Amazon Main Image Requirements: White, 85% Fill and Suppression

Amazon's main image has to show one product on a pure white background, RGB 255, 255, 255, with the product taking up 85% of the image. It must be 500 to 10,000 pixels on its longest side, and 1,000 pixels or more turns on zoom. Those numbers come from Amazon's own product image guide, and Seller Central UK gives the same numbers.

This guide covers Amazon only, in depth: how the main image differs from the rest, every technical and content rule Amazon publishes, the category rules for clothing, shoes and jewelry, what happens when an image fails, and how to get from a phone photo to a compliant file before Black Friday on 27 November. If you sell on Walmart, eBay or Etsy too, our cross-marketplace overview compares their rules side by side.

All rules below were checked October 2026 on Seller Central help pages that anyone can read without logging in.

Main image vs additional images

Amazon's main image is the one with the MAIN variant code. It shows in search results and is the first image on the product page. Every other image is a variant with its own code, and the strict white-background rules apply mainly to MAIN.

The image guide lists these image types:

Amazon recommends at least six additional images and one video. Three rules separate MAIN from the rest:

• Background. MAIN must be pure white. Amazon's non-white background page says alternate images "may have a neutral or environment-based background."
• Text and graphics. The text, logo, graphics and watermarks rule applies to the main image and the swatch. Additional views and extra features belong in other variants, not on MAIN.
• Claims. Warranties, regulatory approval, promotions, prices and shipping options are banned in any product image, not only MAIN. More on that below.

Technical requirements

These apply to every image you upload. Files that fail them cannot be uploaded at all.

Amazon says "Do not artificially enlarge small images," so upscaling a 600 px photo to reach the zoom threshold is against the guide. It also asks for minimal compression: save JPEGs at the highest quality and avoid re-saving them repeatedly. On the pages we checked, the only size cap Amazon prints is for zip uploads, 1,000 images and 1 GB per zip, on its upload errors page. Those pages state no megabyte limit for a single image, and they say RGB, not sRGB.

Main image rules

On top of the technical rules, the main image must, in Amazon's words from the image guide:

• Have a pure white background (RGB color values: 255, 255, 255).
• Show the product as 85% of the image.
• Show the entire product within the frame, with no part cut off.
• Show the product only once, for example the front only, not front and back together.
• Show one unit of the product and only the accessories included with it.
• Accurately represent the real scale, quantity and color of the product, as a realistic, professional-quality image. No placeholders.
• Leave out packaging, unless it is an important feature, such as a carrying case or gift basket.
• Leave out props and accessories that are not included and could confuse the customer.
• Show no part of a mannequin, whether clear, solid, flesh-toned, a framework or a hanger.

What 85% means

Amazon words the rule three ways. The image guide says "85% of the image." The Product Too Small page says the product "must occupy at least 85% of the image area," without cropping the product or letting shadows run to the edge. The clothing guide says "85% of the total image area occupied." None of the three explains how it is measured. The Quick Start Style Guide that the style guides page still links is dated 2018 and says 80 percent, which is where some older advice comes from. Go by the current 85%.

Taken literally, area is hard to meet for most shapes. A tall bottle that spans 85% of a square's height may cover only 20% to 40% of its area. Most sellers read the rule as the product spanning about 85% of the frame along its longer side, with thin, even margins. That is a working reading, not Amazon's stated formula. The checker below shows both numbers so you can see the gap, and filling the frame more tightly is the safer side to err on.

Shadows and edges

The non-white background page accepts a pure white background "with minimal shadows around the product." It does not accept shadows that run to the edge of the image, shadows cast against a backdrop, or leftover off-white or gray backdrop after a background edit. A frame, line or border on any edge also counts as a non-white background, which matters if you add padding in a second app.

What is never allowed

Amazon's text rule for the main image says: "No text, logos, borders, color blocks, watermarks, or other graphics covering the product or in the background." The same page bans graphics that look pasted in, composites of products at different scales, and extra views on MAIN. Graphics on a device's own screen are allowed if they look realistic and do not cover the bezel or buttons.

