Quick answer. Amazon gives sellers three discount tools, which are coupons, promotions (percentage-off and buy one, get one) and deals (Lightning Deals and Best Deals). Deals, coupons and peak-event price discounts all require a minimum discount from a validated reference price. Coupon discounts combine with other promotions running at the same time, so two modest discounts can stack into a deep one. Promotions break policy when the reference price behind them is misleading, when a discount is tied to a review, or when an outside campaign trades discounts or refunds for reviews. Violations show up as deactivated coupons, suppressed deals, a lost Featured Offer, removed offers or, for review manipulation, loss of selling privileges.

Most sellers treat a coupon or a deal as a marketing decision. Amazon treats it as a pricing claim that the product normally sells for more and the saving is real. When that claim does not hold, because the reference price was inflated, two discounts landed on top of each other, or the price jumped the day the coupon ended, it can look like price manipulation even when nobody intended it.

The three promotion tools and what each one allows

To a shopper every discount looks alike, a lower price with a badge. The three tools run on different rules and fail in different ways.

Coupons

Amazon’s Create a coupon page sets the limits. A percentage-off coupon must be between 5% and 50%, and a money-off coupon is a set amount. One coupon covers up to 2,900 child ASINs, the start date cannot be more than three months out, and activation can take four to six hours. Once live, a coupon can be edited only to increase the discount, which Amazon says is to maintain customer trust.

Coupons run against a budget. Amazon’s page on how coupon budgets work says the budget can be $100 to $10,000,000 and the coupon goes offline when redemptions reach 80% of it. The remaining 20% covers shoppers who already clipped it and have roughly 30 minutes to redeem. Fees are charged separately.

Promotions

Amazon’s promotions page lists percentage-off and buy one, get one for free. You must be a Professional seller with a feedback rating of at least 2.5 stars, or no rating yet. Books, music, video and DVD are excluded, and wine is excluded from all promotions. Promotional messaging appears only when your offer is the Featured Offer.

Deals

Amazon’s deals page describes Lightning Deals, which run for hours (usually 4 to 12, as Amazon determines), and Best Deals, which run for days. Deals are invite-only and the eligible ASIN list refreshes weekly. The seller needs a Professional plan and an overall rating of at least 3.5 stars. The product needs a sales history, at least a 4-star rating and new condition. Seller-fulfilled deals also require a late shipment rate no higher than 4%, an order defect rate no higher than 1%, a pre-fulfillment cancellation rate no higher than 0.5%, and free shipping. Most important, the product must comply with the reference price policy and have a validated reference price.

Every discount sits on top of a reference price

Amazon’s reference pricing and promotions FAQ says reference prices set the baseline for the minimum discounts promotions require, and that deals, peak-event price discounts and coupons all need a minimum percentage off the reference price. If the reference price is wrong or moves, the promotion built on it can fail.

List Price and Typical Price

You can supply the List Price. Under Amazon’s policy on reference prices, it must represent the price at which you, or other retailers or sellers, have recently made or intend to make substantial sales, and you must keep it current. If Amazon cannot verify it, Amazon might not use it.

Amazon computes the Typical Price, called Was Price in some stores, as the 90-day median price customers paid, usually excluding promotional prices. Starting May 18, 2026, if the Featured Offer price sits below the prevailing non-promotional price for more than half of the 90 days, all sales count, promotional ones included. Peak-event sales such as Prime Day are always excluded.

What that change means for promotions

Amazon’s FAQ uses sneakers at $89.99 with a promotional price of $74.99. Discounted for 30 of 90 days, the Typical Price stays $89.99. Discounted for 70 of 90 days, it becomes $74.99. A seller who discounts most of the time lowers the baseline that future discounts must beat, so the next coupon or deal needs a deeper cut to qualify.

The FAQ says both reference prices update regularly without advance notice. For the full mechanics of List Price, Was Price and the Fair Pricing Policy, see our guide to Amazon List Price and Was Price rules. If a brand’s minimum advertised price policy also limits how low you can promote, our explainer on what a MAP policy is covers how that private agreement sits alongside Amazon’s rules.

If this is already affecting your Amazon account, our Amazon suspension team can review the notice and prepare the response with you.

How discounts stack, and why stacking causes pricing errors

Stacking is the most common way a well-meant promotion becomes a pricing problem. Amazon blocks one kind and allows the rest.

What Amazon blocks and what it allows

Amazon blocks coupon on coupon. If an ASIN already has a scheduled coupon, the most recently created one is deactivated. The exception is a Subscribe and Save coupon alongside a reorder coupon, because each applies to a different buying option.

