How agencies and channel partners charge

The three ways an intermediary can be paid

Most commercial arrangements on this route fall into one of three models, and the vocabulary used to describe them is looser than it should be. A service fee is charged in addition to the media cost. A markup is added to the media cost itself. A rebate share is a portion of the volume rebate that the platform pays back to the account holder.

A flat retainer is usually a fourth variant rather than a separate model: it is a service fee expressed as a fixed monthly amount instead of a percentage. The question that matters is not whether the fee is a percentage or a flat sum, but whether the media cost is passed through unaltered.

What each model does to visibility

All three models scale with spend. A percentage fee, a markup and a rebate share each pay the intermediary more as the account grows, so the difference between them is not who wants the account to grow.

The real difference is visibility. Where media cost is passed through at the platform rate, the advertiser can separate what the platform charged from what the intermediary charged. Where the media cost is marked up, that line disappears, and a small markup and a large one look identical on the invoice.

A retained rebate achieves the same thing from the other direction. The advertiser pays what appears to be a standard rate while the account holder collects an additional amount from the platform, which is why rebate-funded arrangements often quote a fee that looks lower than the true cost of the relationship.

Why a percentage of ad spend is a reasonable basis

Charging on a percentage of ad spend ties the fee to the work an account actually generates. Verification, funding, account structure, support and policy escalation all grow with account size, and a percentage basis keeps those in step without renegotiating a fixed fee every time spend changes.

It also avoids the failure mode of a flat retainer, which is expensive for a small testing account and cheap for a large stable one. Under a flat fee, the advertiser testing a new market is subsidising the advertiser already running at scale.

The trade-off is that the fee is not predictable in absolute terms, because it moves with spend. That is usually acceptable on a channel account, since it moves in the same direction as the work being done.

What we charge, and why it is the same on every platform

Media cost is passed through at the platform rate. There is no markup: the amount that reaches the platform is the amount charged for media, and it can be reconciled against platform reporting.

Our only revenue is a service fee, charged the same way on every platform we represent — Google, Meta or TikTok. The commercial model does not change depending on where you spend, so there is no commercial reason for us to steer you toward one platform over another.

The service fee is as low as 4% of ad spend. What moves it above that floor is the servicing load and the account risk profile, both covered below.

We take no platform rebate. There is no rebate to allocate, so the service fee is the only commercial charge on top of media cost, and the applicable rate is stated in writing before anything starts.

That combination is also where the competitive position sits. Since media cost is the platform’s rate at any authorized partner, the fee and the turnaround are the only figures that separate one partner from another — and both are stated in writing before anything starts.

Where partners actually differ

Once the media cost is fixed at the platform rate, a comparison between intermediaries narrows to two numbers: the fee, and the turnaround.

The fee is the harder of the two to compare, because a percentage, a flat retainer and a retained rebate are three different instruments. Converted into a single effective cost per unit of ad spend they become directly comparable — and the spread between partners is wide. A service fee of 4% and one at 10% or more describe the same platform access at a very different total cost.

Turnaround is the number almost nobody asks for. Two partners with the same platform access can be weeks apart on activation, because the difference is internal process rather than platform permission. On our own accounts, documentation is checked in about fifteen minutes and the account is typically live within the working hour.

Neither figure appears on a rate card. Ask for both in writing, and a shortlist stops looking like a shortlist.

Why the rate is not the same for every advertiser

Two things move the rate: the advertising category, and the account risk profile. Both affect how much work an account needs beyond opening it.

Categories with stricter advertising rules need more pre-launch review and closer attention to claims, targeting and creative. Accounts that generate more account-health work — repeated policy questions, verification changes, appeals — consume partner time that a quiet account never does.

This is not specific to any one partner. An account that creates recurring compliance work is not priced like one that does not, and pretending otherwise normally means the cost has been moved somewhere less visible instead.

How to compare two quotes properly

Ask four things of any quote: whether the media cost is passed through at the platform rate, whether any platform rebate is retained by the intermediary, exactly what the fee covers, and what happens to the fee when spend pauses.

Then compare on total effective cost rather than on the headline number. A low stated fee with a retained rebate can cost more than a higher fee with none, and that comparison cannot be made from the invoice alone.

It is also worth asking for the range you fall into, in writing, before committing. A fee quoted as starting from a given point and later applied at the top of that range is a different offer from the one that was compared.

Frequently asked questions