How to get your keys for Amazon Product Advertising API version 5.0 (APA 5.0)

Starting from November 1st 2019, Amazon introduced version 5.0 of their Product Advertising API.

Here's what you need to know, to get access to your API credentials - "Access Key ID" and "Secret Access Key":

Required sales:

a) If you never had access to the Amazon Product Advertising API (APA API) before, then your Amazon associate account needs to generate 3 (three) sales within a period of 180 days.

b) If you did have access to working APA credentials in the past, but now they are inactive, then your Amazon associate account needs to generate at least 1 (one) sale in the last 30 days (not to be confused with the "current calendar month"). For example, if your account generated a sale on November 5th, then you should have API access until December 5th.

Example of generating sales:

These sales (or sale) you generate, don't need to be big expensive sales. Also, they don't need to be physical products.

Even a $3 sale of a Kindle ebook will do.

If you are interested in promoting a very specific Kindle ebook, you can visit its Amazon page. Click here for an example.

Then, use SiteStripe (a menu bar that appears at the top of every Amazon product page, if you are logged in to your Amazon associate account). Getting a simple "text link" will do.

Get your amazon link and promote it.

Getting your new API credentials:

After you get the required amount of sales (one if you had access to the API in the past, three if you are getting API access for the first time), go to your Amazon associate API credentials page.

You can always find this page by going to:

Tools ==> Amazon Product Advertising API

Then, go under "Manage Your Credentials" and click the button that says "Add Credentials".

Your new API credentials - "access key ID" and "secret access key" - will be generated.

COPY THE ACCESS KEY ID AND SECRET ACCESS KEY AND PASTE THEM IN A TEXT FILE ON YOUR MACHINE. Save that file and remember where you have saved it. Otherwise, you will not be able to access your Secret Access Key in the future. :-)

After you generate new keys, you need to wait 48 hours before you can use them. So, please don't be alarmed if initially they don't work.

Helpful tips:

a) You can TEST your API keys by using the Scratchpad Tool.


b) Your API "credits" get replenished every day. If you run out of credits due to  too many requests on a given day, don't worry. Just wait 24-48 hours and try again. Everything should work again then.

Traps to avoid:

In the past, you could use "Amazon AWS" API credentials with your Amazon associate account.

Starting from November 1st 2019, the AWS API credentials will no longer work with your Amazon associate account. You need to generate new API credentials from within your Amazon associate account as explained above.