Amazon shipment performance is measured by three metrics on the Shipping Performance page in Seller Central: On-Time Delivery Rate, Late Shipment Rate, and Valid Tracking Rate. All three apply to orders you fulfill yourself. FBA orders are Amazon’s responsibility and do not count against you here.
This guide is the operational one: where the numbers live, what each actually measures, what breaks them, and how to fix each without guessing. If you want the wider picture of every account health threshold and how enforcement works, our guide to Amazon customer satisfaction metrics covers that instead.
One thing worth knowing before anything else, because it is the single most useful lever on this page: buying your labels through Amazon Buy Shipping protects you. Orders shipped with Amazon Buy Shipping and dispatched on time are protected against late delivery counting against your metrics, and against certain A-to-Z claims. We tested this across seller-fulfilled accounts and it resolves more shipping metric problems than any process change.
Where to find your Amazon shipment performance numbers
Shipping Performance is the primary page, under Account Health in Seller Central. It shows OTDR, LSR, and VTR with your current figures and the required thresholds, and lets you drill into the individual orders that failed.
That drill-down is the part sellers skip. A percentage tells you there is a problem. The order list tells you which carrier, which day, and which destination, which is what you actually need. I’d start there rather than with the summary.
Manage Orders shows individual order status, tracking, and handling deadlines in real time.
Account Health puts shipping performance in context alongside your other metrics and your Account Health Rating.
Fulfillment reports in the reports section give you the raw order data if you want to analyze it properly in a spreadsheet.
Third party tools such as ShipStation consolidate carrier data across channels and are genuinely useful above a certain volume. Below that volume they are a subscription solving a problem you do not have yet.
A note on how the reports are structured, because it trips people up. The Shipping Performance summary and the underlying fulfillment reports do not always agree on a given afternoon, since one refreshes on a lag. Neither is wrong. Treat the summary as the scoreboard Amazon judges you on, and the raw order export as the evidence you investigate with, and never try to reconcile them to the decimal. I’ve found sellers lose whole mornings to that reconciliation and learn nothing.
The three metrics, and what each really measures
| Metric | What it counts | Applies to |
|---|---|---|
| On-Time Delivery Rate | Orders delivered by the promised delivery date | Seller-fulfilled |
| Late Shipment Rate | Orders confirmed shipped after the expected ship date | Seller-fulfilled |
| Valid Tracking Rate | Shipments with valid, carrier-confirmed tracking | Seller-fulfilled |
On-Time Delivery Rate. The hardest of the three, because delivery is the carrier’s job rather than yours. Amazon has revised both the required OTDR level and how it is calculated, including how promise extensions are treated, so read the current requirement on your own Shipping Performance page rather than trusting a figure from an article. What has not changed is the direction: Amazon has tightened this metric rather than relaxed it.
Late Shipment Rate. Measures whether you confirmed shipment within your stated handling time, with the long-standing requirement being under 4%. This one is entirely within your control, which is why failing it is the least forgivable of the three.
Valid Tracking Rate. The share of shipments with tracking a carrier actually confirms, required above 95% and assessed per category. This fails quietly for sellers using informal shipping arrangements, hand-entered numbers, or carriers Amazon does not integrate with.
Note the asymmetry. LSR is about your warehouse. VTR is about your data. OTDR is about your carrier. Three different problems wearing similar-looking numbers, which is why diagnosing from the summary page alone rarely works.
Diagnosing which one is broken
Take the failing metric and read it backward.
LSR failing. Your handling time promise exceeds your actual capacity. Either you are picking slower than you think, orders arrive after your daily cutoff, or weekends are not covered. Fix the promise, not the pace, and do it before peak season rather than during it.
VTR failing. Either tracking is not being uploaded, is being uploaded late, or the numbers are not valid for the carrier selected. Check whether the failures cluster with one carrier, which they usually do.
OTDR failing with LSR healthy. You shipped on time and the carrier delivered late. This is a carrier problem or a transit time problem. Either change carrier, change the shipping template so the promise reflects reality, or use Buy Shipping so Amazon’s own transit estimates apply.
All three failing. Usually capacity rather than process. In our experience this is a seller who grew past their fulfillment setup and has not rebuilt it, and no amount of metric tuning fixes that.
