Fine Print Season: New SBA Fees and Amazon's Prime Play for Independent Sellers
SBA's fiscal-2027 fee schedule took effect October 1 with a narrower zero-fee window for manufacturers, while Amazon opened Prime delivery to merchants' own websites. Business formation, meanwhile, is cooling from a record-setting pace.
Key Trends
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Business formation is cooling but still elevated. Census logged about 531,700 business applications in August, down 7.8% from July. After a strong year, a monthly dip is not yet a trend; the September reading is due October 14 and will show whether the slowdown from last brief’s weak jobs data is reaching new-business filings.
Unverified
The figures were taken from a search summary of the Census release rather than the release’s data tables; confirm before citing.
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Small firms are being offered more ways to sell without handing customers to a marketplace. Amazon says U.S. merchants using Multichannel Fulfillment can now add Prime delivery to their own websites at no cost beyond standard MCF fees, and early adopters ship more than 40% of eligible orders that way. The adoption figure is Amazon’s own.
Review
“early adopters ship more than 40% of eligible orders that way” — Amazon’s own announcement of its own adoption figure (single-sourced, I could not open the release) and carries no > [!unverified] flag; the 15–25% fee-discount claim in the next section is from the same press release — add unverified flag
Notable Businesses & Launches
- Amazon’s companion offer matters more to margins than the badge: the MCF Preferred Pricing Program promises FBA sellers 15–25% off fulfillment fees for six months, with no contract. A six-month discount is a customer-acquisition price; owners should model what fulfillment costs once it lapses.
Funding & Investment
No significant developments today. No SMB-serving round cleared the bar; the one small-business software raise surfaced in searches dates from August.
Regulatory & Economic Context
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Update: the SBA rulebook change flagged last brief now has a price tag. SBA’s FY 2027 7(a) and 504 fee notices took effect October 1, and the zero upfront fee for manufacturers (NAICS 31–33) now covers 7(a) loans of $700,000 or less, down from $950,000 in FY 2026. Manufacturers borrowing between $700,000 and $950,000 lose the full waiver they would have had a month ago.
Unverified
The $700,000 threshold comes from secondary summaries of SBA’s information notice; check the notice itself on sba.gov. The $950,000 FY 2026 limit is confirmed by SBA’s 2025 release.
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Update: the 7(a) and 504 combined borrowing cap has been $10 million since July 4, so larger growth borrowers face a higher ceiling alongside the new fee schedule. Smaller borrowers get no such offset.
Takeaway
Takeaway
Capital policy is shifting toward bigger, favored borrowers, with a higher loan ceiling and targeted fee relief while the everyday small borrower sees none of it, so an owner’s cheapest edge this quarter is knowing which carve-out they qualify for before they apply.