Are Amazon insert cards allowed?

Short answer: yes. Package insert cards are allowed on Amazon. What gets sellers into trouble is not the card — it's what the card asks for. Cross into incentivizing or steering reviews and you risk losing your reviews, your listing, or your account.

First, the thing nobody tells you: there is no insert card policy

If you have been searching Seller Central for the official rules on package inserts and coming up empty, you are not doing it wrong. Amazon has never published a policy page dedicated to product inserts. That is why the top search results for this question are forum threads where sellers argue with each other, and why one of the most upvoted comments on the subject simply says Amazon's insert policies are "so vague that they literally could cover almost anything."

Insert cards are regulated because the review policy explicitly reaches into your packaging:

So the rules you have to follow are spread across three separate documents. Every claim on this page is sourced to one of them, and each is linked so you can check it yourself:

• Customer Product Reviews Policies — the canonical page (requires Seller Central sign-in). Amazon also publishes an open PDF version that opens without logging in.
• Selling policies and Seller Code of Conduct — sign-in required; open PDF overview here.
• Communication Guidelines — full text, opens without sign-in. Governs buyer-seller messaging, and sets the tone Amazon expects everywhere else.

What Amazon allows on an insert card

• A thank-you message and your brand story.
• Product instructions, setup tips, safety and warranty information.
• Customer support contact. Safest is a route that stays inside Amazon ("message us from Your Orders"). Printing your own email, social handle, or website is not in the clear — see the QR code section below.
• A neutral request for feedback, sent to every customer regardless of how they felt.
• Product registration or warranty activation.

What gets you suspended

Almost every insert-card enforcement action traces back to one thing: treating the card as a review-generation machine. These are the lines you cannot cross.

The two that catch the most sellers off guard are incentivized reviews (any gift, discount, or refund tied to a review) and review gating — routing happy customers to the review page while quietly steering unhappy ones elsewhere. Both violate Amazon's review policies, even when the wording feels innocent.

These are not our interpretations. Amazon names insert cards directly, in three separate places:

Note the wording of the first one: it is the request itself that is named as the violation, not the outcome. You do not have to receive a single review for the card to be non-compliant.

Are QR codes on insert cards allowed?

Most guides answer this with a confident "yes". The honest answer is: partly banned, partly unaddressed — and you should know which half you are standing in before you print 10,000 cards.

Explicitly a violation. Amazon names one QR use case directly:

The broader rule it sits under is wider than most people quote. §1.2.7 is titled "Do not attempt to circumvent the Amazon sales process", and reads:

Read literally, "any external website" is broad enough to cover a link to your own site. The named examples are all about diverting a sale — cashback, lower prices, third-party checkout — which is why most sellers read the rule narrowly. But that narrow reading is an inference, not something Amazon has written down.

Contact details are a separate, sharper problem. A QR code is unaddressed; printing your email or social handle is not. Amazon lists it as a violation example directly:

Most insert-card template lists hand you a support email without mentioning this. Routing support through Amazon's own order page ("message us from Your Orders") does the same job and carries none of it.

How to reduce the risk if you use one. The enforcement pattern in Amazon's own examples is consistent: what gets punished is diverting a sale or manufacturing a review. So keep the destination clearly on the other side of both lines:

• Frame it as warranty registration, product support, or setup help — a legitimate post-purchase service — rather than as feedback or review collection.
• Never place a buy button, discount, coupon, or alternative checkout on the destination page.
• Never make the destination page treat happy and unhappy buyers differently. That is review gating, and it is unambiguously prohibited regardless of how the buyer got there.
• Do not put the QR code in your product images on the listing. That is the exact context Amazon's violation example describes.

What actually happens if you get it wrong

Forum threads on this topic are full of speculation and almost no specifics. Amazon does publish the specifics — they are just buried in a policy deck rather than a help page.

Note the second one in particular. Sellers tend to fear suspension, but the quieter penalty is often worse in practice: every review on the product can be wiped, including the years of legitimate ones you earned before the card was ever printed.

Your agency's mistake is your suspension

This is the part almost nobody knows, and it is the single most expensive assumption in this whole topic. Amazon defines "seller" to include everyone acting on your behalf:

If your agency, your freight forwarder, or your factory slips a non-compliant card into the carton, the enforcement lands on your account. "I didn't know" is explicitly ruled out as a defence. If anyone else touches your packaging, get the card artwork in writing and check it yourself.

The Communication Guidelines carry a separate, lighter penalty for messaging violations:

The safer play: ask for feedback, not reviews

Reviews are public and permanent, so Amazon polices anything that touches them tightly. Private feedback is different. When your insert invites buyers to tell you what went wrong — before they vent in a public review — you're not manipulating ratings at all. You're doing customer service.

That's also where most of the value is. A buyer who's frustrated usually won't complain to you; they just leave a low rating or quietly stop buying. A neutral "how did it go?" gives them somewhere to say it, and gives you a chance to fix the problem while it's still fixable.

Frequently asked questions

Where is Amazon's official insert card policy?

There isn't one. Amazon has never published a policy page dedicated to product inserts. Insert cards are governed because the Customer Product Reviews Policies extend to packaging: "You must comply with these guidelines in all your communications with customers, including shipping box and package inserts, and off-Amazon communications." The applicable rules are spread across the Customer Product Reviews Policies, the Seller Code of Conduct, and the Communication Guidelines — all three are linked above.

Are QR codes allowed on Amazon insert cards?

It depends on where the code leads, and part of it is a grey area. Amazon explicitly names as a violation a QR code pointing to a third party's purchase address. The Seller Code of Conduct also states more broadly that you may not provide links or messages that prompt users to visit any external website. Amazon has never published text that expressly permits a QR code to your own support or feedback page, so treat that as an unaddressed grey area rather than a safe zone. Framing the destination as warranty registration or customer support, never as review collection, lowers the risk.

Can I offer a gift or discount for a review on an insert card?

No. Offering money, gift cards, free products, discounts, or refunds in exchange for a review — or in exchange for a positive review — violates Amazon's review policies and is a common cause of enforcement.

Can an insert card ask the customer to leave a review?

A neutral request to all customers is generally allowed, but it is riskier than asking for feedback or support. You must never condition the request on a positive experience, incentivize it, or route unhappy buyers away from reviewing.

Will Amazon suspend my account for using insert cards?

Not for compliant cards that thank customers, provide support, or ask for neutral feedback. Suspensions come from incentivized reviews, review gating, or misleading language — not from the insert card itself. Amazon states it has a zero-tolerance policy toward review manipulation, and its listed actions include immediate and permanent withdrawal of selling privileges including the withholding of funds, removal of all of the product's reviews, permanent delisting, and legal action.

Am I responsible if my agency or supplier adds a non-compliant insert?

Yes. Amazon defines "seller" to include all the seller's business partners, employees and 3rd party partners, and states that any infractions by your business partners, employees, or 3rd party agencies will result in enforcement actions, even if they happened without your knowledge or consent. Not knowing is not a defence.

Related: Amazon insert card examples — copy-ready wording, sorted by risk · How to deal with negative reviews on Amazon · Buyer-seller messaging: what you can actually send · What are bad reviews costing you? — free calculator