How much cash do you need to start Amazon FBA?
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More than the first purchase order. The second order comes due before the first has sold out, and that gap - not a bad product - is what actually breaks new sellers.
The mistake: budgeting only the first purchase order
A seller selling 10 units a day places a 1,200-unit first order at $12 landed cost - $14,400 - plus $2,000 in one-time launch costs. $16,400 saved, budget done, or so it looks.
It isn't. With a 60-day replenishment lead time and a 14-day safety buffer, the reorder point is:
10 units/day × (60 + 14) days = 740 units
Selling out of a 1,200-unit order down to 740 units takes 46 days, not months - the second order is due before the first order is even half gone. That order costs another $6,000. By day 46 only part of that has been recovered in cash, leaving a $1,299 shortfall. The real number behind the $16,400 budget is $17,699.
Why selling faster makes the cash problem worse, not better
The order is already placed at a fixed size, so it does not get bigger when demand does - it just runs out sooner. Take the same 1,200-unit order and sell it at 15 units a day (1.5× the forecast) instead of 10: the reorder point arrives on day 6, not day 46.
Day 6 is entirely inside a 14-day Amazon payout delay. None of that revenue has settled yet, so none of it is available to pay the supplier. The shortfall on the same order jumps from $1,299 to $8,280. Faster sales raise total profit and raise the cash requirement at the exact same time - the two move together, not apart.
Why Amazon's payout delay changes the reorder math
Amazon pays out on a settlement cycle, not the moment a customer buys. A sale made in the days right before the reorder date has not cleared yet, so it cannot fund that order:
paid days = max(0, days to second order − payout delay)
In the base scenario above, 46 days pass before the reorder point but only 32 of them count as paid - the last 14 fall inside the payout delay. At 10 units a day that is 320 units, each returning $14.69 in cash (price minus operational cost), for $4,701 recovered against a $6,000 order. The remaining $1,299 is the shortfall, and it exists purely because of timing - the unit economics never changed.
Comparing two suppliers by MOQ, not just unit price
Two suppliers quote an identical $12 landed cost. Supplier A's minimum order is 500 units, which the 1,200-unit forecast clears easily. Supplier B's minimum is 2,000 - same price per unit, but the order has to jump from 1,200 to 2,000 units to qualify:
(2,000 − 1,200) units × $12 = $9,600 extra tied up
Identical unit economics, $9,600 apart in cash required, because MOQ isn't free flexibility - it is capital locked into stock the forecast didn't ask for. The larger order does push the next reorder date out (to day 126 instead of day 46), but that benefit has to be weighed against the extra cash sitting on a shelf, not assumed to be a win on its own.
When the first order is already too small
Cut the order coverage down and the numbers can invert. An order sized to 600 units against a 740-unit reorder point is already at or below the point at which the next order has to be placed - meaning the second order is due the same day the product goes live, and a stockout is projected before replenishment can land. With no time between launch and the reorder date, zero cash has cleared, so the second order (about $1,200 in this case) is entirely unfunded from day one.
The fix is either field: raise the days of stock ordered, or shorten the lead time. There is no cash-timing fix for an order that starts below its own reorder point.
Estimating total launch capital: the number everyone forgets
Most launch budgets stop at inventory plus one-time costs - $14,400 plus $2,000 launch spend, $16,400 total, in the running example. That number is real, but it isn't the total. It is the total minus whatever the second order costs beyond what paid sales have returned by its due date. Add that unfunded piece back in and the actual starting cash required is $17,699, not $16,400 - a gap that has nothing to do with the product's margin and everything to do with when the money moves.
When cash returned per sale is negative
Cash returned per sale is retail price minus operational cost - not profit, but not free of Amazon's cut either. If operational cost ever exceeds price (a $29.99 item with $40 in combined fees and ad spend, for example), cash returned per sale is negative: about −$10.01 a unit. Selling faster in that state does not close a cash gap, it opens a bigger one, because every additional sale removes cash rather than returning it. That is a unit-economics problem to fix on the FBA profit calculator first - no reorder-timing fix solves a negative margin.
