Amazon does not run one Q4 fee calendar. Peak storage starts October 1, 2026 and runs through December 31. Peak fulfillment fees start later, October 15, 2026 through January 14, 2027. Those dates don’t line up, which is why sellers who “ship early for Prime” still get hit.
I am not going to quote a rate card here. Third-party tables for 2026 already disagree on the exact dollars. Open Seller Central and look at your own storage and fulfillment schedule. What you can plan around without guessing: storage gets a lot more expensive on October 1, and anything still sitting in FBA on that date pays the peak storage rate. Aged inventory (181 days and up) and utilization surcharges stack on top of that. A slow unit in November can pay more than one fee at once.
Removal orders are not same-day. Amazon often takes a couple of weeks to process a return or disposal, longer into Q4. If you want units out before October 1, you create the removal in September, not September 30. The mid-month aged-inventory snapshot is another reason not to wait. A removal submitted late can still be sitting in the building on the 15th.
What this means if you sell on Amazon and also have a site
You have three piles, whether you named them or not.
Hero SKUs that will actually sell in October and November belong in FBA, in a few weeks of supply, not a quarter of supply. Sending 90 days into Amazon in September means you pay peak storage on stock that sits through the holidays.
Slow, bulky, or leftover units do not belong in FBA through Q4. They belong in a regular warehouse, on your site, in wholesale, or in a removal. Leaving them in Amazon “just in case” is how people fund Amazon’s building.
Inbound for Q4 still has to land. If you take Amazon’s minimal split to one FC, you often pay an inbound placement fee. Splitting across the FCs Amazon wants, or staging West Coast inventory and feeding FBA in smaller waves, is the boring version that usually costs less than a last-minute air freight panic.
Shopify and other off-Amazon orders fulfilled from FBA inventory still pick up peak fulfillment. If your site runs on Multi-Channel Fulfillment, those units are not “off Amazon’s calendar.”
What to do this month
Pull the FBA inventory age report. Anything already past about 150 days, or clearly not going to sell through by October, is a removal candidate. Create the Amazon removals order with enough lead time that it actually leaves the network before October 1.
Do not dump your whole Q4 buy into one inbound. Keep a few weeks of velocity in FBA. Stage the rest. We prep and send Amazon inbound from Palmdale, including Amazon FBA prep, and we can pick up freight from the Ports of LA and Long Beach. We do not have a warehouse at the ports. Palmdale is the building.
If the math on a SKU only worked at off-peak storage, reprice or kill it before October. Peak storage will not make a dog SKU profitable.
We can receive the removal, restock it for your site, kit it, or hold it cheaper than Amazon will in Q4. That is the job. Not a blog strategy.
Call 818-510-1499 or request a quote at https://shipdepot.com/get-quote/