Amazon Vendor Economics · Glossary

Price Claim

Updated October 25, 2026

A price claim is an invoice underpayment in which Amazon pays the unit cost it expected rather than the cost on the first-party (1P) vendor's invoice, and deducts the difference. Amazon books it as PPV (Purchase Price Variance), sometimes shown as PDC (Price Discrepancy Claim); treat the two as names for the same thing. The vendor sees it as a line deducted from the remittance, Amazon's payment statement.

The usual cause is a cost change that was agreed but did not reach Amazon's systems before the purchase order was cut. That makes a price claim the sibling of the shortage claim, never a kind of it. Both are underpayments with the same dispute window and the same dispute surface. A shortage claim is about quantity and is fought with proof of delivery; a price claim is about the per-unit cost and is fought with the cost agreement. A price claim is also separate from contra-COGS, the allowances such as co-op that reduce Amazon's cost of goods sold under the vendor's agreement.

How does a vendor dispute a price claim?

With the cost agreement that applied on the purchase order date, filed within two years of the invoice date.

The evidence is the cost agreement in force when the purchase order was cut:

• the term sheet,
• the cost acknowledgement, or
• the price Amazon accepted on the purchase order itself.

Nothing Amazon publishes says which of these carries the most weight, so attach what you have.

The window is 2 years from the invoice date, and it applies to shortage and price claims only, not to every deduction. Claims and re-disputes on older invoices are rejected automatically. Vendor Central still displays about 7 years of invoice data, which misleads vendors about what they can still recover. A price claim follows the same route as a shortage claim: Payments, then Dispute Management, with a per-line action also under Payments, then Invoices. Plan on one re-dispute after a denial; no limit on attempts has been established.

In Vendor Central deduction recovery, price claims are worked line by line against the cost agreement dated before each purchase order.