Everything else combines. Amazon’s coupon page says coupons combine with Lightning Deals, promotions, sale price, Business price and Outlet deals running at the same time, so a 20% Lightning Deal plus a 5% coupon gives 25% off. The system does not check whether a coupon overlaps other promotion types, and Amazon warns that combining can cause an unexpected order spike and overspend. Cancelling the overlap is your job.

A worked example of a stack

Take a hypothetical kitchen scale with a regular price of $40.00. The seller runs a sale price of $36.00, accepts a 15% Lightning Deal, and has forgotten a 10% coupon set up a month earlier. Applied in sequence, as this example assumes, the shopper pays $27.54, about 31% below regular price. The seller planned one discount and is now selling below margin while orders drain the coupon budget.

The stack alone breaks no policy. The risk comes next. The seller pulls the coupon, ends the sale price and restores the regular price the same day. The price customers see jumps sharply against the recent price, which is the pattern a fair pricing check looks for.

Coupon budgets and the 80% cut-off

Because the coupon goes offline at 80% of budget, a spike can switch it off mid-promotion and change the price customers see without any action by the seller. In Amazon’s example, a $4.00 coupon redeemed 50 times costs $200 of budget. Watch how close a running coupon is to the cut-off.

Pricing errors that happen around promotions

The Amazon Marketplace Fair Pricing Policy says Amazon monitors prices, including shipping, and compares them with other prices available to customers. It names four practices that harm customer trust. They are a reference price that misleads customers, a price significantly higher than recent prices offered on or off Amazon, a multipack priced higher per unit than the single unit, and an excessive shipping fee. Promotions create the conditions for the first two.

The coupon that ends on the day the price goes up

A seller runs a coupon for weeks, then schedules a price increase for the day it ends. To a buyer the product suddenly costs much more than yesterday. Even when the new price is reasonable, the comparison against the recent coupon-adjusted price looks like a spike. Fix it with sequencing. Let the coupon end, hold the price, then move it in steps you can explain.

The multipack that inherits the wrong price

If a promotion leaves a pack costing more per unit than the single, the Fair Pricing Policy names that directly. Check every pack size whenever a promotion changes one of them.

The deal that gets edited after it is booked

Amazon’s deals page warns that lowering the price on a participating ASIN may require lowering the deal price too, that closing a listing cancels the deal for good, and that adding child ASINs after submission can suppress or cancel it.

Automation is often behind these errors, such as a repricer adjusting during a deal or raising the price after a promotion with no ceiling. Our guide to the pros and cons of Amazon automated pricing covers how to set those tools so they do not fight your promotions.

Promotions that violate policy

Some promotion problems are timing mistakes. Others are practices Amazon and the law treat as deceptive, whatever the intent, and these move a case from a suppressed coupon to an account-level problem.

Fake or inflated reference prices

Setting a List Price you have never sold at, so a coupon or deal looks like a bigger saving, breaks the reference price policy and is the first practice the Fair Pricing Policy names. United States law takes the same view. The Federal Trade Commission’s Guides Against Deceptive Pricing say a former price used in a comparison should be the actual, bona fide price at which the article was offered on a regular basis for a reasonably substantial period of time. A price set high only so it can be “reduced” is fictitious, and so is a list price well above the price at which substantial sales are made. Amazon’s List Price standard of recent or intended substantial sales follows the same logic.

Raising the price just before a promotion so the discount lands back at the normal price is the same problem in another form. It creates the “significantly higher than recent prices” pattern the policy watches for.

Discounts tied to reviews

This is the most serious category. Amazon’s coupon and promotions pages both say promotions cannot be offered as an incentive for customer reviews, explicitly or implicitly, and that reviews from promotional purchases might not receive the Amazon Verified Purchase badge. The customer product reviews policies list several violations. They include offering a discount, free products or other compensation in exchange for a review, and offering a refund or reimbursement after the buyer writes a review, including through a non-Amazon payment method. They also include using a third-party service that offers free or discounted products tied to a review, such as a review club that asks customers to register their public profile so sellers can monitor their reviews. Inserting a request for a positive review, or an incentive for one, into packaging is also listed.

Amazon describes its approach as zero tolerance, with actions that include permanent withdrawal of selling privileges, withholding of funds, removal of the product’s reviews and permanent delisting. Infractions by partners, employees and agencies lead to enforcement even without the seller’s knowledge.

Federal rules say the same. The FTC’s Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials prohibits offering compensation or incentives in exchange for reviews that express a particular sentiment, positive or negative, and prohibits buying fake reviews. For how review enforcement works on Amazon, see our guide on customer product reviews and account suspensions.

