so most shoppers never see it. Pricing Health says this happens when your total price (item plus shipping) is above the competitive external price, or significantly higher than recent prices.
Deactivation. Amazon detects a potential pricing error under the policy or the limits you set yourself, for example an offer price below your own minimum, and deactivates the listing. These appear under Pricing issues in Manage All Inventory.
Account action. Reserved for serious or repeated cases. This usually follows a pattern, such as the same SKUs deactivating repeatedly, a repricer that keeps pushing prices up, or reference prices left in place after warnings. See our guide on appealing an Amazon suspension the right way.

Diagnose the flag before you touch the price

The most common mistake is changing the price before knowing which rule was tripped. A price below your own minimum is fixed by correcting the minimum or the price. A price far above recent prices is fixed by bringing it back in line and finding what pushed it up. A misleading List Price is fixed by correcting the List Price, not the selling price. In each case, find the rule, correct the number, and control whatever set it.

Five pricing flags that each need a different fix. Open a notice to see which rule it names and how to answer that rule.

Where to verify each part of a pricing problem

Everything you need is in Seller Central or your own pricing records. Record what you find for each SKU before changing anything, because that record becomes your evidence.

Question	Where to check	What to look for
Which offers are deactivated for price?	Manage All Inventory, Listing Status set to Pricing issues	Each SKU’s reason and suggested action in the side panel
Which offers lost Featured Offer eligibility?	Pricing, Pricing Health	Offers above the competitive external price or well above recent prices
Did my own limits cause it?	Pricing, Manage Pricing, minimum and maximum price columns	Any regular, sale, business or scheduled deal price outside your limits
What changed the price?	Automate Pricing price history, repricer logs, feed history	The time and rule that moved the price, and what it reacted to
Is my List Price honest and current?	Your List Price field and your sales records	Recent or intended substantial sales at that price, and consistency across listings
Is shipping in line?	Shipping settings and your carrier’s published rates	A fee that carrier rates and reasonable handling do not explain
Is this part of a larger case?	Account Health page, Performance Notifications	Other policy warnings open at the same time

Reading Pricing Health, offer by offer

Amazon says Pricing Health gives an overview of inactive offers with potential pricing errors, offers ineligible to become the Featured Offer, and offers close to the Featured Offer price. Each section needs a different response.

Deactivated offers

These are urgent. Amazon’s guidance is to consider revising your price data to align with reference prices and in accordance with the Fair Pricing Policy. Amazon notes the download does not yet include deactivated offers, so work these on screen.

Offers not eligible for the Featured Offer

Amazon suggests setting your total price at or below the competitive external price when offers are not competitive, and aligning with the reference prices when offers are priced above recent prices. It defines the competitive price threshold as the lowest price plus shipping for the item, or items customers may consider equivalent, recently found at a reputable retailer outside Amazon. It may use per-unit math across pack sizes and may treat near-identical products with different brand names as equivalent.

If you believe that external price is out of date, you can file a self-service dispute. From the Help menu choose Get help and resources, select the Featured Offer tile if shown, enter the ASIN and SKU, and indicate you are disputing that the competitive external price has changed. Amazon says resolution can be automated in as little as 30 minutes. Dispute only when you genuinely believe the outside price moved.

Offers close to the Featured Offer price

These offers are eligible and within 5% of the Featured Offer price. Treat this as an opportunity list, not a violation list.

One-click actions

Amazon offers default one-click actions, so read what they change. Matching also applies to your business or sale price, and to your minimum price, where the match price is lower than them. One click can move several fields, so record it. You can download up to 50,000 Featured Offer opportunities and update in bulk with the List Your Products tool.

One offer’s price fields across the detail page, Pricing Health and the repricer. Open each tab to see what Amazon compares and what is missing.

The error messages and what each one means

Amazon publishes the Pricing Health warning and error messages. They fall into two families, conflicts between your own numbers and conflicts between your numbers and the market.

Message	What it means	How Amazon says to resolve it
Offer, sale or business price above your maximum or below your minimum	Your own limits blocked the price	Move the price inside your limits, or adjust the limit
Business price greater than offer price	The business discount runs the wrong way	Set the business price at or below the offer price
Maximum lower than your other prices	The ceiling sits under a price you set, including future deals	Make the maximum the highest of all your prices
Minimum greater than your other prices or your maximum	The floor sits above a price you set	Make the minimum the lowest price, not above the maximum
Potential low pricing error	A price low enough to look like a mistake	Keep the minimum below every price, and set a minimum so Amazon can confirm a low price is intended
Potential high pricing error	A price high against reference prices or policy	Reconsider the price against the reference prices and the Fair Pricing Policy, check shipping, and comply with local law

Two traps recur. Scheduled promotional prices such as Lightning Deals and 7-day deals count, so a minimum above a future deal price throws an error when the deal goes live. And the potential high pricing error maps most directly to the Fair Pricing Policy, so it is the one that most needs a root cause, not just a new number.

