Every Amazon seller account starts at 200, and everything after that moves by Amazon's arithmetic. Policy violations subtract points scaled to how serious and how recent they are. Resolving violations adds points back. Successful orders add a little more. The running total is the Amazon Account Health Rating. That's the number at the top of your Account Health page, and it tells you, before any notice arrives, how close your account sits to deactivation. Reading it early gives you the chance to address violations before they grow into an account problem. This guide covers what the score measures, what it leaves out, and the specific moves that raise a low one.
Here is what this guide covers:
The direct answer, with the current score bands verified against Amazon's guidance
What actually moves the number, and the Amazon AHR score explained without the myths
The performance metrics that sit beside the score, not inside it
How to fix a low Amazon account health score, step by step
The rating vs a suspension, side by side, and the 250-point benefit above the bands
What Is Amazon's Account Health Rating and How Is It Calculated?
Amazon's Account Health Rating scores sellers from 0-1000 based on policy compliance, order defect rate, and customer service metrics, and a low score can lead to selling restrictions or suspension. One precision point from Amazon's own guidance sharpens that summary: the AHR number itself is a policy-compliance score. It moves on violations, their severity, their recency, and your volume of successful orders. Order defect rate and the other customer service metrics sit beside it on the same dashboard as separate standards. Amazon publishes a specific list of the policies the rating includes, and the customer service metrics aren't on it. Both halves can end your selling privileges, which is why the dashboard shows both, but they move independently. A seller can hold a healthy rating and still face action over defects, and vice versa.
The current bands run in three colors. At 200 and above the account is Healthy and shows green. From 100 to 199 it's At Risk and shows yellow. At 99 and below it's Unhealthy and shows red, meaning the account is eligible for deactivation or already deactivated. New accounts start at 200, and the score reflects a rolling 180-day window, so resolved and aging issues fall away over time.
The Amazon AHR Score Explained: What Moves the Number
Amazon publishes the factors, not the full formula. Four movements cover most of what sellers see:
Violations subtract. Every unresolved policy violation on your account pulls the score down, with the impact scaled to the severity Amazon assigns it.
Severity and recency scale the damage. A critical violation drops the score to zero on the spot, regardless of what you brought into it, and Amazon's staff guidance on Account Health management describes a three-day grace period to address it before deactivation. Older violations count for less as they age through the 180-day window.
Resolving restores. Addressing a violation, whether by appeal or by acknowledging it where Amazon offers that path, adds points back. Ignoring one leaves the deduction in place.
Selling activity adds. Amazon's guidance puts a number on it: four points for every 200 successfully fulfilled orders over the last 180 days. That's why larger accounts can absorb a minor issue that would push a small account toward the line, and why a slow season can nudge the score down with no violation at all.
What is Amazon AHR in that light? A weighted record of how you've handled Amazon's rules lately, sized to your sales. It isn't a customer satisfaction score, and it isn't a shipping score. Those live one section over.
The Amazon Seller Performance Metrics Beside the Score
The Amazon account health dashboard splits into columns, and the rating sits at the top of Policy Compliance. The other columns hold the Amazon seller performance metrics, each with its own published target and its own enforcement path. Order defect rate stays under 1 percent, pre-fulfillment cancellation under 2.5 percent, and late shipment under 4 percent, while the valid tracking requirement varies by category and fulfillment method. Miss those targets long enough and Amazon can act on that basis alone, no matter what the rating says.
For dropshippers, that split is the practical map. Stock-out cancellations and late deliveries drain the performance columns. Sourcing problems, authenticity complaints, and drop-shipping policy violations drain the score. An account can bleed from either side, so monitoring means reading the whole dashboard, not one number.
Does a rising order defect rate lower the AHR score? No. It shows in its own column with its own enforcement path. The two problems get fixed differently, too: defects through fulfillment changes, the rating through resolving violations.
Amazon Account Health Warning Signs
An Amazon account health warning rarely arrives as one dramatic event. It accumulates: the score slipping toward 100, unaddressed violations stacking in the Policy Compliance column, and performance notifications naming specific listings. Yellow is the working-warning band. It means the trajectory ends in deactivation if nothing changes, and it's also the band where recovery is cheapest, because selling continues while you fix things.
How to Fix a Low Amazon Account Health Score
The repair sequence follows how the score is built:
Open the Amazon account health dashboard and list every violation. Each entry in Policy Compliance names the policy and the affected listings. That list is the entire repair job, in order of severity.
Resolve the critical violations first. These carry the largest deductions, and a critical one zeroes the score with a three-day clock attached. Follow the path attached to each one, which may be an appeal with documentation or an acknowledgment step.
Submit evidence where the violation asks for it. Sourcing complaints want supplier invoices matched to your business details. Listing complaints want the listing fixed first, then said so.
Fix the root cause behind repeat violations. Deductions return if the behavior does. A resolved authenticity complaint without a changed supplier is a scheduled repeat.
Then let clean volume work. With violations resolved, successful orders across the 180-day window rebuild the number at four points per 200. There's no shortcut on this step, which is the argument for starting it today.
To improve Amazon seller rating durably rather than once, the target is 250 rather than 200. Amazon's Account Health Assurance benefit enrolls professional sellers automatically once the rating holds 250 or higher for six months, with no more than 10 days below, and a valid emergency contact number on file. Enrolled sellers aren't deactivated outright over most issues; an account health specialist contacts them first and works the problem, provided the seller engages within 72 hours and doesn't repeat the same violation. Individual listing actions still proceed normally. For enrolled sellers, those extra 50 points turn many potential shutdowns into conversations first.
Amazon Account Health Rating vs Amazon Seller Suspension
The rating and a suspension are stages of the same story, and the table shows the gap between them.
The definition rows frame the relationship: the rating is one leading indicator of policy-compliance risk, while a suspension is an enforcement action, and Amazon can reach one without the other through the performance metrics. The visibility and status rows are the argument for checking the number often, because one side of the table sells while it fixes and the other doesn't. The room-to-act and workload rows quantify the difference between resolving a violation this week and appealing a deactivation next month.
Where Doba Fits the Score
Map the dropshipper risks to the two dashboard halves and the supplier layer shows up on both. On the policy side, sourcing documentation is the recurring test, since authenticity and drop-shipping policy complaints resolve on supplier invoices that match your business details. A legitimate wholesale relationship produces those records as a matter of course, though they still have to meet Amazon's requirements for the products and case in question.
On the performance side, cancellations and late shipments trace to inventory and fulfillment. Inventory and pricing sync is the standing control when it's monitored and set with sensible thresholds, and Doba's explainer on how dropshipping inventory sync works covers those mechanics. Fulfillment speed backs the shipping metrics: Doba has around 90 percent of its catalog shipped from US-based warehouses, with domestic delivery on those products in two to seven business days. The standing caveat applies: Doba's tools provide guidance, signals, and listing support, and they don't guarantee any score, rating, or account standing, because those decisions are Amazon's alone.
Watch the Number That Watches You
What is Amazon AHR, in one line? The score that prices your policy record before Amazon acts on it. The Amazon Account Health Rating is the earliest honest signal your account produces. It counts every unresolved violation, updates as you fix them, and turns yellow well before Amazon turns anything off. Treat 200 as a floor to defend and 250 as the target, and the appeal process stays where it belongs: in the guide you never needed.
Check the dashboard this week, resolve what's listed, and put the root causes on a schedule. Create a Doba account to get started with the supplier layer that keeps both halves of that dashboard clean.