External promotion abuse

Driving outside traffic to a promotion is allowed, and Amazon’s promotions page suggests social media campaigns. The abuse is using the outside channel to trade discounts or reimbursements for reviews, which the reviews policy names. Examples are a deal group that sends a code and asks for a review screenshot, or a “rebate” paid by a payment app once the buyer posts five stars. Separately, Amazon’s coupon page says its system is designed to detect potential abuse and Amazon can terminate a coupon or promotion on a flagged ASIN.

Coupon titles that break the rules

Amazon prohibits offensive words, discount percentages and event names such as Prime Day or Black Friday in coupon titles, and can deactivate a coupon that uses them.

See also Is Dropshipping Allowed on Amazon? What the Policy Permits and How to Stay Suspension Free and How to Keep Up With Amazon Policy Changes Before They Become Violations.

How a promotion violation shows up

The signal depends on how serious Amazon considers the problem. Reading it correctly tells you whether to fix a setting or prepare an appeal.

At the promotion level

A coupon is deactivated, or it never appears on the detail page. Amazon says a coupon will not show if it has not been activated, was deactivated, if your offer is not buyable or if your offer is not the Featured Offer. A deal moves to the Needs action section of the Deals dashboard or is suppressed, often because the price was edited, a child ASIN was added or the reference price moved. The FAQ recommends checking for Needs Attention alerts in the Deals dashboard two weeks before a deal starts and while it runs.

At the offer level

Under the Fair Pricing Policy, Amazon can remove the Featured Offer, remove the offer or suspend a shipping option. These usually arrive as an inactive listing or a listing that stops winning the Featured Offer, with a pricing reason attached.

At the account level

In serious or repeated fair pricing cases, Amazon can suspend or terminate selling privileges. Review manipulation can go straight to the account level, with reviews removed, products delisted and funds withheld. These cases appear in the Account Health dashboard and usually require an appeal. The decision path below shows which level you are dealing with.

Where to verify each part of a promotion problem

Collect the facts before changing anything. Each row below is a place in Seller Central, or an official source, that answers one question. Screenshot what you find with the date visible, because you will need it if the case becomes an appeal.

How to fix a promotion violation so it stays fixed

The fix follows the same order every time. Find the affected ASINs, name the mechanism, correct it, then install the control that stops it repeating. Re-pricing alone is not a fix. If you lower the price without touching the tool or habit that raised it, the same rule fires again next month.

Evidence that supports a pricing fix

The strongest evidence is the record that already exists. That means the price and promotion history for the ASIN, the repricer or promotion settings that produced the price, the corrected settings, and proof that the current price is within a range you can defend. For a List Price, it means records of the sales at that price, your own or other retailers’, that the policy requires. Never create, edit or “clean up” a document to support a pricing claim. If you cannot show substantial sales at a List Price, remove or lower it.

A sample root cause, corrective action and preventive control

Here is a hypothetical example of the detail that works. Root cause. A 10% coupon created in March was still scheduled when we accepted a Lightning Deal in April, and the two discounts combined. When we cancelled both and restored the base price on the same day, the price rose sharply against the recent price. Corrective action. On the date of the notice we restored a steady price, cancelled the remaining overlapping coupon and confirmed the current price against the last 90 days. Preventive control. Our promotions lead checks the Coupons, Deals and Promotions dashboards for any overlap before a new promotion is booked, and base price changes on promoted ASINs are scheduled at least one week after a promotion ends, logged and reviewed weekly.

That excerpt names one mechanism, says what was done and when, and describes a control with an owner and a cadence. It does not blame Amazon’s tools or a competitor, and it does not promise to “be more careful.” For the structure of a full appeal, see our guide to writing a plan of action that won’t be ignored.

When the problem is review manipulation

Review-linked promotions are handled differently from pricing errors. A pricing flag usually has a mechanical cause and a concrete fix. A review violation is a finding about conduct, and Amazon’s policy describes the response as zero tolerance, with permanent withdrawal of selling privileges among the possible actions. Not every case is lost, but the investigation has to be complete before anything is sent.

Map the whole campaign

List every promotion, outside group, agency, rebate scheme, insert card and messaging template involved, who ran it, when it started and when it stopped. The policy makes the seller responsible for employees, partners and third-party agencies, so “the agency did it” is a fact to document, not a defence. Collect contracts, invoices and messages with the service so the scope is clear.

Stop everything first

End every review-linked promotion, cancel the service, remove insert cards from stock and packaging, and stop any off-Amazon reimbursements. Corrective actions must already be done when you describe them, with dates.

