A strategy decides how Apex prices the SKUs assigned to it. It has two layers: the economics (your floor and ceiling, applied to every decision) and the engine (how it reacts to the market).
The floor & ceiling
Two ways to set them, usable together:
- Margin guardrails — a floor margin % and ceiling margin %. Apex computes each SKU’s floor and ceiling price from its real economics: item cost (standard cost or FIFO landed cost, per strategy), shipping overhead (matrix, per-SKU override, or the FBA fee for FBA offers), and Amazon’s current referral + FBA fees.
- Flat floor / ceiling prices — fixed dollar bounds, if you prefer.
Layered on top, per SKU:
- MAP — raises the floor to your Minimum Advertised Price. Strategies enforce MAP by default; a strategy can opt out (e.g. a clearance strategy).
- Hand-set Min/Max on the product’s Amazon card — your word, and the one bound nothing can waive.
Full detail: Costs, Floors & Overrides
Engine 1 — Rule-based
Pick a target — beat lowest, match lowest, beat Buy Box, match Buy Box — and how far to undercut: a dollar amount or a percent (percent wins if both are set). Classic, predictable repricing inside your band.
Engine 2 — Algorithmic Buy-Box (recommended)
- You hold the Box → hold the winning price — or, with Raise when winning enabled, climb toward the next competitor above you, recapturing margin against a real price rather than a blind step-up.
- You don’t → undercut to win, never below the floor. If a rival is winning on fulfillment or rating rather than price, Apex won’t burn margin chasing a Box it can’t win.
- No competition → harvest up to your ceiling.
When the market is unwinnable
When the Buy Box (or your lowest-price target) sits below your floor, no legal price can win. What happens next is your call, per strategy:
| Setting | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Hold (default) | Keep the current price. Don’t descend to the floor for a Box you still won’t win. |
| Harvest to ceiling | Ride up to your ceiling — the demand that remains isn’t shopping on price. |
| Descend to floor | Legacy behavior: sit at the closest legal price to the market. |
A live price below your floor is always corrected upward, regardless of this setting.
Competitor filters
Decide who actually counts as competition for either engine:
- Exclude Amazon — don’t chase Amazon Retail.
- FBA only / Prime only / Buy-Box-eligible only.
- Minimum feedback count and minimum positive % — ignore unproven or low-rated sellers.
- Exclude specific sellers — ignore a known price-trasher by seller ID.
Beat lowest + Exclude Amazon, for example, prices just under the cheapest non-Amazon seller you respect — never chasing Amazon to the bottom.
Targeted competitor rules
Per-seller rules — always match, always $X / Y% under, or stay above a named seller — evaluated by priority, superseding the engine. They still respect your floor unless flagged as a fire sale, which may drop below the margin floor down to your blowout price for clearing stock. A fire sale still never breaks a hand-set per-SKU Min.
Pace guardrails
- Max single-move % — caps how far one step can move the price (floor corrections always win over the cap).
- Cooldown — minimum minutes between price changes for a SKU.
Business pricing
A strategy can also manage your Amazon Business price and quantity tiers — see Business (B2B) Pricing.