There Is No Rate
By Simon Ellicott · July 29, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
There Is No Rate
There is no market rate for Amazon account management.
And the belief that there is causes more damage than most agency owners realise.
I’ve had two conversations recently where founders asked me:
“What should we be charging?”
£1,500?
£3,000?
£5,000?
My answer was the same both times: It depends.
I’ve worked with Amazon agencies charging £500 per month retainers and others refusing to engage below £5,000.
Same platform.
Same channel.
Completely different proposition.
Because “Amazon full service” can mean almost anything.
For one agency, it means basic account management and advertising.
For another, it includes:
Strategy.
Forecasting.
Retail operations.
DSP.
AMC.
Commercial planning.
Board-level stakeholder support.
Two agencies can charge the same fee while delivering completely different levels of value.
Which is why most agencies don’t actually have a pricing problem.
They have a positioning problem.
When an agency loses a pitch, the immediate assumption is often:
“We were undercut.”
Sometimes that’s true. But more often, the brand simply couldn’t see enough difference between the agencies involved.
And when buyers can’t see the difference, price becomes the difference.
I recently spoke with an agency founder who was worried they were perceived as expensive.
They weren’t. They just weren’t clearly articulating:
Who they served.
What they solved.
Why their model was different.
What commercial outcomes clients should expect.
Without that clarity, almost any fee can feel expensive.
The agencies commanding premium retainers aren’t always the best agencies.
They’re often just the clearest.
So when an agency owner asks me:
“What is the market rate?”
I ask them a different question:
“What exactly are you selling?”
Until you can answer that confidently, every pricing conversation will feel uncomfortable.
And every lost pitch will look like a pricing issue. Even when it isn’t.
There is no market rate.
There is only positioning.
#AmazonAgencyGrowth #AgencyPricingStrategy #AmazonConsultancy
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