Amazon Account Health Rating: What It Means and How to Protect It
Updated: 2 days ago
Your Amazon Account Health Rating is a score from 0 to 1,000 that measures policy compliance over your trailing 180 days. This score determines how close your account is to deactivation. Every seller starts at 200. Violations subtract points based on severity, while resolving them adds points back.
A score of 200 or above is considered healthy, while 100 to 199 is at risk. A score of 99 or below means your account is eligible for deactivation or is already deactivated.
This guide explains how the rating works, the performance metrics underneath it, what to do in the first hours after a violation appears, and the daily discipline that keeps established accounts out of danger entirely.
Understanding Your Amazon Account Health Rating
The Account Health Rating, or AHR, is Amazon's single-number summary of how much enforcement risk your account carries. You can find it at the top of the Account Health dashboard in Seller Central. The score is color-coded: green, yellow, or red.
The AHR reflects two key factors: your policy compliance record and your selling activity over the past 180 days. Amazon weighs the rating against account size. A violation impacts a small account's score more severely than it does a high-volume account with a long clean record.
Think of the AHR as a leading indicator rather than a final grade. By the time the score turns yellow, the problems contributing to it have usually been visible on the dashboard for weeks.
How Is the Score Calculated?
Every account starts at 200 and moves from there. Policy violations subtract points scaled to severity. Critical violations can drop a score significantly on their own, while resolving violations restores points. The score recalculates continuously across the rolling 180-day window. Old issues age out as long as new ones stop arriving.
The bands matter more than the precise number. At 200 and above, your account is healthy. From 100 to 199, you're flagged at risk. This is Amazon's way of telling you that continued violations could lead to deactivation. At 99 or below, the account is either eligible for deactivation or already deactivated.
Common violation types that drag scores down include intellectual property complaints, product authenticity claims, restricted product flags, listing policy violations, and review manipulation findings. Amazon adjusts severity weightings over time. Therefore, check the Account Health page for how your specific violations are scored rather than relying on point values from older guides.
The Performance Metrics Underneath
Alongside policy compliance, the Account Health dashboard tracks operational metrics that Amazon publishes targets for. The following metrics are crucial:
Order Defect Rate (ODR) must stay under 1%.
Pre-fulfillment cancellation rate should remain under 2.5%.
Late shipment rate must be under 4%.
Valid tracking rate should be at 95% or above for seller-fulfilled orders.
FBA absorbs the shipping-related metrics for you, which is one of its quietest benefits. Seller-fulfilled operations carry all four metrics. A logistics hiccup during a peak period can breach the shipping thresholds faster than most teams expect.
Those same metrics changed roles in Featured Offer selection in July 2026, which
our piece on Featured Offer eligibility explains.
ODR deserves special attention. It aggregates negative feedback, A-to-z claims, and chargebacks, breaching at just 1%. A handful of bad orders in a low-volume week can put a small account over the line. This is exactly the kind of exposure that weekly monitoring catches early.
A Violation Just Appeared: The First 72 Hours
When a violation lands on your dashboard, speed and accuracy both matter. However, accuracy is paramount.
First, read the violation completely. Identify exactly which policy Amazon cites. Then choose your path deliberately. Some violations resolve by acknowledging the policy and submitting a compliance acknowledgment. Others warrant a dispute with evidence.
For instance, an invoice trail can answer an authenticity claim, while proof of authorization can address an IP complaint. Submitting a weak dispute to buy time usually backfires. Repeated rejected appeals can dig the hole deeper.
IP complaints deserve particular care. They are often a favorite weapon of bad-faith competitors. Document everything, respond through the proper channel, and if complaints persist, treat the root cause as a brand defense problem. You can use the toolkit in our Amazon brand protection guide.
If the situation has escalated past violations into deactivation, the appeal process is its own discipline. This is covered step by step in our account suspension guide.
Account Health Assurance: The Safety Net Worth Earning
Account Health Assurance is Amazon's program for sellers with consistently strong ratings. It changes the enforcement equation. Enrolled accounts don't face immediate deactivation when issues arise. Instead, Amazon contacts you and provides 72 hours to work through the problem together.
Eligibility requires a Professional selling plan, an AHR of 250 or above maintained for at least six months, and no more than 10 days below that line. A valid emergency contact number must also be on file. Enrollment is automatic for qualifying accounts, confirmed by email.
The program launched in the US and Canada, and Amazon has expanded availability since. So, confirm current marketplace coverage on the Account Health Assurance page in Seller Central.
The strategic takeaway: 250 is the real target, never 200. Operating with that buffer converts account health from a constant threat into a managed metric with a built-in safety net.
Protection Is a Daily Discipline
Accounts rarely die from one catastrophic event. They die from small, unaddressed issues compounding. An ignored listing violation here, a creeping late shipment rate there, an IP complaint sitting unanswered through a busy week—these can all lead to trouble.
The protective routine is unglamorous but effective. Check the Account Health dashboard daily, even if it takes just ninety seconds. Respond to every violation within 48 hours. Audit new listings for compliance before they go live, especially in gated or ingredient-sensitive categories. Watch the performance metrics weekly against their thresholds rather than waiting for warning emails.
This discipline is a core function of professional Amazon account management. It's a major reason our client retention sits at 98% across 12+ years of managing accounts. The brands that scale treat account health as operations, never as crisis response.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good Account Health Rating on Amazon?
A score of 200 or above is rated healthy, but 250 and above is the practical target. Maintaining 250 for six months qualifies Professional sellers for Account Health Assurance and its 72-hour resolution protection. Established accounts running clean operations typically sit well above the threshold. The buffer is what protects you when a surprise violation lands.
How long do violations affect my Account Health Rating?
The rating reflects your trailing 180 days of activity. Resolved violations age out of the calculation over roughly six months. Resolving a violation also restores points immediately rather than waiting for the window to roll. Unresolved violations keep weighing on the score. This is why fast, complete responses beat waiting in every scenario.
Can my account be deactivated even with a healthy score?
Yes. Certain critical violations, such as fraud or serious safety issues, can trigger immediate enforcement regardless of your score. The rating itself can drop sharply from a single critical violation. A healthy AHR lowers your risk substantially but never makes the account untouchable. Compliance review on every listing still matters.
What is Amazon Account Health Assurance?
Account Health Assurance is a free program that protects qualifying accounts from immediate deactivation. It gives you 72 hours to resolve issues directly with Amazon instead. Eligibility requires a Professional plan, an AHR of 250 or higher for six months, with no more than 10 days below, and a valid emergency contact. Enrollment happens automatically by email when you qualify.
Should I appeal or acknowledge a policy violation?
Match the response to the facts. Acknowledge and submit compliance documentation when the violation is accurate. Amazon rewards honest resolution with restored points. Dispute with evidence when the claim is wrong, such as invoices answering an authenticity flag. Reflexively appealing everything weakens your credibility, and repeated rejected appeals make later enforcement harsher.
Your Account Health Rating shouldn't keep you up at night. We monitor, respond, and protect account health daily across 100+ brands, so violations get handled in hours instead of festering. Talk to an account strategist.
Score dropping and not sure why? We'll review your violations, metrics, and response history and map the fastest path back above 250.
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