Convert every quote into one comparable number: total cost divided by products divided by months. Then diagnose the shape of the package. A flat retainer, a project price, and a percentage of sales fail in different places, and most launch packages expire around day ninety, months before ranking work finishes.
The short version
- Price per product per month is the only unit that compares cleanly. Almost no proposal presents it, which is why proposals feel incomparable.
- A brand launch runs about seven months. A ninety day package ends before the data that matters arrives.
- Ask for two advertising cost of sale targets, launch and maturity. One number for both means nobody has run a launch there.
- Pass-through costs belong in a separate column. Inventory, freight, Amazon's fees, trademark, and ad spend are yours whoever you hire.
- Cheap packages are usually priced correctly for what they contain. The gap is duration, not quality.
Do this before you read a single proposal in detail
Take the total contract value. Divide by the number of products covered. Divide by the number of months the work actually runs. Write that number at the top of the page. Do it for every quote you have.
Ours is easy to run because the numbers are published: $800 a month for one product, $1,150 for two, $1,500 for three, $1,950 for four, $2,400 for five, and six or more scoped on a call. Every tier carries the same 50-plus services, no commission, no revenue share, no onboarding fee. Billing takes first and last month upfront, terms are month to month with 30 days' notice.
Now compare. An $11,000 package covering four products across four months is about $690 per product per month. The same fee stretched over eight months is $345. Identical money, half the intensity. Neither is wrong. But you now know which one to expect a weekly change log from.
Symptom, cause, and who fixes it
Read a proposal the way you would read an account. Each symptom below has a cause, and the cause tells you whether the fix is a conversation, a different provider, or your own finance discipline.
| Symptom in the quote | Underlying cause | Who fixes it |
|---|---|---|
| No product count anywhere | Priced from estimated hours, not scope | You, by asking what changes when a fifth product arrives |
| Onboarding fee on top of monthly | Sales cost recovered in month one | The provider, by listing what it buys and when it lands |
| Fee scales with ad budget | Their revenue rises as your budget rises | Nobody. Change the model |
| Percentage of sales on a small brand | Volatility priced onto both sides | You, by deferring revenue share until profit is stable |
| Twelve month term, no exit | Churn risk priced into your contract | The provider, by offering notice terms instead |
| Ends at day 90 | Sold as an event, not a program | You, by pricing month four before signing |
| Single advertising efficiency target | No stage model behind the plan | The provider, or you walk |
The last two rows carry the most money. A launch is not an event. Sourcing, samples, inspection, listing build, creative, Brand Registry, inventory arrival, and the first advertising cycles usually take around seven months for a full brand. A package that ends at ninety days stops paying its provider exactly when the interesting decisions appear.
The two numbers that reveal whether they have launched anything
Ask any provider for their target advertising cost of sale at launch and their target at maturity, plus the reason for the gap.
At launch you are buying impressions and information on terms you intend to own, so the acceptable cost per order is high and deliberately inefficient. At maturity the same product runs for margin, and launch-level spend on a mature listing is just leakage. A provider quoting one target for both stages is managing a spreadsheet rather than a product. A provider who will not give any number is selling optionality at your expense.
You can attach a timeline to this without being unfair. Once account access is granted, measurable improvement in advertising efficiency inside the first 30 days is a normal expectation, because the earliest wins are structural: match types, wasted terms, campaign hygiene.
What sits outside every package
- Inventory and freight. Your production run and moving it to a fulfillment center.
- Amazon's own fees. Referral, fulfillment, storage, and program fees.
- Trademark and registration. Filing costs, plus the waiting.
- Advertising spend. No hard minimum exists, though under about $1,000 a month there is too little data to optimize against.
- Samples and product for photography. Sometimes bundled, often not.
All in, a single product launch usually needs $8,000 to $15,000 of upfront capital. A five product brand lands between $25,000 and $50,000. A launch quote materially below those ranges is a services quote wearing a launch label.
What most agencies will not tell you
The pricing conversation almost always happens before anyone has checked whether the market can carry the product. That order is reversed. A quote produced without a market size, a competitor rating gap, and a return rate estimate is a price for effort, and effort is not what you are buying.
The second thing: much of what looks like a discount is a shorter horizon. Sixty days of good work on a product that needs seven months of iteration leaves you with a listing that looks finished and a rank that is not. Compare packages on the month you will be on your own.
Related answers
- Fair Amazon agency pricing models
- Month-to-month vs annual Amazon contracts
- Best done-for-you Amazon launch services
- Contract terms to negotiate with Amazon agencies
- Amazon launch services: the complete guide
Every tier, and what sits inside it, is published in full at Flapen.