Repricers, minimums and maximums

Most high pricing errors come from a rule in a tool, often overnight. The only competing offer sells out, the rule has nothing to anchor against, and the price climbs. Other causes are a floor or ceiling set wrong, or a rule that interacts with a promotion. For the trade-offs of automated pricing, read our guide to the pros and cons of Amazon automated pricing.

Amazon’s validation rules for Automate Pricing

Amazon’s Automate Pricing lets you set a minimum and an optional maximum. Amazon says that without a maximum it keeps your offers from being priced significantly higher than recent prices. Its minimum and maximum price validation page sets two rules.

Minimum. Greater than the minimum referral fees for the category, which Amazon says is $0.50 to $1.00 in many cases.
Maximum. Less than 6 times the ASIN’s recent sales price or $200.00, whichever is higher. At a recent price of $10.00 the maximum must be under $200.00. At $50.00, under $300.00.

That maximum is a tool limit, not a fairness threshold, and a price well inside it can still be significantly above recent prices. Amazon also says prices set manually through Manage Pricing or feeds bypass these validation rules, which removes a guardrail.

A worked example of a repricer misfire

A hypothetical kitchen thermometer has sold at about $19.99 for two months against two competing offers. The repricer rule prices $0.50 above the lowest competitor, with a $15.00 floor and no ceiling. On a Friday night both competitors sell out, and the fallback raises the price each cycle. By morning the offer is at $64.99 and deactivated as a potential high pricing error. The figures are invented, but the mechanism is common.

Typing $19.99 back in leaves the rule in place for the next stockout. The fix has three parts. Correct the price toward the reference prices shown, set a hard maximum on the SKU, and change the fallback so it holds rather than climbs when no competitor exists. Amazon also warns that a new price the same as or marginally different from the old one may go inactive again, so a token cut is not a correction.

The same repricer rule before and after the fix, with hypothetical figures. Compare each setting to see where the guardrail was missing.

Fair pricing flags a repricer did not cause

Two other mechanisms produce the same symptom, and both are fixed by correcting structure rather than defending a number.

A price change that collides with a coupon

A hypothetical product carries a standing coupon for two months, so buyers paid less than the listed price. The seller raises the base price the day the coupon ends. The listed price jumps above recent selling history and trips the comparison, though buyers were never overcharged. Correct the price, then stage future changes so a coupon and a base price never move on the same day.

A pack priced against the wrong reference

A hypothetical single sells at $8.00 and a 4-pack at $34.00, or $8.50 per unit. That is worse value than four singles, which the policy names. Price the pack at or below the single’s per-unit value. A related problem is a catalog mix-up that attaches the pack’s price or quantity to the single’s listing, so fix the listing structure first. Our guide to fixing listing issues covers catalog corrections.

A legitimately premium product

Sometimes the comparison is wrong because the listing is matched against products that are not truly equivalent. Make sure the listing states real differences and sits on the correct ASIN, and support the price with genuine cost and specification records, never figures you cannot document.

How to fix a pricing error so it stays fixed

The routine works for one SKU or hundreds. Identify, trace, correct, control and verify.

The same fix runs the same way every time. Step through each Seller Central screen to see what to record, trace and correct there.

Many listings, a List Price you cannot support, and shipping

For many listings, Amazon says you can upload an Inventory Loader or Price and Quantity feed, and set minimum and maximum prices through the Price and Quantity template. Sort the file by new price against recent price and check outliers by hand before uploading.

If you cannot show recent substantial sales at a List Price, or a genuine plan to make them, do not hunt for a justification. Enter the first price you offered the product at, or 0. Losing a strikethrough costs apparent savings. Keeping an unsupported one risks the offer and the account.

For merchant-fulfilled offers, compare shipping fees with your carrier’s published rates for the real weight, size and service, plus only a handling charge you could explain to a buyer.

Offers that keep deactivating for price?

Send us the flagged offers and we will tell you which rule tripped and what controls fit.

Submit Case →Book a call

For a closely related case, read Selling Dietary Supplements on Amazon.