Be accurate about what happened

An appeal that minimises the conduct, or claims ignorance that the records contradict, tends to fail. Describe what happened in plain terms, show that it has stopped, and set out controls such as approval of every outside promotion by a named person and a written rule that no promotion, rebate or giveaway is ever conditioned on a review. If you are unsure what Amazon allows when asking for reviews, our article on whether you can buy Amazon product reviews explains the line.

This is educational information, not legal advice. Where a review case may involve FTC rules or other legal exposure, speak with a qualified attorney.

Related guide. Amazon Seller Account Under Review

Common promotion mistakes that lead to flags

Forgetting what is already scheduled

Old coupons, Business prices and sale prices sit quietly until a deal lands on top of them, and Amazon’s system will not warn you.

Running discounts most of the time

An ASIN discounted for more than half of 90 days has promotional sales counted in its Typical Price, so future promotions need deeper cuts to qualify.

Supplying a List Price you cannot support

A suggested price that nobody charges is the fictitious list price both Amazon’s policy and the FTC guides describe.

Letting an outside channel run the promotion

Deal groups and rebate services can attach review conditions that breach Amazon policy and the FTC rule, and Amazon holds the seller responsible for them.

A pre-launch routine for every promotion

Most promotion problems are preventable with a short check before launch and a weekly review while promotions run. Score each promotion against the checklist before you submit it. The routine fits alongside the checks we run in Amazon account health maintenance.

The weekly review

Once a week, open the Coupons, Deals and Promotions dashboards together and list every live and scheduled discount by ASIN. Check the Deals dashboard for Needs action or Needs Attention items, compare deal prices with the current maximum deal price, check coupon budgets against the 80% cut-off, and look at the Account Health dashboard for any pricing or review policy items. Record what you checked and changed. That record is your evidence if a flag ever turns into an appeal.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I stack two coupons on the same product?

No. If you create a coupon for an ASIN that already has one scheduled, Amazon deactivates the newer coupon to avoid stacking. The exception is a Subscribe and Save coupon and a reorder coupon, which apply to different buying options.

Why was my deal suppressed?

Common reasons are a deal price above the maximum deal price, a change in the reference price, a price edit on a participating ASIN, or new child ASINs added after submission. Check the Needs action section of the Deals dashboard.

What is the minimum discount for a coupon?

A percentage-off coupon must be between 5% and 50%. Amazon also says coupons, deals and peak-event price discounts require a minimum percentage off the reference price, and the current threshold shows when you build the promotion.

Can I raise my price before a sale so the discount looks bigger?

That creates a misleading reference price, which the Fair Pricing Policy names, and the FTC pricing guides describe it as a fictitious former price. Because Typical Price is a 90-day median, it usually fails anyway.

Can I give a discount to buyers who leave a review?

No. Amazon says promotions cannot be an incentive for reviews, explicitly or implicitly, and the reviews policy lists discounts, refunds and free products tied to reviews as violations.

Why is my coupon not showing on the listing?

Amazon says a coupon will not show if it is not yet activated, was deactivated, if the offer is not buyable, or if your offer is not the Featured Offer. Activation can take four to six hours.

Can a promotion get my account suspended?

A timing mistake usually costs a coupon, a deal or an offer. Serious or repeated fair pricing violations can lead to suspension, and review manipulation can lead to permanent loss of selling privileges.

Get Help With Amazon Promotion and Pricing Violations

If a deal was suppressed, an offer was removed for pricing, or an Account Health notice cites price or review manipulation, we can review the promotion history and help you build a fix that holds. Submit your case for review or book a consultation to plan a compliant promotion calendar before the next event.

This is educational information based on Amazon’s Seller Central help pages and federal regulations as read at the time of writing, not legal advice. Amazon’s policies, thresholds and tools change, so confirm the current rules in Seller Central before you act. No outcome or timeline is guaranteed.

You can also see all our marketplace suspension services.

Sources

• Amazon Seller Central: Amazon Marketplace Fair Pricing Policy
• Amazon Seller Central: Amazon policy on reference prices
• Amazon Seller Central: Reference pricing and promotions FAQ
• Amazon Seller Central: Create a coupon
• Amazon Seller Central: How do coupon budgets work?
• Amazon Seller Central: Amazon promotions
• Amazon Seller Central: Amazon deals
• Amazon Seller Central: Customer product reviews policies
• eCFR: 16 CFR Part 233, Guides Against Deceptive Pricing
• eCFR: 16 CFR Part 465, Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials