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Amazon Business Account: What Is it & What You Need to Know

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If you shop on Amazon with a business credit card, you may have seen a popup asking you to create a free Amazon Business account. This is what you need to know about an Amazon Business account, what it offers you, and why you may want to upgrade.

While there are a lot of upsides, there are some reasons you may not want to make an Amazon Business account when you see the option. That said, it’s worth the upgrade for most real businesses that rely on Amazon.

With Amazon Business, you can buy things tax-exempt on Amazon if you qualify, unlock quantity discounts for things you buy a lot of, and you can pair this with an Amazon Business Prime account for purchasing controls and invoicing for up to 60 days.

What is an Amazon Business Account?

An Amazon Business account is a special business-focused account on Amazon that any business can use. It works for sole proprietors with only one account, but it is also very helpful for larger businesses that can use approval processes to keep spending in check.

You can create more user accounts so employees can make purchases for the company. An individual Amazon Prime subscription works with Amazon Business, or you can buy an Amazon Business Prime account that starts at $179 a year for up to three users and scales to the enterprise level.

Amazon Business Account Benefits

Here are the Amazon Business account benefits.

With the program, you get a lot of Amazon Business benefits. These include the following upgrades and special offers:

  • Business only pricing.
  • Quantity discounts above what you normally find on Amazon.
  • Tax-exempt purchases – How to set up tax-exempt on Amazon.
  • Multi-user accounts.
  • Purchase approval workflows.
  • Purchasing analytics and reports.
  • Price comparison options.
  • Customized browsing and searching based on your business type.

Some of the business only items that you can buy include traffic signs, industrial deep fryers, antibodies, 55-gallon steel drums, dent pullers, and more.

If you use the same email as your personal account, you can share Amazon Prime benefits with your business account, and employees that use their account. Or you can get a Prime Business account. You can also get free shipping on orders over $49 without any special membership.

You can also buy special, business only products and you can integrate with some purchasing systems. Learn more about what you get with an Amazon Business account.

Downsides to Amazon Business Accounts

While there are a lot of upsides and reasons to get an Amazon Business account, it’s not for everyone.

The only real catch is if you are using the Amazon Business account for personal use. Mixing business and personal purchases could complicate things at tax time. If you aren’t going to use this strictly for business, you may want to consult with your accountant before signing up.

Amazon Prime vs. Amazon Business

At the core, Amazon Prime is for individuals and the Amazon Business account is for business users. That’s one of the biggest differences and the one that will matter to small business owners.

Unlike using a shared Amazon Prime account among all employees, an Amazon Business account makes it easy to see who is ordering and what each individual or group is buying on the account. That’s perfect for making sure purchases are necessary and kept in check.

Unlike Amazon Prime, you also get a dedicated Amazon Business account customer support line.

Amazon Business Account Fees

It is free to sign up for an Amazon Business account. There is no annual fee to shop on Amazon Business unless you want access to Business Prime Shipping. If you need that access, you will need to pay a fee based on the number of users. The pricing structure is below, and you’ll see it when you sign up.

  • Essentials: $179 per year for up to 3 users (max 3 users)
  • Small: $499 per year for up to 10 users (max 10 users)
  • Medium: $1,299 per year for up to 100 users (max 100 users)
  • Enterprise: $10,099 per year for over 100 users

You can share your personal Amazon Prime membership with your business account, but you cannot use this for personal purchases. You also cannot use this to resell products that you ship directly to another customer using Amazon Business prime shipping.

What Happens To Your Amazon Account?

When you sign up for an Amazon Business account, you can choose what to do with your current Amazon account. You can make it into the business account, which is what you might want to do if you already have a second Amazon account that you use for work.

The other option is to make a new account specifically for the business. This is the best option if you are signing up for Amazon Business to use with your small business and you don’t want to mix your personal and business purchases.

Purchase Controls with Amazon Business

If you need to control how employees are purchasing on Amazon, you can do that with the Amazon Business account. The free business account lets you set up approval workflows, see purchasing analytics, and even set up multiple user groups.

If you opt for Amazon Business Prime, you get even more control with the ability to set preferred purchases, restricted purchases, and even block specific items.

2 Comments

2 Comments

  1. Deane

    06/04/2019 at 12:01 pm

    so if my company has a business account is there a way to stop employees from setting up personal prime accounts under the company as well? This way everyone is using the business account.

  2. Nan

    10/03/2019 at 12:17 am

    I’d like to know why the author of this article have not answered Deane’s question yet.

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