A full-service Amazon agency runs every part of your Amazon business under one team: advertising, listing and SEO copy, creative and A+ Content, catalog and variations, account health, brand protection, inventory planning, and reporting. In 2026 it typically costs $2,500 to $15,000 a month, or 3 to 10% of Amazon revenue on a percentage deal.
The dividing line is scope, not size. A PPC agency optimizes bids. A full-service Amazon agency owns the number at the bottom of your Seller Central dashboard.
Typical retainer
Per month in 2026. Under $1,500 for genuine full-service is a red flag, not a bargain.
Workstreams covered
Full-service covers all eight. A PPC-only agency covers about three of them.
One in-house hire
Average US Amazon brand manager salary, before tools, creative, and benefits.
What is a full-service Amazon agency?
A full-service Amazon agency is a single team that owns your entire Amazon channel rather than one slice of it. That means ads and DSP, listing copy and keyword strategy, photography and A+ Content, catalog structure, account health and case management, brand protection, inventory coordination, and the reporting that ties it together.
The distinction matters because most agencies selling to Amazon brands are not full-service. They are PPC shops. Bid management is the easiest piece to package, so it is the piece most often sold, and it is also the piece that fails quietest when the listing underneath it does not convert.
Workstreams covered, by type of partner
Out of eight core Amazon workstreams: ads and DSP, listing and SEO, creative and A+, catalog and variations, account health, brand protection, inventory planning, reporting and strategy.
Coverage counts are Amplifyr’s assessment of typical scope by partner type, based on published service pages across the category. Individual providers vary.
What is included in full-service Amazon management?
Scope is where quotes stop being comparable. Two agencies can both say “full-service” and differ by half the work. Before you compare price, compare the list below and make each candidate say yes or no to every line in writing.
| Workstream | Full-service agency | PPC-only agency | Freelancer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sponsored Products, Brands, Display | Yes | Yes | Sometimes |
| Amazon DSP and AMC | Yes | Sometimes | No |
| Listing copy and keyword strategy | Yes | No | Sometimes |
| Photography, video, A+ Content | Yes | No | No |
| Catalog, variations, flat files | Yes | No | No |
| Account health and case management | Yes | No | Sometimes |
| Brand Registry and IP enforcement | Yes | No | No |
| Inventory and forecasting support | Yes | No | No |
Creative is the line most often quietly excluded. Photography and video are frequently quoted as separate projects, so a $3,000 retainer can turn into $3,000 plus a $6,000 image build. Ask which of the eight rows above is inside the retainer and which is billed per project, before you sign.
The operating load also went up this year. Amazon ended credit-card payments for advertising on August 1, 2026, pushing advertisers onto bank debit or Amazon Lending, and the shift toward agent-led, AI-assisted shopping is changing how products get surfaced at all. Both are channel-management problems, not bid-management problems. For the detailed function-by-function breakdown, see what a full-service Amazon agency does.
Not sure which of the eight you are missing? Our free Amazon audit scores your account across all eight workstreams and shows you the two that are costing you the most.
Get a free auditHow much does a full-service Amazon agency cost in 2026?
Most full-service retainers in 2026 land between $2,500 and $10,000 a month, with enterprise scope running to $15,000 and beyond. Percentage deals typically run 3 to 10% of Amazon revenue, or 10 to 20% of ad spend with a floor of $1,000 to $2,500. PPC-only management sits lower, roughly $1,000 to $5,000.
Price tracks scope and revenue, not prestige. A brand doing $60,000 a month does not need the same team as one doing $2 million, and paying enterprise rates at that stage buys reporting you will not read.
Typical full-service monthly retainer, by Amazon revenue tier
Ranges reflect published 2026 agency pricing across the US market. Bars show the common band, not the extremes.
For the full model-by-model breakdown of retainers, percentage-of-revenue and hybrid deals, see our Amazon agency cost guide. For ad-management pricing specifically, see Amazon PPC agency pricing.
For the record, ours is the greater of $5,000 a month or 7% of Amazon revenue (5% above $100K a month), all eight workstreams included, creative studio in-house. We publish it because an agency that will not name a number until the third call is optimizing for negotiating leverage, not for fit.
Is a full-service agency cheaper than hiring in-house?
Usually, at least until you are big enough to staff a real team. The average US Amazon brand manager salary is about $84,160 as of August 2026, with senior roles near $152,000. That is one person, before payroll taxes, benefits, software, and creative production.
One person also cannot cover all eight workstreams. In practice a single in-house hire covers ads, listings, basic catalog work, and reporting, then outsources or drops creative, brand protection, and DSP. The honest comparison is one salary against a retainer that includes a strategist, an ads specialist, a copywriter, and a creative team.
The trade-off is covered in more depth in our comparison of an Amazon agency versus in-house versus a freelancer, including the break-even math on when a second internal hire beats a retainer.
$0 to $92,058 a month in year one
An organic iced tea brand came to Amplifyr with no Amazon presence. We built the listings and creative, launched the ads, and ran the account end to end: $539,080 in year-one revenue, a 10.4x lift from the first full month, roughly 10% TACoS at scale, and more than 60% of sales coming through organically rather than paid. That last number is the one that separates channel management from ad management.
How do you choose a full-service Amazon agency?
The category rewards good sales more than good work, so screen for evidence rather than confidence. Four things separate a real full-service team from a repackaged PPC shop: named operators, a sample report, transparent scope, and contract terms that let you leave.
Ask these four before you sign
- 1Who actually touches my account? Ask for names, tenure, and how many other accounts each person carries. Senior partners often close the deal; junior staff carrying 15 to 30 accounts do the work.
- 2Show me a real report. Not a testimonial, an actual monthly deliverable with numbers in it. If they cannot show a redacted one during the sales process, there probably isn’t one.
- 3Which of the eight workstreams is in the retainer? Get it in writing, line by line, including whether photography and video are included or billed separately.
- 4What are the exit terms? A reasonable structure is roughly a 90-day ramp to prove performance, then a 30-day exit clause. Long lock-ins with auto-renewal are how underperformance survives.
Walk away from these four
- 1Guaranteed rankings, ACoS, or Buy Box. No agency controls Amazon’s ranking algorithm or Buy Box logic. A guarantee is either naive or dishonest.
- 2Full-service under $1,500 a month. That price cannot cover eight workstreams by a competent team. Something is being dropped, offshored, or automated badly.
- 3Full admin access with no explanation. Agencies should tell you exactly which Seller Central permissions they need and why.
- 4A shared inbox instead of a named account manager. When something breaks in Q4, you need a person, not a queue.
One more filter that costs nothing: ask how they would fix your listing before they touch your ads. If the answer is a bid strategy, you are talking to a PPC agency. If it is images, copy, and catalog structure, you are talking to someone who understands that conversion rate is what makes ad spend work in the first place.
Frequently asked questions
What is a full-service Amazon agency?
How much does a full-service Amazon agency cost in 2026?
What is the difference between a full-service Amazon agency and a PPC agency?
When should a brand hire a full-service Amazon agency?
Is an Amazon agency cheaper than hiring in-house?
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