Aug 10, 2026 · 7 min read

How to Audit Your Amazon Associates Earnings Report

A commission audit is how you catch underpayments, missing conversions, and the impact of rate changes on your own account. Since the 2026 Amazon commission cuts rolled out without a clean public changelog, the audit has gone from "good practice" to "the only way to know." Here's how to do it — using our tool, with your data staying in your browser the entire time.

Why audit at all?

Amazon Associates pays per category, and categories change. When a rate drops from 10% to 4–5% and nobody tells you, your payout shrinks while your clicks look normal. Add the reduced item-level reporting introduced in 2026, and eyeballing a dashboard is no longer enough. An audit compares what you were actually paid against what the correct rate should have produced — and flags the difference line by line.

Step 1 — Export your report

In Amazon Associates Central go to Reports → Product Earnings Report and download the CSV. Pick a period you want to verify — typically the last 3 to 6 months, or since you believe a rate change happened. The CSV includes order dates, product categories, and the commission you were paid, which is everything an audit needs.

Step 2 — Run the audit

Open the Earnings Audit, drag your file in, and click Audit my report. It's processed locally — nothing is uploaded, no account is required. Select your market and category so the tool uses the correct rate set for your region and order dates.

Step 3 — Understand the results

• Flagged line items: possible irregularities where the reported commission is below what the current rate should produce. Each comes with a plain-language reason.
• Worst categories: where the biggest possible shortfall sits, so you know which part of your content to re-evaluate first.
• Excluded rows: returns, refunds and uncategorised lines are separated so they're never falsely flagged against you.

The wording matters: results are labelled "possible irregularity," not "guaranteed claim." That's deliberate. It protects you from wasting Amazon's time on false positives while still giving you a precise list to check.

Step 4 — Verify and act

Cross-check the flagged items against your dashboard. If a flagged line looks correct after checking the item's category, move on. If the rate genuinely should have been higher, use the claim export — free on every plan — to build a clean summary you can send to Amazon support. Flagged = possible, so verify before pursuing.

How often should you audit?

After any suspected rate change, monthly for the first quarter is reasonable. Once things settle, a quarterly audit is enough for most single-site affiliates. Portfolio owners managing many sites can run the same file through as many times as they like — there's no cost to re-auditing, and each run is instant.

Frequently asked questions