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Key takeaways
- Most agencies charge a percentage of ad spend, a percentage of sales or a flat retainer.
- Flat retainers remove the incentive to spend more than you need.
- Judge the fee against the profit it creates, and ask for every hidden cost in writing.
Published PPC Spider monthly prices
The three ways Amazon agencies charge
Almost every Amazon agency uses one of three models, sometimes combined with a setup fee.
- Percentage of ad spend: typically 10 to 20 percent of what you spend on Amazon Ads, often with a monthly minimum
- Percentage of sales or revenue share: a cut of total or incremental sales, sometimes on top of a base fee
- Flat monthly retainer: a fixed fee for a defined scope, regardless of ad spend
What each model rewards
Pricing models shape behaviour. When an agency earns a percentage of ad spend, every extra dollar you spend increases its fee, so there is little incentive to cut wasted spend. When it earns a share of sales, it is rewarded for revenue even if margin falls.
A flat retainer removes both conflicts. The agency earns the same whether you spend $10k or $40k, so the only way to keep you is to make the spend more profitable. That is why PPC Spider prices every plan as a flat retainer.
Typical price ranges by service
Ranges vary by catalog size, ad spend and how much of the work is done for you. As a guide, using PPC Spider's published prices:
- Amazon PPC management: $995 to $2,200 a month by ad spend, custom above $120k
- Full-service Amazon management: $1,950 to $4,750 a month by ASIN count and ad spend
- Ongoing Amazon SEO: $950 to $1,100 a month
- One-time listing rewrite: $360 per ASIN, with 5 and 10 ASIN packs
- SpiderOS software on its own: from $79 a month
Hidden costs to ask about
The headline fee is rarely the whole cost. Before you sign, ask for the full picture in writing.
- Setup or onboarding fees
- Creative billed separately: images, video, A+ Content
- Minimum ad spend requirements
- Tool or software fees passed through to you
- Long initial terms or auto-renewing annual contracts
- Fees that rise automatically when ad spend rises
How to work out what you should pay
Start from margin, not from the fee. If an agency improves profit after ad spend by more than its fee, it is worth it. Ask each agency how it would measure that in month three, and what it would change first.
Then match scope to need. If listings and operations are in good shape, a PPC-only plan may be enough. If ads, listings and stock all need attention, full-service management usually costs less than hiring each skill separately.
Amazon agency cost by stage of business
What you should pay depends heavily on where the brand is today. A sensible budget grows with the business rather than starting at the top tier.
Brands launching their first products usually need a tight scope: launch advertising, a strong listing and creative. Brands with steady sales that have plateaued usually need PPC restructuring and listing work together. Larger brands with many ASINs and higher ad spend need full-service management, because the number of moving parts grows faster than any one person can track.
- Launching: PPC Launch plan from $995 a month plus one-time listing and creative work
- Growing: PPC Growth at $1,250 or full-service Core at $1,950 a month
- Scaling: full-service Growth at $3,100 or Scale at $4,750 a month
- Enterprise and multi-brand: custom scope after an audit
Agency vs in-house: the real cost comparison
The fair comparison is not the agency fee against zero. It is the agency fee against what it would cost to do the same work yourself. An experienced in-house Amazon advertising specialist, a designer for images and A+ Content, and someone covering catalog, cases and inventory add up to several salaries before tools and management time.
In-house teams win on product knowledge and focus. Agencies win on breadth, cover when people are away and the tools they bring. Many brands get the best of both by keeping strategy and product decisions in-house while an agency runs the daily execution.
Questions to ask before you sign
Use these questions to compare quotes on equal terms. Write the answers down, because verbal promises are easy to forget three months later.
- What exactly is included in the monthly fee, and what is billed extra?
- Does the fee change when my ad spend changes?
- How long is the initial term, and what happens after it?
- Who works on my account, and how often will we talk?
- How will you measure whether the fee was worth it in month three?
- Can I see the reporting dashboard before I sign?
Is a cheaper agency a better deal?
Not always. A low fee often means one junior manager across dozens of accounts, monthly check-ins and little time for the listing and inventory work that makes advertising profitable. The cheapest option can be the most expensive if wasted spend runs for months.
Equally, the most expensive agency is not automatically the best. Look for a clear scope, published prices, reporting tied to profit and a named team. Those signal an agency that expects to be judged on results.
What you get with PPC Spider
Every PPC Spider plan is published, flat and starts with a 90-day term, then runs month to month. Full-service plans include a dedicated account manager, ads manager, operations and creative team, a shared Slack channel, bi-weekly meetings with written action items, and weekly and monthly reports. All plans include SpiderOS, which monitors bids and budgets 24x7 and changes them when needed.
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