For every image, the main one and all others, the image guide and the badging page ban:

• Amazon logos and trademarks, including "Amazon", "Prime" and "Alexa", and lookalikes of badges such as "Amazon's Choice" or "Best seller".
• Customer reviews, star ratings and claims such as free shipping.
• Warranty, guarantee, gift and promotion claims, and certification words such as APPROVED, CERTIFIED, FDA and ENERGY STAR.
• Text strings Amazon lists as prohibited badges, including sale, deal, discount, free, coupon, limited time, best and save.
• Banned phrases including "Black Friday deal", "cyber Monday" and "only seller".

The badging page's list also mentions "text that explains product features or quantity" alongside claims. Amazon scopes the general text rule to main and swatch images, so if you label diagrams on additional images, keep the text factual and clear of every word on that list.

Category rules: clothing, shoes and jewelry

The image guide, clothing guide and suppression page add these:

Category style guide PDFs, linked from the style guides page, may add more.

What happens when the main image breaks the rules

Amazon's image suppression page says it may suppress, meaning hide, the listing from search until you provide a compliant image, and may remove or modify non-compliant images, for example by removing a watermark. The image guide adds that a listing with no compliant main image may be temporarily removed from search.

Common reasons for a main image are text or watermarks, a non-white background, a missing image, extra items, a cropped product, packaging or tags, and props. Blur or a product too small in the frame can affect any image.

To find and fix it:

1. Open the Fix tab in Manage Products to see products removed from search for image issues.
2. For upload failures, open Submission status and choose the Content compliance issues report.
3. Replace the main image rather than deleting it, by uploading a new file with the MAIN variant code.
4. Make the new file visibly different. The upload errors page says an identical resubmission may be treated as a duplicate and ignored.
5. Allow up to 24 hours for the change to appear.

With Black Friday on 27 November, fix flagged images well before that week, so a 24-hour delay does not cost sales.

How to check 255 white and 85% yourself

White. Open the exported file in any editor with an eyedropper or color picker. Sample all four corners, the middle of each edge, and a spot just next to the product. Each sample must read 255, 255, 255, or hex FFFFFF. A reading of 254 or FAFAFA is light gray as far as the rule is concerned. If your editor has a threshold or levels tool, push it to the extreme: anything that is not pure white shows up as a dark patch, which makes gray halos and shadow edges obvious.

Fill. Use a rectangle selection drawn tight around the product, and read its width and height in pixels. Divide the larger one by the matching side of the image. If that is under 0.85, crop closer or reduce the padding.

Check your main image

Enter your photo's size, the size of a tight box around the product, and the hex values you sampled. The checker tells you the canvas size and the padding per side that puts the product at your target span, and checks the result against Amazon's size and white rules. Portrait 3:4 matches the minimum aspect ratio in Amazon's clothing guide.

It cannot see text, props, packaging or a mannequin, so check those by eye.

From phone photo to compliant main image

WipeMark does the cut-out; any image editor does the canvas.

1. Shoot for pixels. Fill most of the phone's frame with the product, in even light, against a plain light surface. The product itself needs to be at least 850 pixels across its longer side if you want a 1,000 px canvas after padding, and Amazon asks you not to upscale.
2. Remove the background. Open WipeMark's product photo background remover and drop in the photo. It takes about 15 seconds, is free, needs no account and adds no watermark. Your browser sends a reduced copy, at most 1,024 px, for processing, and nothing is stored, but the download is full size, up to 25 megapixels.
3. Touch up edges. Zoom in and use the Restore and Erase brushes on gaps, straps and any leftover backdrop.
4. Choose pure white. Set the background to white, 255, 255, 255, instead of transparent. The white background photo page explains this step.
5. Download JPG or PNG. Not WebP, which Amazon does not list as a supported format.
6. Crop and pad in any editor. WipeMark does not crop or pad. In any editor, crop tight to the product, then enlarge the canvas to the size the checker gives you, centered, filled with white 255, 255, 255.
7. Verify. Eyedropper the corners and the padded edges again, then upload with the MAIN variant code.

Selling the same product elsewhere? See how Walmart, eBay and Etsy differ.

Sources

All pages are on Seller Central, publicly readable without a login, checked October 2026:

• Product image guide (US) and the UK version
• Technical image file requirements
• Image guidelines for clothing
• Image suppression, Product Too Small, Non-white background, Text, logo, graphics and watermarks, Propping
• Prohibited badging and banned words
• Image upload errors and display issues
• Product page style guides

Amazon updates these pages without notice. Trust the live page over this article if they differ.