What is the Amazon IPI score?
The Inventory Performance Index (IPI) is Amazon's 0 to 1,000 score that measures how efficiently you manage FBA inventory. Amazon uses it to decide how much storage space your account gets each month. The score moves with your day-to-day inventory decisions, and Amazon updates it weekly.
You can think of your IPI as a downstream effect of four inputs you already control. It rewards selling through stock, keeping best sellers available, and clearing dead units.
A low score directly limits your inbound plan. When your capacity is capped, you can’t restock your winners fast enough. This can lead to lost availability which drags down organic rank. This is why inventory health sits at the center of profit and organic performance.
How is the Amazon IPI score calculated?
Amazon doesn’t publish the exact weightings it uses to calculate your Amazon IPI score. Instead, it only lists the various factors that have an impact on your score, with the following actions bearing biggest influence:
- Maintaining a balanced inventory level between sold and available inventory
- Avoiding excess and old inventory
- Fixing listing issues
- Avoiding long-term storage fees
- Ensuring sufficient stock of your most popular products
Using these actions, Amazon takes into account how your inventory performed recently and over the long run. This way, it can calculate an IPI score that’s representative of your overall performance and eliminate the impact that unexpected disruptions or seasonality can have on your stock levels.
Read this table below as a diagnostic, not a checklist. Each metric points to a root cause and an action you can take this week. Fix the signal, and the improved score will follow.
The metrics behind your IPI score
To help you improve your IPI score, you’ll need to track the following metrics via the Inventory Performance dashboard:
Excess inventory percentage: The percentage of FBA inventory units listed by Amazon as excess. Amazon labels a product as having excess inventory when you have more than 90 days’ supply based on the anticipated demand.
Stranded units: The total number of units in a fulfillment center without active listings.
Stranded inventory percentage: The percentage of your FBA inventory that’s currently unavailable to be bought because of a problem with the listing.
FBA sell-through rate: This metric tracks how fast you turn stored units into sales. It’s calculated by dividing the number of units shipped during the past 90 days by the average number of units on hand during that period. The sell-through formula in particular is worth working through.
FBA in-stock rate: This metric measures how consistently your top replenishable ASINs stay available. To work it out, it considers the percent of time these ASINs were in stock during the last 30 days weighted by the number of units sold for each SKU during the previous 60 days. New ASINs are generally excluded from your IPI for roughly their first 90 days. This means that a fresh launch won’t tank your score right away.
Estimated FBA lost sales in the last 30 days: This number is the forecasted unit sales for the days that the item was out of stock multiplied by the average sales price.
How do you check your IPI score in seller central?
Follow these steps to read your score and find the SKUs dragging it down:
- Open the Inventory Performance Dashboard in Seller Central. Your current IPI score sits at the top.
- Read the four metric breakdowns below the score. Note which metric is red or trending down.
- Open “Manage Inventory Health to list” excess, stranded, and slow-moving SKUs by name.
- Check the score early each week. Amazon refreshes IPI weekly, usually near the start of the week. Monthly check-ins react too late.
What is a good IPI score?
Amazon no longer publishes one universal threshold. Your Inventory Performance dashboard shows your standing as one of four bands: Excellent, Good, Fair, or Poor.
The numeric cutoff for storage limits can vary by account and category. As such, check your own dashboard rather than assume a fixed number. That said, historically the floor was anywhere between 350 and 500.
What happens when your IPI score drops?
When your IPI falls below the threshold, Amazon caps your FBA capacity in cubic feet. Exceed that cap and Amazon blocks new inbound shipments. ASIN-level restock limits can also throttle individual best sellers, right when you need them in stock.
That said, the good news is that it’s not the only factor used to determine your capacity limits. The marketplace also relies on sales predictions for your ASINs, shipment lead time, and capacity of the fulfillment center.
How can you improve your Amazon IPI score?
Here’s how Amazon recommends you improve your IPI:
Reduce excess inventory
Amazon’s recommendation is to ensure you have enough inventory to cover 30 to 60 days of your anticipated sales. If you have enough stock to cover sales for the 60+ days, it’s time to increase your advertising or consider discounts.
In the same breath, guard against discounting your products too heavily. Deep permanent markdowns train your buyers to expect them.
You can also use Amazon Outlet to sell some of your excess stock and out-of-season products. To see which products qualify, select the Create Outlet deal recommendation filter on FBA Inventory.
DTC brands can also use Multi-Channel Fulfillment to sell excess stock via their own website.
Of course, this problem can to a great extent be avoided by not over-ordering ahead of demand.
Avoid long-term storage fees
You can set up your Amazon account so that slow-moving and aging inventory gets removed automatically before it reaches 365 days in a fulfillment center. This will help minimize long-term storage fees.
Fix listings
Any issues with listings should be fixed promptly. Specifically monitor your stranded inventory (sellable products sitting at an Amazon fulfillment center without active listings). Stock with a broken listing costs storage while earning zero sales. Amazon listing optimization is the direct fix.
Keep top ASINs in stock
Letting your best sellers stockout is one of the most common IPI mistakes. Not only does lost availability trigger the low-inventory-level fee, but it also drops your organic rank. To avoid the low-inventory-level fee, reorder before historical days of supply drops to below 28 days.
Poor Amazon inventory management stacks storage fees on dead stock while your winners lose rank. Run the full inventory-health review weekly, specifically monitoring the sell-through rate as your single leading indicator.
How we manage inventory health at Olifant Digital
Inventory health is one of the eight areas inside our full Amazon account management service that starts at $2,000 per month. Senior specialists with at least seven years of experience review inventory health weekly on every account, powered by our in-house AI platform, Olifant AI.
During restock limits, we run inventory-aware PPC to protect organic rank while supply is tight. We fix stranded units through listing work so sellable stock gets back online. For example, for OneRoot, we adjusted Amazon bids in real time during a low-stock harvest season. This way, sales were maintained and its margin protected through the supply constraints.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good IPI score?
Most operators treat 500+ as the healthy zone.
Do stockouts lower my IPI score?
Not directly. Amazon states IPI points aren't deducted for running out of stock. But letting top replenishable ASINs run dry means missed sales you could have used to raise your score, and it separately triggers the low-inventory-level fee and organic rank loss covered in the fees guide.
Do new ASINs affect my IPI score?
Generally new ASINs have no impact on your IPI score. This is because for roughly the first 90 days Amazon excludes new ASINs from the calculation.
Are removals or liquidations counted in IPI?
No. Removal and liquidation orders don’t count against your IPI score.
How often does the IPI score update?
Amazon updates your IPI score weekly, usually near the start of the week. So, check it early and act the same week.
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Alex is the founder and CEO of Olifant Digital, where his team manages over $100M in annual Amazon client revenue across 50+ brands, and he runs a 7-figure Amazon brand of his own. That operator background shapes how the agency works: every tactic is tested with his own money before it reaches a client account. He oversees PPC methodology, creative, and conversion rate across all client accounts to make sure Olifant Digital scales brands profitably.
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Mike reviews every Amazon article on this blog for strategic and technical accuracy before it publishes. As Director of Amazon Growth at Olifant Digital, he sets marketing strategy across client accounts and personally audits PPC at every stage of growth. He brings 8 years of daily Amazon operations across 7 and 8-figure brands including Beauty by Earth, Ekster, and Bullstrap, the kind of hands-on depth most agency directors delegate away.