Every number above comes from the same reorder-point math as the homepage's reorder point & days of supply helper, extended with order cost, payout timing, and the cash gap between two orders. Run your own figures on the FBA startup cost calculator.
Questions
How much cash do I actually need to start selling on Amazon FBA?
More than the first purchase order. Add one-time launch costs, then add whatever part of the second order isn't covered by cash from paid sales by the time it's due. In a common example - 10 units a day, $12 landed cost, a 60-day lead time - a $14,400 first order plus $2,000 in launch costs looks like a $16,400 budget, but the real requirement is $17,699 once the unfunded piece of the second order is counted.
The FBA startup cost calculator works this out from your own sales velocity, lead time, MOQ, and unit economics.
Why does my Amazon FBA second order come due so much sooner than I expected?
Because the reorder point is based on your sales velocity and replenishment lead time, not on how many units you originally ordered. Reorder point = units sold per day × (lead time + safety buffer). At 10 units a day with a 60-day lead time and a 14-day safety buffer, that point is 740 units - reached on day 46 out of a 1,200-unit order, not near the end of it.
Sellers who count only production time and forget shipping, customs, and Amazon's receiving process usually underestimate the lead time, which pushes the real reorder date earlier than they planned for.
Why did selling faster than expected hurt my cash position instead of helping it?
Because the order you already placed doesn't grow when demand does - it just sells down to the reorder point sooner. Take a 1,200-unit order at 10 units a day: the reorder point arrives on day 46. At 15 units a day (1.5× that pace) the same order hits it on day 6 - inside the payout delay, before any of that revenue has settled. The unfunded shortfall on that reorder can roughly sextuple for a 50% increase in sales velocity.
Faster sales are still better for total profit. They are worse for cash timing, and both are true at once - that's the trap.
Why does Amazon's payout delay matter for reorder planning?
Because Amazon pays out on a settlement schedule, not the instant a customer buys, so sales made shortly before a reorder date haven't cleared into your account yet and can't fund it. Only the days beyond the payout delay count as "paid": paid days = days to the second order minus the payout delay, floored at zero.
In a 46-day reorder window with a 14-day payout delay, only 32 days of sales have actually cleared by the time the second order is due - the other 14 days' worth of revenue exists on paper but not in the bank yet.
How do I compare two suppliers when they have different MOQs?
By the cash it locks up, not just the unit price. Two suppliers at an identical $12 landed cost but MOQs of 500 and 2,000 units aren't offering the same deal - forcing a 1,200-unit forecast order up to 2,000 units ties up an extra $9,600 in inventory before a single unit sells, even though the per-unit cost never changed.
A higher MOQ does delay the next reorder date, since there's more stock to sell through first, but that has to be weighed against the larger amount of cash committed up front, not assumed to be a free benefit.
What does it mean if my first FBA order is already below the reorder point?
It means the second order is due the day you launch, and a stockout is projected before replenishment can arrive - there is no selling window before the next order has to go in. Because no time passes before the reorder date, no sales cash has cleared either, so that second order is entirely unfunded from day one.
There's no cash-timing fix for this - only a bigger first order (more days of stock ordered) or a shorter lead time closes the gap.
Is the cash I get back from sales the same as my profit?
No, and mixing the two up is exactly what makes a cash shortfall invisible. Cash returned per sale is retail price minus operational cost - it includes recovery of the unit's own landed cost, which is why it's larger than profit and why it can fund a reorder at all. Net profit is what's left after the landed cost comes out too.
A product can look healthy on the profit calculator and still leave a cash gap between orders, because profit and cash timing are answering two different questions.
What's the difference between reorder point and how much to order?
Reorder point answers when to place the next order; order coverage and MOQ answer how much that order should be. They're deliberately separate calculations - reorder point is sales velocity times (lead time plus safety buffer), while order size is sized to outlast the lead time and still leave your chosen coverage once it lands, floored at the supplier's MOQ.
Collapsing the two into one number is what produces misleading first-order recommendations - a coverage-sized order can still be smaller than what the reorder timing actually requires.
Run your own numbers: the free FBA profit calculator models fees, storage, and cost of capital per unit - no signup, nothing leaves your browser.