There are five: run it yourself, hire in-house, use a freelancer, buy software and operate it, or sell through a reseller who owns the account. Each carries a real monthly cost including your own time. Price all five the same way, then hold every option to the same outcome.
The short version
- Five options, one comparison method. Monthly cash cost, plus your hours, plus what is left uncovered.
- The uncovered work is where the money leaks. Every cheap option covers advertising and leaves creative, catalog, and sourcing to you.
- Your hours are not free. Put a rate on them or the arithmetic is fiction.
- Judge every option on the same outcome. Profitability inside the first year is a fair bar for anyone, including an agency.
- Reselling is not management. It converts your brand into a wholesale account with someone else holding the customer.
Start with the arithmetic
Take your monthly figures and fill in one line per option. Cash out is what leaves your bank. Your hours is honest weekly time multiplied by what an hour of yours is worth. Coverage gap is the work nobody in that row is doing.
| Option | Cash out per month | Your hours per week | Coverage gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Run it yourself | Software only | 10 to 20 | Everything you are not good at |
| In-house hire | Salary plus employer costs plus software | 2 to 5 | Whatever the one hire cannot do |
| Freelancer or VA | Hourly or small monthly | 3 to 8 | Strategy, creative, accountability |
| Software plus you | Subscriptions | 5 to 15 | Judgment, listings, catalog |
| Reseller or distributor | Nothing, they buy at a discount | Under 1 | Control, margin, customer data |
| Full-service agency | Flat fee, ours is $800 to $2,400 | About 2 per month | Whatever sits outside the scope |
The row that surprises people is the first one. Running it yourself is free on the cash line and frequently the most expensive line on the sheet, because founder hours are the scarcest input in a small business and they are being spent on bid adjustments.
What each option is good for
Run it yourself is right at the beginning. One product, validating demand, learning the mechanics. You should personally understand advertising, listing structure, and unit economics before you delegate any of it, because you cannot supervise work you have never done.
An in-house hire wins when your catalog keeps someone busy full-time and your advantage lives in knowledge you want to keep inside the company. Below that threshold you are paying a full salary for part-time work in one discipline out of five.
A freelancer is the sharpest option for a defined task with a defined output: a listing rewrite, a keyword build, a photography set. It is the weakest option for ongoing accountability, because nobody owns the number.
Software plus your own operator is strong when the product already converts and the job is efficiency. It is weak at everything that requires deciding what to do rather than doing it faster.
A reseller is a different business model, not a cheaper agency. You sell them stock, they sell to customers, and they hold the listing, the reviews, the pricing, and the relationship. It can be right if you want to be a manufacturer. It is a poor idea if you want to build a brand.
Hold every option to the same outcome
Whatever you choose, the test is the same. A majority of the brands we manage become profitable within their first year, and that is the bar I would hold to any option on this page, including us. Ask an in-house candidate what they think it takes. Ask a freelancer what happened to the last three accounts they ran. Ask a software vendor for the loss cases, not the case studies.
Then write down the date you will judge the decision and the number you will judge it on. Most of these choices go bad slowly, and without a date nobody ever calls it.
What most agencies will not tell you
Plenty of sellers do not need an agency at all, and the honest answer for a single validated product with a founder who enjoys the work is often software plus discipline. We turn away work that fits that description because a management fee on one product with a small budget cannot generate a return worth the fee.
The other thing that goes unsaid: switching costs are asymmetric across these options. Leaving an agency should cost you 30 days notice and a handover, keeping your account, campaigns, and creative. Leaving a reseller can cost you your listings. Losing an in-house hire costs you months. Price the exit before you price the entry, on every row.
Related answers
- In-house Amazon team cost breakdown
- Monthly cost for outsourced Amazon management
- How to choose between Amazon agency and automation software
- Amazon agency vs in-house team pros and cons
- Amazon agency pricing and economics: the complete guide
If one row on that table is us, the numbers to plug in are published at Flapen.
