Your FBA storage limit is what caps how much stock you can hold — and going into Prime Day or Q4 with a limit that will not fit your plan is a self-inflicted stockout.

**Capacity Manager is how you bid for more**, and it is a bid, not a request: you name a maximum price per cubic foot and Amazon allocates space accordingly.

**It is also a well-defined, delegable process** — see [**Onboarding a VA**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/onboarding-a-va).

[Watch the walkthrough](https://kb.trackiq.com/kb-assets/kbvideo-capacity-explainer-8243556b.mp4)

*Prefer to watch? One hundred and seventy seconds on converting forecast units into cubic feet, bidding against recent winning rates, and resubmitting after a denial.*

## **Where it is**

**Inventory → FBA Dashboard → Capacity Monitor** (at the bottom of the screen).

**Choose your product size tier** — standard-size, oversize and so on — then **Go to Capacity Manager**, and **Create a new request**.

**Requests are per size tier.** If you sell both standard and oversize products, you need a request for each.

## **Step 1: pick the month**

**You cannot request for the current month — only upcoming ones.**

**Which is the single most important operational fact here.** Realising in late October that you need November space is already too late for October, and the shipment has to arrive before the space matters.

**Work backwards from your inbound lead time**, not from the month you need the stock.

## **Step 2: work out how much space you actually need**

**Translate forecast units into cubic feet.**

**Case pack cubic feet = (L × W × H in inches) ÷ 1,728.**

**Total cubic feet = (forecast units ÷ units per case) × case pack cubic feet.**

### **Worked example**

**5,000 units of a lotion forecast for Q4. 12 units per case, case dimensions 16" × 12" × 10".**

**Case volume:** (16 × 12 × 10) ÷ 1,728 = **1.11 cu ft**

**Cases needed:** 5,000 ÷ 12 = **417**

**Total:** 417 × 1.11 = **463 cu ft**

**Check your size tiers.** Bulky products consume space far faster than the unit count suggests, and a tier misclassification throws the whole calculation.

**Then request 20–30% more than the calculation** — but not dramatically more. **Amazon charges reservation fees on space you leave unused**, though performance credits can offset this if your sales volume is strong.

**The forecast is the input to all of this** — see [**Inventory Forecasting and Purchase Orders**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/inventory-forecasting).

![Forecast units, translated into space you have to book](/kb-assets/shot-prod-table-6c206b.png)

**A capacity request is only as good as the forecast under it, and the forecast has to be per product, seasonal, and current** — see [**Monitoring Inventory Against Sales**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/monitoring-inventory-against-sales). Requesting against last year's numbers is how sellers end up paying reservation fees on space they never fill.

## **Step 3: set your bid**

**The Maximum Reservation Fee is the most you will pay per cubic foot if you actually use the space.**

**Do not take Amazon's recommendation at face value.**

**Use Download Reservation Fees History** to see what sellers recently paid.

**If Amazon recommends $2.00 but recent winning bids were $4.00–6.00, bid competitively** — a low bid is simply a request that quietly fails.

**The panel shows your total maximum exposure** — 400 cu ft × $2.00 = $800. **Check that number before submitting**, because it is what you are committing to.

## **Step 4: set an expiration date**

**If you need a decision by a deadline, set one.**

**Give yourself 1–2 weeks of margin before the shipment has to move.** An approval that lands the day your freight was due to leave is not an approval you can use.

## **Step 5: review and submit**

**Check the requested volume and the total maximum reservation fee against your actual plan**, then submit.

**If it is denied, edit and resubmit** — raise the bid, or adjust the volume. **A denial is a negotiating position, not a final answer.**

## **If Amazon shows you the "I need help" screen instead**

Some accounts see a guided version rather than the manual form.

**Choose "I need help"** and Amazon estimates the capacity and suggests a bid from your forecast sales.

**But treat those numbers as a starting point.** They tend to be conservative in a specific direction — **a higher bid and a lower volume than you probably need.**

**Edit both before submitting**, using your own cubic-feet calculation.

## **Common mistakes**

**Requesting in the month you need the space**, which is not possible.

**Forecasting units without converting to cubic feet.**

**Bidding at Amazon's recommendation** without checking recent winning bids.

**Requesting far more than you need**, and paying reservation fees on empty space.

**Requesting for one size tier** when your catalogue spans two.

**Treating a denial as final** rather than resubmitting with a higher bid.

**Leaving no margin on the expiration date**, so approval arrives too late to ship against.

## **Related**

- [**Inventory Forecasting and Purchase Orders**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/inventory-forecasting) — the forecast this request is built on.
- [**Prepare for Prime Day: Budget Rules and Inventory Cover**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/prepare-for-prime-day) — the event this usually exists for.
- [**Reimbursements, COGS and Capacity**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/reimbursements-cogs-and-capacity) — the wider capacity and cost picture.