Your Merch account says Tier 10, and you have ten designs live. Now you are stuck, waiting for a number to change, and every forum post gives a different rule for how it happens.
Here is what Amazon actually says about tiers and daily limits, what sellers report, and where the two differ.
What a tier is
Your tier is the maximum number of published designs your account can have at once. Tier 10 means 10 designs. Tier 100 means 100.
The word that matters is design, not product. Amazon's FAQ is clear: when the same design is published on several products and in several marketplaces, it counts once against your tier.
So one design on a t-shirt, a hoodie and a mug, in the US, the UK and Germany, still uses one slot. That is why the dashboard calls your tier "Published Designs".
The tier ladder
Amazon's Merch FAQ (sign-in needed) says new accounts start at Tier 10 and lists tier levels as "10, 25, 100, 500, 1,000, and so on".
Sellers commonly report the steps above that as 2,000, 4,000, 8,000 and higher, with large accounts going well beyond. Amazon does not publish the full list, so treat anything past 1,000 as seller-reported rather than official.
| Tier | Published designs | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 10 | Amazon FAQ (starting tier) |
| 25 | 25 | Amazon FAQ |
| 100 | 100 | Amazon FAQ |
| 500 | 500 | Amazon FAQ |
| 1,000 | 1,000 | Amazon FAQ |
| Higher | 2,000 and up | Seller reports |
How tiers go up
This is where most of the confusion lives.
For years, the common advice was "sell 10 units to reach Tier 25, sell 25 to reach Tier 100", and so on. You will still see that in many guides. It may describe how things once worked, but it is not what Amazon says today.
Amazon's current FAQ says account tiers are calculated based on both the number and the percentage of products and designs sold in the last 12 months. Two things follow from that:
- Sales count, but so does your hit rate. Twenty sales from two designs looks different from twenty sales spread across fifteen designs.
- It is a rolling window. Sales older than 12 months stop counting.
On how the upgrade happens, an Amazon community manager wrote on the Seller Central forums that tier upgrades happen automatically when an account meets the program's criteria, that accounts are reviewed on an ongoing basis, and that there is no manual upgrade request through support. The same reply mentioned that product quality and other performance metrics are weighed too. Amazon has not published exact thresholds.
So the honest answer to "how many sales until my next tier?" is: nobody outside Amazon knows the exact number, and it is not purely a sales count.
Can a tier go down?
Amazon does not spell this out in its FAQ. But because tiers are calculated from the last 12 months, a slower year can matter, and sellers do report tiers dropping.
Two related rules are official:
- Daily publishing limits may decrease when capacity is limited. That is about the daily limit, not your tier, but it is why the number can shrink in busy seasons.
- Accounts with no sale in over a year may be moved to inactive status, according to Amazon's Royalties page.
Daily upload limits
Separate from your tier, there is a daily publishing limit: the number of new products (not designs) you can submit each day.
What Amazon's FAQ says about it:
- It is based on your tier level.
- It can go down when Amazon's capacity is limited, and during peak times Amazon may pause new submissions and edits altogether.
- It resets every day at midnight Pacific time.
- You see it on your Merch dashboard.
Note The unit is products, not designs. If you put one design on ten product types in three stores, that can eat a lot of your daily limit, even though it uses one tier slot.
Amazon does not publish a table of daily limits per tier, and figures in old guides do not agree with each other. Your dashboard is the only reliable source.
Reading the three dashboard counters
Your Merch dashboard shows three numbers. Amazon's FAQ defines them:
| Counter | What it means |
|---|---|
| Products Submitted today | How many products you can submit today (your daily limit) and how many you have used |
| Published Designs | How many designs you can have published; it equals your tier |
| Product Potential | How many products you could publish if every allowed design went on every available product and marketplace |
Note When you delete a design or product, the counters update, but Amazon says it can take several hours. Designs and products that were never published do not count against your limits.
The 18-month rule
Amazon's Publishing Policy says it keeps live the designs that have received at least one order in the last 18 months. Returned orders do not count toward that.
Designs removed under this rule stay visible in your portal with a removed status, and shoppers see a "product unavailable" page. In practice, a design that never sells will not sit in a slot forever.
Using your tier well
A few practical habits, all based on the rules above:
- Put each design on every product that suits it. It costs no extra tier slot, and Amazon's own FAQ recommends creating all available options. Watch your daily limit while you do it.
- Prefer quality over volume at low tiers. If the hit rate matters, ten careful designs beat ten rushed ones.
- Clear dead weight. Deleting a design that has never sold frees its slot for something new. Give designs a fair chance first, especially seasonal ones.
- Stay clean. Content policy problems can get designs rejected or an account suspended. Read why Merch designs get rejected before you upload.
- Remember royalty groups are different. Tiers limit uploads. Royalty groups (Creator, Plus, Premium) change what US sales pay. They are separate systems; see Merch royalties explained.
How MerchPPC helps
MerchPPC does not upload designs or raise your tier. Its Overview shows your tier, today's uploads and how many of your designs have ever sold, and the Catalog keeps never-sold products in view and has presets for products that went quiet, which helps when you are deciding what to clear out. Amazon still decides your tier.
The short version
- Your tier is how many designs you can have published. One design counts once across products and stores.
- Amazon lists tiers as 10, 25, 100, 500, 1,000 and so on. Higher steps are seller-reported.
- Tiers are calculated from the number and percentage of products and designs sold in the last 12 months. Upgrades are automatic; there is no request form.
- The daily limit counts products, resets at midnight Pacific, and can drop when capacity is tight.
- Designs with no order in 18 months are removed. Returns do not count as orders for this.
- For your real numbers, check the dashboard. Amazon changes these rules without much notice.
What is sent to Amazon today. Of the changes described here, MerchPPC sends the kinds it has confirmed against Amazon: a target's bid, a campaign's budget, a negative keyword and a new Auto campaign. Not sent yet: an ad group's default bid; a campaign's placement adjustments; a campaign's bid strategy; a campaign's audience bid adjustments; pausing or enabling a target, an ad, an ad group or a campaign; a negative product; removing a negative keyword; removing a negative product; promoting a search term to a keyword; adding a product target; adding a product to an ad group; adding products to a new ad group; a new manual campaign; a new Sponsored Brands campaign; one Auto campaign per product from a selection; splitting a campaign; a Sponsored Brands keyword's bid; a Sponsored Brands target's bid; a Sponsored Brands theme's bid; pausing or enabling a Sponsored Brands campaign, ad group or ad; a Sponsored Brands negative keyword; a Sponsored Brands negative product; a price change; adding a missing product; republishing a product; deleting a product. The extension shows those as “Not available yet” and holds them back until each one is confirmed.
Amazon changes its rules, prices and tools from time to time. Check the current details in your Merch and Amazon Ads accounts.