The Amazon Account Health Rating — known as the AHR — is the single most important number on your Seller Central account health dashboard. It is a composite score that summarises your account’s overall standing across every performance metric and policy compliance dimension Amazon tracks. Unlike individual metrics such as your Order Defect Rate or your Late Shipment Rate — which each measure one specific aspect of your selling behaviour — the AHR gives Amazon and sellers a single at-a-glance indicator of how healthy the account is overall and how much risk it currently carries of enforcement action. Understanding what the AHR score actually measures how it is calculated and what actions have the greatest impact on improving it is essential knowledge for every wholesale FBA seller who wants to protect the long-term security of their selling account.

We are Brandhunterz Ltd — a UK registered wholesale sourcing company (Company No: 15342697) — and in this complete guide we explain exactly what the Amazon Account Health Rating is what factors drive it up and down what the three status bands mean for your account security and the specific actions wholesale FBA sellers can take to build and maintain a high AHR score consistently.

What the Account Health Rating Actually Measures

Amazon has not published the exact formula used to calculate the AHR score — but based on how the score responds to different account events it is clear that the score is weighted across two primary dimensions and that policy compliance carries more weight than customer service performance for most sellers:

AHR Dimension	What It Covers	Relative Weight
Policy Compliance	Number and severity of open policy violations — IP complaints product authenticity restricted product and listing violations	Primary driver
Customer Service Performance	Order Defect Rate — Late Shipment Rate — Valid Tracking Rate — customer complaint patterns	Secondary driver

A single unresolved policy violation can drop an AHR score from Healthy to At Risk or from At Risk to Critical — a much larger single-event impact than any realistic customer service metric movement. This means that for wholesale FBA sellers the most powerful account health protection action is preventing and promptly resolving policy violations — not just keeping your defect rate low.

The Three AHR Status Bands — What Each One Means for Your Account

The AHR score is grouped into three status bands — Healthy At Risk and Critical. Each band has a different practical implication for your account security and for how Amazon is likely to treat any new violations or metric breaches that occur while you are in that band:

Status Band	Score Range	Account Security Implication
🟢 Healthy	200 and above	Full account security — Amazon is unlikely to suspend for a single new violation — appeal opportunity more likely before enforcement
🟡 At Risk	100 to 199	Elevated suspension risk — one new violation could push account to Critical — immediate remediation required on all open issues
🔴 Critical	99 and below	Immediate suspension risk — Amazon may deactivate the account without prior warning — urgent action required today

What Decreases Your AHR Score

Understanding what pushes your AHR score down is the starting point for protecting it. These are the events and conditions that reduce your score — in order of typical impact severity:

Score Reduction Event	Typical Score Impact	How Long It Affects Score
New unresolved policy violation — any category	Large immediate drop — can move band	Until resolved — then gradual recovery
A-to-Z Guarantee claim filed against your account	Moderate drop — impacts ODR	60-day rolling window — fades after 60 days
Negative seller feedback — 1 or 2 star rating	Moderate drop — impacts ODR	60-day rolling window — fades after 60 days
ODR breaching or approaching 1 percent threshold	Significant sustained drop	While ODR remains elevated — recovers as defects age out
Multiple violations across different policy categories	Compounding large drop	Each violation impacts independently — simultaneous violations severely compress score

What Increases Your AHR Score

Improving your AHR score is not as fast as dropping it — the score recovers more slowly than it falls. Here are the factors that increase your score over time and the actions that accelerate that recovery:

Score Improvement Factor	How It Improves Your Score	Timeline
Successfully resolving a policy violation	Removes the violation’s negative weight from your score — single most impactful recovery action	Score begins recovering within days of resolution
Time passing without new violations or defects	Amazon’s algorithm rewards clean periods — the longer your account runs cleanly the higher your score climbs	Gradual improvement — weeks to months depending on starting score
Consistent low Order Defect Rate — well under 1%	Clean ODR maintained across a rolling 60-day window builds the performance dimension of your score steadily	Continuous — improves month over month with clean selling
High order volume with no defects	More orders successfully fulfilled without issue signals reliable selling behaviour and pushes score higher	Accelerates score improvement — higher volume = faster score build
Old defects and violations aging out of rolling windows	Customer service defects drop out of the 60-day ODR window automatically — policy violations have longer tails	60 days for ODR components — longer for resolved policy violations

The Fastest Way to Improve a Dropping AHR Score

When your AHR score drops — whether from a new policy violation a spike in A-to-Z claims or a deteriorating ODR — the order of priority for recovery actions is clear. Follow these steps in sequence and do not wait to act on any of them:

How Wholesale FBA Sellers Can Maintain a High AHR Score Consistently

The sellers who maintain consistently high AHR scores do not achieve this through reactive firefighting — they build habits and sourcing practices that prevent the problems that cause score drops from occurring in the first place. Here are the practices that most effectively protect a high AHR score for wholesale FBA sellers:

Protection Practice	How It Prevents AHR Score Drops
Source only from authorised distributors and wholesalers	Eliminates the primary cause of product authenticity complaints — unauthorised or grey market sourcing
Check brand gating status before listing any new product	Prevents IP complaints from brands who have restricted their category on Amazon
Never send damaged or opened units to FBA	Eliminates product condition complaints — a major source of ODR defects and negative feedback
Keep listing content accurate — match exactly what is in the box	Reduces customer disappointment complaints — accurate listings produce fewer not as described returns
Respond to every A-to-Z claim and negative feedback promptly	Demonstrates active account management — unresponded claims show negatively in Amazon’s assessment
Review account health dashboard every week without exception	Catches new violations within days of appearing — earlier response = better resolution outcomes

AHR Score Benchmarks — What Is a Good Score for a Wholesale FBA Seller

While any score above 200 is technically Healthy there are meaningful differences in what different score levels signal about an account’s history and current risk profile:

AHR Score Range	What It Typically Indicates	Target Status
700 and above	Excellent — clean account with no recent violations and consistently low defect rate	Ideal target for all sellers
400 to 699	Good — healthy account with minor historic issues that have been resolved — solid protection level	Acceptable — aim to push higher
200 to 399	Healthy but lower buffer — recent resolved violations or elevated ODR period still in window	Monitor closely — act to improve
100 to 199	At Risk — open violations or sustained ODR issues requiring immediate action	Immediate action required
Below 100	Critical — multiple open violations or severe metric breaches — suspension imminent	Urgent action today — no delay

Your AHR Score Improvement Action Plan

Action	Priority	Done
Resolve every open policy violation — with documentation	Immediate — highest impact action	☐
Identify root cause of any ODR defects — fix sourcing or listing issues	Immediate — prevents further defects	☐
Confirm all new products are ungated before listing	Ongoing — before every new listing	☐
Source only from verified authorised wholesalers	Ongoing — every purchase order	☐
Review Account Health dashboard every Monday	Weekly — non-negotiable routine	☐
Continue selling at volume with zero new defects or violations	Ongoing — the primary recovery mechanism	☐
All actions in place — AHR score recovery in progress		✅

Conclusion — Build Your Score High and Keep It There

A high Account Health Rating score is not just a vanity metric — it is a material protection for your FBA business. It gives you time to respond to new problems before Amazon takes enforcement action and it signals to Amazon’s systems that your account is a reliable long-term seller worth protecting. Building your score to 700 and above and keeping it there through clean sourcing accurate listings and consistent weekly monitoring is one of the most valuable long-term investments you can make in the security of your wholesale FBA business.

Find your next wholesale brand through our Brands Directory. Research every product with Keepa. Confirm every margin with AMZScout. And protect your AHR score using the action plan in this guide.