In some ways, it’s difficult to imagine the world without Amazon. With over 310 million active customers and millions of items sold each day, according to AMZ Scout, the major corporation is deeply embedded in the lives of many.
Today, Amazon enjoys the position as the world’s fifth-largest company, according to Forbes. But every company starts somewhere, even Amazon. If you had invested at the beginning, you’d have quite a lot of money. We explore exactly how much and how it performed relative to the market.
The company went public back on May 15, 1997, according to company records.
It entered the market with an IPO price of $18 per share. Since then, it has split four times. When you factor in these splits, the adjusted cost of the IPO is $0.075 per share. In other words, every single IPO share has been converted into 240 shares today.
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As of the close of business on Dec. 29, 2025, Amazon’s stock price was $232.07 per share, according to Yahoo! Finance.
At first glance, considering the $18 original share price, Amazon’s share price has grown by more than 1,000%. But since it’s more appropriate to consider Amazon’s split-adjusted IPO price, the returns become truly staggering.
When you consider the split-adjusted share price of $0.075 at the time of the IPO, Amazon’s stock has increased by 301,607%. That’s an amazing return for any investor.
If you had invested $500 in Amazon’s IPO and held it for the last twenty-seven years, your Amazon stock would be worth around $1,508,535.
Surprised that Amazon’s IPO value seems relatively low? Back in 1997, Amazon was primarily an online bookstore attempting to prove itself as an e-commerce alternative to traditional brick-and-mortar stores. In 1996, the company’s annual filings were around $16 million, according to SEC filing documents. While some certainly saw some potential in Amazon, many didn’t catch on to the genius of its e-commerce aspirations until much later.
Over the years, Amazon has expanded to create an impressive logistics network that gets items to customers quickly. Beyond e-commerce, Amazon has branched out to provide other services, like its media streaming platform and Amazon Web Services.
On May 15, 1997, the S&P 500 closed at $836.04 per share, according to Yahoo! Finance. As of market close on Dec. 29, 2025, the S&P 500 reached a value of $6,905.74, according to CNBC. That represents an impressive return of 700% for S&P 500 investors between May 1997 and today. But that’s not even close to the returns offered to Amazon’s initial collection of investors over the same time period.