Amazon Account Health Rating (AHR) and ODR: How to Keep Your Account Healthy

Short answer: Amazon measures account health with the Account Health Rating (AHR) and a set of seller-fulfilled performance metrics. AHR runs from 0 to 1,000: 200 and above is Healthy, 100-199 is At Risk, and 99 or lower is Unhealthy. For merchant-fulfilled orders, Amazon requires an order defect rate under 1%, late shipment rate under 4%, and cancellation rate under 2.5%.

What is the Amazon Account Health Rating?

The Account Health Rating (AHR) is a color-coded score that shows how close a selling account is to deactivation for non-compliance with certain Amazon policies. Per Amazon's Account Health Rating program policy, the score ranges from 0 to 1,000, appears on the Account Health page for each store you sell in, and updates in near real time.

You lose points when Amazon detects a new policy violation and gain them back when you successfully address it. Amazon also grants points once a minimum number of orders is fulfilled, so the score reflects the size of your business, and it bases the rating on policy adherence and selling activity over the last 180 days. Sellers with FBM orders can earn additional points through Buyer Contact Rate, Average Contact Response Time, and Buyer Dissatisfaction Rate, though Amazon says below-average performance on those three won't restrict your selling privileges.

What do the AHR score ranges mean?

Score	Color and status	Amazon's definition	What to do
200-1,000	Green, Healthy	Not at risk of deactivation based on the policies in the score	Prevent new violations and keep monitoring
100-199	Yellow, At Risk	At risk of deactivation	Work through listed violations, highest severity first
0-99	Red, Unhealthy	Eligible for deactivation or already deactivated	Start the appeal and corrective-action process

Amazon assigns each violation one of four severity levels: critical, high, medium, or low. Critical violations are the most serious and can lead to immediate account enforcement. Severity depends on how much the violation hurts the customer experience and whether it breaks applicable laws.

How do repeat violations affect your AHR?

Repeat violations hit the AHR in two ways. First, the point value of a violation increases each time you violate the same policy, so repeats drag the score down faster. Second, Amazon says an account may face immediate deactivation risk if it reaches the maximum number of repeat violations for a single policy within 180 days, and for higher-severity violations that maximum can be as low as two.

The takeaway is that closing a violation is only half the job. The process change that stops the same violation from happening again matters just as much.

Which performance metrics and thresholds does Amazon track?

Alongside AHR, Amazon applies performance targets to seller-fulfilled orders under its Order Performance program policy, with a dedicated help page for each metric.

Metric	Amazon target	Measurement window	Applies to
Order defect rate (ODR)	Under 1%	60 days	Seller-fulfilled orders
Cancellation rate (pre-fulfillment)	Under 2.5%	7 days	Seller-fulfilled orders
Late shipment rate (LSR)	Under 4%	10 and 30 days	Seller-fulfilled orders
Valid tracking rate (VTR)	95% or higher	Per product category	Seller-fulfilled packages
On-time delivery rate (OTDR)	At least 90% (95%+ recommended)	Measured against the promise before extensions	Tracked seller-fulfilled units

Missing a threshold has consequences. The ODR page says an ODR above 1% may lead to suspension of your FBM selling privileges, and the cancellation rate and late shipment rate pages describe the same type of restriction. Under the valid tracking rate policy, VTR below 95% in a category can suspend your seller-fulfilled listings in that category only; other categories and FBA listings aren't affected. The on-time delivery rate page says falling below 90% can restrict your ability to list seller-fulfilled products.

There is also a newer handling time rule. The Order Performance policy states that starting June 29, 2026, sellers must set accurate handling times for seller-fulfilled SKUs, meaning actual handling time consistently matches the configured value. Amazon recommends turning on Automated Handling Time to comply.

How is order defect rate calculated?

Order defect rate is the percentage of orders in a 60-day period that have one or more defects. Amazon counts three types:

1. Negative feedback: 1- and 2-star seller ratings.
2. A-to-z Guarantee claims: the claim types listed below.
3. Credit card chargebacks: service chargebacks decided in the buyer's favor by the card issuer.

Negative feedback and chargebacks are order-correlated, meaning Amazon looks at the order date, not the date the feedback or chargeback arrived. A bad review posted today can land in a window tied to an order from weeks ago. The math is unforgiving at low volume: with 100 seller-fulfilled orders in the window, a single defective order already puts ODR at 1%.

How do A-to-z Guarantee claims affect ODR?

