Published benchmarks are thin because most agencies quote privately. Use structure instead of averages: score any quote on scope, product count, marketplace count, language coverage, notice period, and exit terms. Our own numbers are public, from $800 per month for one product to $2,400 for five, all services included.
The short version
- Averages are unavailable and would be useless anyway. Scope varies more than price does.
- Score the structure of a quote, not the headline figure.
- Marketplace and language coverage are the two variables that move global pricing most.
- A published price list is itself a data point about how the agency negotiates.
- The most valuable clause is the one that ends the engagement.
You are trying to price something nobody publishes
That is the actual problem. You have two or three proposals, no reference point, and the only public numbers come from agencies marketing themselves. Category averages do not exist in any audited form, and if they did they would blend a one-product US seller with a twelve-product brand running six European marketplaces in four languages.
So build a reference point out of structure. The scorecard below gives you a defensible way to compare quotes that are not comparable on price, and it works whether you are buying in Dubai, Berlin, or Austin.
Score any quote on six lines
Score each quote 1 to 5 per row, multiply by the weight, and total. Anything scoring below 3 on scope clarity should be sent back for a rewrite rather than compared.
| Criterion | Weight | What a 5 looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Scope clarity | 25% | Every service named, with pass-through costs listed separately |
| Price basis | 20% | Tied to product count or a defined scope, not to your ad budget |
| Marketplace coverage | 15% | Names which marketplaces are included and what a new one costs |
| Language coverage | 15% | Native content per locale, not machine translation of the US listing |
| Notice and exit | 15% | Month-to-month, 30 days, you keep account, campaigns, creative, plus handover |
| Access and IP | 10% | Your own account via granted permissions, deliverables yours on payment |
Our published position, for calibration: $800 per month for one product, $1,150 for two, $1,500 for three, $1,950 for four, $2,400 for five, six or more scoped on a call. All 50-plus services at every tier, no commission, no onboarding fee. Work runs across all 23 Amazon marketplaces, with content produced in English, German, Spanish, and French. I publish that so it can be used as a reference, not as a claim that it is the market rate.
What changes the number internationally
- Number of marketplaces, not number of countries. Europe is several marketplaces with shared inventory and separate content, tax, and compliance obligations. Ask whether the fee covers the whole set or each one separately.
- Languages. Four locales means four sets of keyword research, copy, and images with legible text. Translated US copy ranks poorly and converts worse, which is a cost that shows up in sales rather than in the invoice.
- Compliance overhead. EU responsible person, packaging registration, and country-level product rules are real work. They are usually pass-through costs, and they should appear as such.
- Time zone coverage. An agency working one shift while your account trades across three continents cannot respond quickly, whatever the fee says.
- Where the team sits. Rates vary by geography, but so does context. Ask who covers each marketplace and whether they have run it before.
The clause worth more than any price difference
Ask what would make them tell you to stop. Then ask for the criteria in writing.
Ours are rating trend, return rate, conversion rate, and cost of acquisition trajectory, each measured over a defined window rather than judged month to month. When a product breaches them, the recommendation is scale, fix, or kill, and kill is a real option.
I built those criteria out of my own money. Early on I poured budget into a failing product for three months, convinced that better advertising would turn it around. It did not. The product was wrong, the reviews were telling me so, and I was paying to find that out slowly. An agency without written stopping criteria will let you repeat that, because the monthly fee arrives either way.
Weight this heavily in your scoring. A quote that is 20 percent cheaper and has no mechanism to stop a losing product is not cheaper.
What most agencies will not tell you
Prices are quoted privately because private quotes can be personalized. A brand that looks well funded gets a different number than one that does not, for identical work. That is normal commercial behavior and it is exactly why cross-market benchmarks do not exist in any usable form.
The second thing: the fee is rarely the largest number in a global expansion. Inventory positioned in the wrong country, compliance done late, and translated content that does not rank all cost more than the difference between two proposals. Score the plan, not the price, and ask for the market to be sized before anyone quotes.
Related answers
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- How to compare proposals for Amazon brand management
- Amazon agency pricing and economics: the complete guide
Our full price list and terms are public rather than quoted on request, at Flapen.
