Every published estimate of what you are owed comes from a company that wants a share of it

Key takeaways

• Published estimates of the impact of the 2025 reimbursement change range from 40% to over 75%. Each one is published by a company selling recovery services or software, and none discloses a method or sample.
• The change itself is real: since 31 March 2025 inventory lost before a customer orders is reimbursed at documented sourcing cost rather than sale price.
• That change cuts both ways for these services. It reduces the value of each recovered claim, which means the case for paying a percentage got weaker, not stronger.
• The only figure that matters is your own: pull twelve months of reimbursement data and compare it against your own margin and loss rate.
• The highest-return action is not a service. It is entering sourcing costs per SKU, which decides what every future claim pays regardless of who files it.

This site’s first guide was about the reimbursement policy change. This one is about the industry that grew around it, because the question sellers actually ask — should I pay someone to recover this — has an answer they can calculate rather than buy.

01What the vendors publish

Circulating estimates of the reduction in reimbursement payouts following the 2025 change:

Reported impact	Publisher	What they sell
40% to 60%	Gowrath	Reimbursement recovery
Up to 60%	Refunzo	Reimbursement recovery
Over 75%	Refunzo	Same firm, different article
50% to 75%	Nova Analytics	Analytics and recovery

These are not four measurements of one thing. They are four numbers with no shared method, no stated sample, and one firm publishing two of them. Every article ends in a call to action for the publisher’s product.

That does not make them false. It means they were produced by parties with a commercial interest in the loss appearing large, and none of them should enter your model.

02The argument the vendors do not make

Here is the part that follows logically from their own subject and appears in none of their material.

Before 31 March 2025, a lost unit was reimbursed at something near sale price. After it, at documented sourcing cost — see the reimbursement guide.

A recovery service charges a percentage of what it recovers. If the value of each recovered claim fell — which is precisely what these firms are telling you happened — then the absolute value a service can return to you fell by the same proportion, while its percentage stayed the same.

The change they cite as the reason to hire them is also the reason hiring them is worth less than it used to be. Both things are true, and only one appears in the marketing.

03The calculation, from your own data

Twenty minutes, and it replaces every figure above.

1. Pull twelve months of reimbursement data from Seller Central. Reimbursements already paid, and the inventory adjustments behind them.

2. Establish your recoverable loss rate. Units lost, damaged or destroyed, as a share of units shipped.

3. Apply your own numbers:

annual recoverable value
  = units lost per year × your documented sourcing cost per unit

Note it is sourcing cost, not sale price. That is the whole point of the change.

4. Estimate what is unclaimed. Amazon reimburses much of this automatically. What a service recovers is the residue — claims not auto-processed, discrepancies not caught, adjustments not reconciled. That residue is a fraction of the total, and it is the fraction a percentage is charged on.

5. Compare against the fee. Recovery services typically charge a percentage of what they recover. Whether that is worth it depends on the residue, not on the headline.

One published figure worth noting because it comes from a different kind of source: one 2026 fee analysis puts the average seller recovery at $1,500 to $3,000 a year. Also a vendor figure, also without method — but it is an order of magnitude, and against a percentage fee it makes the decision arithmetic rather than emotional.

04What actually determines your payout

The uncomfortable finding is that the single highest-return action is not a service at all.

If you have not entered sourcing costs per SKU, Amazon estimates them from comparable products. That estimate becomes the basis for every reimbursement you receive. On a high-margin, unusual, bundled or handmade product, it will not resemble what you paid.

No recovery service fixes that. They file claims; the claim pays out against the cost basis on file. A service recovering claims against Amazon’s estimate is recovering less than the same claims would pay against your documented cost.

Order of operations:

1. Enter sourcing costs for every SKU
2. File the supporting documentation — see the supplier invoice
3. Reconcile monthly
4. Then, if a residue remains that you are not capturing, price a service against it

Steps 1 and 2 cost an afternoon and change every future payout. Step 4 is a percentage of what is left after them.

05Evaluating a service, if you get to step 4

Questions worth asking, drawn from what the published material does not address:

What is the fee structure, and on what base? A percentage of recovered amounts is standard. Confirm whether it applies to reimbursements Amazon would have processed automatically.

What access do you require? Recovery requires account access. That is a real risk, and the suspension guide covers what a mishandled account costs.

Do you file claims Amazon has already auto-reimbursed? Duplicate claims are a compliance problem, not a service feature.

What is your evidence standard? A service filing weakly evidenced claims at volume is using your account to do it.

Can you show recovery on accounts like mine? Not a case study — a range, on comparable catalogue size and category.

Will you tell me my sourcing costs are missing? If they do not raise it, they are optimising the claim rather than the payout.

06What to do

Do not use a published percentage. Four sources, four numbers, no method, all selling the remedy.

Pull your own twelve months first. It is the only figure that describes your business.

Enter sourcing costs before anything else. It changes what every claim pays, forever, and it costs nothing.

Reconcile monthly rather than auditing annually. Claim windows are finite, and small regular reconciliation now returns more than large occasional audits.

Price a service against the residue, after your own reconciliation is working — not against a headline about what the industry is losing.

Remember what a recovered reimbursement is. It is your own money returning at cost. It is not revenue, and treating recovery as a profit centre distracts from the fee lines that are ten times larger.

Frequently asked

How much are sellers actually losing on reimbursements?

Published estimates range from 40% to over 75%, and all four found for this guide were published by companies selling recovery services without a stated method or sample. Calculate your own from twelve months of reimbursement data.

Are recovery services worth it?

It depends on the residue left after your own reconciliation, and on the fee. One vendor figure puts average seller recovery at $1,500 to $3,000 a year — enough to make it arithmetic rather than a matter of opinion.

Did the 2025 change make recovery services more valuable?

The opposite, logically. If each recovered claim now pays sourcing cost rather than sale price, the absolute value a service returns fell while its percentage did not. That argument appears in none of their material.

What is the single highest-return action?

Entering sourcing costs per SKU. Without them Amazon estimates your cost from comparable products, and that estimate becomes the basis for every reimbursement — including any a service recovers for you.

What should I ask a recovery service?

The fee base and whether it covers auto-processed reimbursements, what account access is required, their evidence standard, whether they file duplicates, and whether they will tell you your sourcing costs are missing.

Is a reimbursement revenue?

No. It is your own money returning at cost. Treating recovery as a profit centre distracts from fee lines that are usually an order of magnitude larger.

Sources

1. New Amazon FBA inventory reimbursement policy: managing sourcing cost (the sourcing-cost basis and the documentation required to establish it), Brandwoven accessed 2026-08-08
2. Amazon reimbursement policy changes: what every seller needs to know (vendor estimate of up to 60%), Refunzo accessed 2026-08-08
3. 2025 trends in Amazon FBA reimbursement claims (vendor estimate of over 75%, from the same publisher as the preceding source), Refunzo accessed 2026-08-08
4. Amazon FBA reimbursements 2025 (vendor estimate of 40–60%), Gowrath accessed 2026-08-08
5. Amazon reimbursement policy overhaul: manufacturing cost basis (vendor estimate of 50–75%), Nova Analytics accessed 2026-08-08
6. Amazon FBA fee changes 2026 (average seller recovery reported at $1,500–$3,000 per year), Nova Analytics accessed 2026-08-08
7. FBA reimbursement policy updates for 2025, eComEngine accessed 2026-08-08