A-to-z claims count toward ODR when the outcome goes against the seller. Amazon's ODR page spells out which ones count:

Counts toward ODR	Does not count toward ODR
Claims granted to the buyer where Amazon finds you at fault	Claims where Amazon finds you not at fault
Claims where you refunded the buyer after the claim was filed	Claims denied to the buyer
Claims where you or Amazon canceled the order	Claims withdrawn by the buyer
Claims pending a decision on appeal	Claims under the property damage and personal injury process

The practical lesson: refunding after a claim is filed closes the claim but still counts as a defect. Protecting ODR means solving the problem before a claim exists. According to Amazon's A-to-z Guarantee page, buyers must contact you first. For items not received, they must also wait 3 days past the maximum estimated delivery date, and you have 48 hours from their first message to respond through Buyer-Seller Messaging. For items that don't meet expectations, you must authorize or respond to the return request within 48 hours with a valid domestic return address, a prepaid label, or a returnless resolution; Amazon calls 24 hours best practice.

If a claim is reversed on appeal and you're found not at fault, it comes off your ODR. Appeals need evidence: tracking history, carrier scans, and the message thread with the buyer.

Where do you find these metrics in Seller Central?

Seller-fulfilled metrics live in two sections of the Account Health page. Customer service performance shows ODR and its components; Shipping performance shows shipping metrics such as late shipment rate and pre-fulfillment cancellation rate. Each metric's View details link opens a tab where you can download an order-level report.

The report matters more than the percentage. The rate tells you how big the problem is; the report tells you which orders failed, when, and why. Root cause work starts there: defects that cluster around one supplier, one forwarder, one carrier, or one product group point to the link in the chain that needs fixing.

What happens when you miss a threshold?

When a metric crosses its threshold, Amazon may suspend your FBM selling privileges or deactivate the seller-fulfilled offers with high defect rates. The ODR, cancellation rate, and late shipment rate pages describe the same path back: click Submit appeal on the Account Health page and follow the reinstatement instructions. Offers removed because of a cluster of defects in a short period are reactivated through the "Other policy violations" section of the dashboard. For on-time delivery, Amazon says appeals are reviewed within 72 hours and should cover what caused the low rate, what you will do to improve it, and how you will prevent a repeat. A full account suspension is a different process that calls for a detailed plan of action.

What breaks account health metrics most often in dropshipping?

In dropshipping accounts, metric problems usually come from the extra steps between sourcing and shipping.

• Source runs out of stock: You cancel after the order arrives. Amazon's cancellation rate also includes orders auto-canceled because shipment wasn't confirmed in time, so both push the rate up.
• Forwarder delays: The source package reaches the warehouse late or sits unmatched, the expected ship date passes, and LSR climbs.
• Tracking errors: A carrier name that doesn't match the tracking number, or tracking added after delivery, lowers VTR.
• Unrealistic handling time: If the handling time in Seller Central doesn't cover sourcing plus warehouse time, both LSR and on-time delivery suffer.
• Item-not-received claims: Late deliveries turn into A-to-z claims that count toward ODR.
• Another retailer's invoice in the box: This breaks Amazon's Drop Shipping Policy and risks a separate policy violation on top of negative feedback.

All of these show up in the first 24-48 hours after an order arrives. Watching the order, the source purchase, and the warehouse record in one place catches them before they reach a metric window; see Cloverlight Order Bot for a software approach to that flow.

What should a weekly account health checklist include?

1. AHR and violations: Check the score and any new violations; sort them by severity.
2. ODR components: Review negative feedback, A-to-z claims, and chargebacks separately and list the affected orders.
3. Open A-to-z claims: Respond on time wherever you have evidence.
4. Buyer messages: Don't leave anything unanswered past 24 hours; answer delivery questions with tracking links.
5. Return requests: In Manage Returns, authorize or respond to anything approaching 48 hours.
6. Late shipments and cancellations: Look at the last 7 and 10 days and note the cause of each one.
7. Tracking validation: Match carrier names to tracking numbers and fix errors before delivery.
8. Handling time: Compare actual sourcing and warehouse time against SKU settings.
9. Forwarder exceptions: Check the warehouse dashboard for unmatched or stalled packages.
10. Log: Record the week's deviations and fixes in one file; it becomes your evidence of process change if a violation repeats.

Amazon also recommends keeping your emergency contact number current, since it may call to offer personalized support when account health starts to degrade. If you'd rather hand off this routine, Cloverlight's Amazon account management service includes account health monitoring. If the account is already restricted, the work shifts to an Amazon account suspension appeal, and Amazon dropshipping training covers account health from the ground up.

Sources

• Amazon Seller Central: Account Health Rating program policy
• Amazon Seller Central: Account Health Rating FAQ
• Amazon Seller Central: Order Performance program policy
• Amazon Seller Central: Order Defect Rate
• Amazon Seller Central: Cancellation rate
• Amazon Seller Central: Late Shipment Rate
• Amazon Seller Central: Valid tracking rate (VTR)
• Amazon Seller Central: On-time delivery rate
• Amazon Seller Central: Amazon's A-to-z Guarantee claims
• Amazon Seller Central: Drop Shipping Policy