Fixing each one
Use Amazon Buy Shipping. Worth repeating because it is the highest return change available. Buying labels through Amazon means the tracking is automatically valid, transit estimates match the promise Amazon made the buyer, and on-time dispatch earns protection on late deliveries and certain claims. I’d move here before optimizing anything else.
Set handling times honestly. Set them to what you can hit in a bad week with someone off sick, not what you can hit on a good Tuesday. A longer promise you keep beats a shorter one you miss, and buyers care far less about the difference than Amazon does.
Choose carriers on reliability, not price. The cheapest option is the most expensive once metrics are counted. A suspension costs more than a year of postage savings, and I have watched sellers make that trade without noticing they were making it.
Automate tracking upload. Manual entry produces typos, and typos produce VTR failures nobody notices for a month. In my experience a single mistyped digit costs more than the hour saved by skipping integration.
Keep inventory accurate. Overselling produces cancellations rather than late shipments, but it comes from the same root. Our guide to inventory management software covers the tooling, and our guide to why orders get canceled covers the metric that catches it.
Consider FBA for the problem SKUs. Moving fulfillment to Amazon removes all three metrics from your responsibility. That is a real strategic option rather than an admission of defeat, and for sellers whose shipping performance keeps failing it is usually the right answer.
What happens if you miss the thresholds
Amazon issues a performance notification and asks for a plan of action. Ignore it or answer it vaguely and selling privileges get restricted, then deactivated.
The plan Amazon wants has a fixed structure: root cause, corrective action already taken, and prevention. Naming a specific failure works far better than describing general improvement, and I would rather admit a real cause than argue a flattering one. Our guide to appealing a policy violation sets out the format, and our guide to suspended accounts covers what changes after deactivation.
Shipping performance also affects Featured Offer eligibility, which is why sellers who fix their pricing and still lose the Buy Box are often looking at the wrong problem entirely.
How often to check
Weekly for most sellers, daily during peak and any period when something has already gone wrong.
These metrics use rolling windows, so a bad week keeps showing in the number for a while after you have fixed it. Watch the direction rather than the reading, and give a fix a couple of weeks before deciding it did not work. I’ve found sellers abandon working changes because the headline number had not caught up yet.
Account health monitoring is part of our Amazon account management service, and our account audit is the diagnostic version if you want a read before deciding what to change.
FAQ
How do I track Amazon shipment performance?
Open the Shipping Performance page under Account Health in Seller Central. It shows On-Time Delivery Rate, Late Shipment Rate, and Valid Tracking Rate against their required thresholds, and lets you drill into the individual orders that failed each one.
What is a good Late Shipment Rate on Amazon?
Amazon requires seller-fulfilled Late Shipment Rate to stay under 4%. It measures whether you confirmed shipment within your stated handling time, so it is entirely within your control and is usually fixed by setting a realistic handling time.
Does Amazon Buy Shipping protect my metrics?
Yes. Orders shipped through Amazon Buy Shipping and dispatched on time receive protection against late deliveries counting against your metrics and against certain A-to-Z Guarantee claims. It is the highest return change available to most seller-fulfilled accounts.
Do FBA orders affect my shipment performance metrics?
No. On-Time Delivery Rate, Late Shipment Rate, and Valid Tracking Rate apply to orders you fulfill yourself. Amazon is responsible for fulfillment performance on FBA orders, which is one legitimate reason to move problem SKUs to FBA.
Why is my On-Time Delivery Rate failing when I ship on time?
Because OTDR measures delivery rather than dispatch. If your Late Shipment Rate is healthy and OTDR is not, the carrier is delivering late or your shipping template promises faster transit than the carrier provides. Change carrier, adjust the template, or use Buy Shipping.
How often should I check shipment performance?
Weekly under normal conditions and daily during peak season or after a problem. The metrics use rolling windows, so watch the trend rather than the daily reading and allow a couple of weeks before judging whether a fix worked.
Last updated: August 29, 2026. Amazon’s shipping performance thresholds, OTDR calculation, and Buy Shipping protections change. Your Shipping Performance page in Seller Central carries the current requirements for your account.
