Under $1 million a year, price by product count rather than by revenue. Ours is $800 a month for one product, $1,150 for two, $1,500 for three, $1,950 for four, and $2,400 for five, with the same full service set at every tier. Revenue-scaled fees punish the growth you paid for.
The short version
- Product count is the honest driver of workload. Three ASINs is three sets of listings, campaigns, and inventory decisions regardless of what they earn.
- At $1 million a year, a $1,500 tier is under two percent of revenue. At $250,000, an $800 tier is closer to four. Run the ratio for your own numbers.
- Every tier should include everything. Ours includes all fifty-plus services, with no commission, no revenue share, and no onboarding fee.
- Six products or more gets scoped on a call. Beyond five, catalog complexity stops being a straight line.
- At this size, sourcing quality matters more than campaign polish. A bad supplier decision outlasts any advertising fix.
The tiers, and what sits behind each one
| Products | Monthly fee | What changes at this tier |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $800 | One listing, one campaign structure, one inventory line |
| 2 | $1,150 | Cross-promotion and shared creative become possible |
| 3 | $1,500 | Catalog-level keyword strategy starts to matter |
| 4 | $1,950 | Inventory planning becomes a real weekly job |
| 5 | $2,400 | Brand-level positioning, not product-level tactics |
| 6+ | Scoped on a call | Complexity stops scaling in a straight line |
Notice what the fee does not depend on: your revenue, your advertising budget, or how good a month you had. The work is a function of how many products need attention, so the price is too.
Ten checks before you sign at this size
Under $1 million a year, a management fee is a visible percentage of your margin. These are the checks that decide whether it earns its place.
- Is the tier priced on products or on revenue? Passes when growing does not automatically raise the fee.
- Is the full service set included at the lowest tier? Passes when the entry tier is not a stripped version of the real product.
- What is the total cost to start? Passes at zero onboarding fee, with any deposit structure explained plainly.
- Is the advertising budget separate from the fee? Passes when both numbers appear on their own lines. We recommend at least $1,000 a month of budget, without imposing a minimum.
- How much of your time does this take? Passes at about two hours a month after onboarding, rising to four to six hours a week during an active launch.
- Who touches the account? Passes when you can name the operator and know where they sit.
- Is sourcing part of the service or an assumption? Passes when supplier vetting, sampling, and quality control are covered by someone who does this work directly.
- What is the notice period? Passes at month to month with 30 days, no long-term lock-in.
- What do you keep if you leave? Passes when the answer is the Seller Central account, the campaigns, the creative, and a written handover.
- What happens when you add a product? Passes when it is a tier change on the next invoice rather than a new negotiation.
The check most sellers skip
Number seven is the one that gets overlooked at this revenue level, and it is the one with the longest consequences.
Under $1 million a year, your margin is usually decided at the factory rather than in the campaign manager. A supplier who ships inconsistent units produces returns, and returns produce ratings damage, and ratings damage produces an advertising cost you cannot optimize your way out of. No bid adjustment repairs a three-star average caused by variance in production.
We run sourcing through our own studio in Guangzhou, using frameworks built across more than 500 brands, because sending someone to a factory floor is a different capability from managing an account remotely. Whether or not you work with us, ask any candidate who inspects your goods, how, and what happens when a batch fails. At this size the answer is worth more than their advertising credentials.
What most agencies will not tell you about small-brand retainers
Many agencies would rather not have you at this revenue level and price accordingly, which is why entry tiers are often thin versions of the real service. The fee looks affordable and the work is triaged behind larger accounts. Ask what is excluded at your tier and compare it against what is included at the top one. If the lists differ, you are buying a queue position.
The second thing: a fee that is a large share of your revenue is not automatically a bad deal, and a small one is not automatically good. What matters is what the fee replaces. If it replaces twenty hours a month you were spending badly, plus creative you were buying separately, plus sourcing trips you were not taking, the ratio to revenue is the wrong measurement entirely. Compare against the cost of doing it yourself properly, not against zero.
Related answers
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- Amazon agency pricing and economics: the complete guide
Every tier and every inclusion is listed publicly at Flapen.