When a pricing case needs an appeal

Most deactivated offers return once the price is corrected. An appeal is needed for account-level action citing pricing, or for a flag you believe is wrong. The reviewer can see the live price, so correct first, then write.

What the explanation has to contain

The explanation needs four things. First, the rule, named precisely. Second, the root cause, meaning the specific mechanism such as the repricer rule and missing ceiling, the coupon transition, or the catalog mismatch. Third, the corrective actions already taken, with dates. Fourth, preventive controls, each with an owner and a start date, such as hard maximums on every repriced SKU, a daily out-of-band price report, and a staging rule for promotions. Our guide to writing a plan of action that gets read sets out the structure.

The evidence that supports it

Price history for each ASIN showing when and how the price reached the flagged level.
The repricer configuration before and after.
Dated screenshots of corrected prices live in Seller Central.
For a List Price, your sales records at that price or documented retailer prices.

Every document must be genuine and unaltered. If a record does not exist, say so and explain what you can show instead. Never edit an export or recreate a log. Pricing appeals are easy to verify, and invented support can turn a fixable case into a serious one.

How pricing appeals fail

They fail when the seller argues the price was fair while leaving it live, installs no control, answers the wrong rule, or rests a justification on numbers that do not hold. With a mechanical cause and a concrete fix these cases are often straightforward, though no outcome or timeline is ever guaranteed. The complication comes when a pricing flag sits inside a wider account health problem.

A corrected price without a control can come back next week. Toggle the gaps that apply to see whether your pricing fix will hold.

Common pricing mistakes that keep offers down

Treating the strikethrough as marketing. Copying a supplier’s suggested price into every listing is the fastest route to a misleading reference price.
Running a repricer with no ceiling. A minimum protects margin. A maximum protects the account.
Forgetting scheduled deals. Future deal prices must sit inside your limits.
Changing two prices at once. Ending a coupon and raising the base price together creates a spike.
Bulk uploads without a check. One wrong column can deactivate a catalog.
Confusing fair pricing with brand rules. A brand’s advertised price policy is separate. See what a MAP policy is.

A repeatable pricing routine

Daily. Check Pricing Health and Manage All Inventory filtered by Pricing issues, fix new deactivations the same day, and review every SKU whose price moved more than a set percentage against its recent price. Write the percentage down so everyone uses the same band.

Weekly. Review repricer rules for SKUs that lost competitors or went in or out of stock, confirm every repriced SKU has a maximum, and check upcoming deals against your limits.

Monthly. Audit List Prices and note the evidence behind each, set unsupported ones to 0, and check pack per-unit math and shipping fees. Our overview of Amazon policies sellers should know about puts pricing in context, and our Amazon account health maintenance service can run these checks with you.

For a closely related case, read Selling on Amazon Business.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a List Price on Amazon?

It is a reference price you can supply, such as an MSRP. Amazon requires it to represent a price at which you or other retailers recently made or intend to make substantial sales, and you must keep it current.

Can I set the Was Price?

No. Amazon computes it automatically and excludes limited-time promotional prices.

What if I do not have a genuine List Price?

Amazon says you can use the first price at which you offered or will offer the product, or enter 0. If Amazon cannot verify a List Price, it might not use it.

Why was my listing deactivated for a pricing error?

Amazon detects potential pricing errors using factors including the Fair Pricing Policy, the Featured Offer price and your own minimum and maximum. Pricing Health shows the specific reason.

How do I reactivate it?

Correct the price to align with the reference prices and your limits. Amazon warns a price the same as or marginally different from before may go inactive again.

Why did I lose the Featured Offer while my listing is active?

Your total price is above the competitive external price or significantly higher than recent prices.

What maximum price does Automate Pricing accept?

Less than 6 times the ASIN’s recent sales price or $200.00, whichever is higher. That is a tool limit, not a fairness threshold.

Can Amazon suspend my account for pricing?

Yes, in serious or repeated cases, according to the Fair Pricing Policy. Most single problems are handled at the offer level first.

Get Help With Amazon Pricing Errors and Fair Pricing Flags

If offers keep deactivating, the Featured Offer has disappeared across your catalog, or your account received a notice citing pricing, we can review the flagged offers, trace the cause and help you install the right controls. Submit your case or book a consultation.

This article is educational information about Amazon’s published policies and tools, not legal advice. Amazon updates its policies. Confirm current requirements in Seller Central before acting. Hypothetical figures are illustrations only. No outcome or timeline is guaranteed.

You can also see all our marketplace suspension services.

Amazon List Price and Was Price Rules and How to Fix Pricing Errors