To start an Amazon agency, pick one service line to begin with (usually advertising management or listing optimization), learn Seller Central and Amazon Ads hands-on, set up client access the way Amazon intends (authorized partner access and manager accounts, never shared passwords), price a package whose hours you have actually counted, and win your first sellers with specific paid audits. Expand into full account management once you have results to show.
This guide covers what is specific to Amazon: service lines, platform access and its limits, a worked service package with margin math, pricing models and first clients. For general agency setup (entity, contracts, banking), see how to start an agency. If you plan to serve Shopify and DTC brands as well as Amazon sellers, read how to start an ecommerce agency.
Key facts before you start:
- Sellers pay $39.99 a month for a Professional selling plan, plus a referral fee on each sale that varies by category (Amazon selling fees). Your work has to beat these costs, not just grow revenue.
- Amazon's guidance to sellers is to add outside agencies as authorized partners, not as secondary users, and never to share passwords (Amazon staff guidance in the Seller Forums).
- Brand Registry requires an active or pending trademark (Amazon Brand Registry). Most of the useful tools (A+ Content, Brand Stores, Sponsored Brands, Brand Referral Bonus) depend on it.
- Amazon discontinued Posts in 2025 (Amazon Ads). Guides that still list Posts as a lever are out of date.
Step 1: Pick your first service line
Most Amazon agencies start with one line, prove results, then expand. Each line has a different buyer, workload and sales motion.
| Service line | What you do | Who buys it | Good first line if |
|---|---|---|---|
| Advertising management | Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display campaigns; later Amazon DSP | Brands already selling, spending on ads inefficiently | You are strong with data and spreadsheets |
| Listing optimization | Titles, bullets, backend keywords, image briefs, A+ Content, Brand Stores | New launches and brands with weak conversion | You are a strong writer with ecommerce sense |
| Full account management | Ads, listings, inventory planning, account health, reporting | Brands that want one partner for the channel | You have done the first two lines for real |
| Account health and compliance | Suppressed listings, policy issues, reinstatement appeals | Sellers in trouble | You have prior experience at a seller or agency (mistakes here are costly) |
| External traffic | Social, search and email traffic to Amazon listings, tracked with Amazon Attribution | Brand-registered sellers with marketing budgets | You already run Meta, Google or TikTok ads |
External traffic has a specific incentive behind it: Brand Registry sellers on a Professional plan earn a Brand Referral Bonus averaging 10% of qualifying sales driven from outside Amazon and tracked with Amazon Attribution tags (Amazon). That bonus can offset part of the cost of the outside ads you run.
Step 2: Learn the platform hands-on
Sellers can tell quickly whether you have used Seller Central or only read about it. Before you pitch:
- Get hands-on time. Selling a small product yourself, working inside a seller's account, or working at an existing Amazon agency all count. Six months of real exposure teaches more than any course.
- Complete Amazon Ads certifications. Amazon Ads offers free training and certifications through its learning console. Buyers ask about them, and they count toward partner status.
- Learn the metrics sellers are judged on. ACoS (ad spend divided by ad sales), TACoS (ad spend divided by total sales), conversion rate, Buy Box share, and the account health metrics in Seller Central.
- Learn the fee stack. Referral fees, FBA fulfillment and storage fees, and advertising costs decide whether a "growing" account is making money. An agency that grows revenue while the client loses money on each unit will be fired.
Step 3: Set up client access the right way
How you access client accounts decides who controls what, and Amazon's rules are specific.
| Area | How agencies should get access | What the client keeps |
|---|---|---|
| Seller Central | The seller adds your agency as an authorized partner with only the permissions you need. Amazon staff guidance: do not add outside companies as secondary users and do not share passwords. | Ownership of the seller account, identity, bank and tax details. Under Amazon's seller agreement, the seller is responsible for everything done in the account. |
| Amazon Ads | Register your agency in the Amazon Ads Partner Network and link client advertising accounts to your manager account. | Their advertising account, campaign history and billing. |
| Brand Registry | The brand owner grants your team access to the Brand Registry tools you need. | The trademark and the rights-owner role in Brand Registry. |
| Data and reporting tools | Connect tools through the client's own authorizations. | The ability to revoke access at any time. |
Boundaries to write into every contract:
- You will not: create or manage accounts in your agency's name for the client, solicit or incentivize reviews outside Amazon Vine, open new seller accounts to get around a suspension, or make product claims the client cannot substantiate. Amazon has prohibited incentivized reviews outside its Vine program since 2016.
- The client owns: inventory decisions, product compliance (safety, labeling, claims) and responses to legal notices, even when you help prepare them.
- Shared: account health monitoring. Say who checks it, how often, and who acts on alerts.
The Amazon Ads Partner Network also awards Verified and Advanced partner badges based on criteria such as certified team members and linked advertiser activity. Check the current requirements on Amazon's partner pages; they change.
Step 4: Build a service package with real numbers
Below is a worked example of a full-service package. The client, prices and hours are hypothetical; use your own numbers.
The client (example): a supplement brand with 40 ASINs, about $150,000 a month in Amazon sales and $25,000 a month in ad spend. Brand Registry is in place.
The package: $3,500 base retainer plus 8% of managed ad spend, so $3,500 + $2,000 = $5,500 a month, on a 6-month initial term.
| Included each month | Hours |
|---|---|
| Advertising: weekly search term review, negatives, bids, budget pacing, new campaign tests | 30 |
| Listings: refresh 2 to 3 listings (copy, keywords, image briefs) | 12 |
| Account health and inventory checks, Seller Support cases | 6 |
| Monthly report and dashboard upkeep | 6 |
| Client calls, planning and account management | 8 |
| Total | 62 |
Margin check: 62 hours at a loaded team cost of $50 an hour is $3,100, plus about $200 a month of allocated tool costs (keyword research, PPC software), so $3,300. Gross profit is $2,200 on $5,500, or 40%.
Out of scope, quoted as projects: A+ Content and Brand Store builds, product photography, new product launches, account reinstatement work and Amazon DSP.
What the example teaches:
- Hours on advertising scale with campaigns, not just spend. If the client doubles ASINs, your hours go up even if spend does not. Tie the base fee to catalog size as well as spend.
- A spend percentage with no floor punishes you when the client cuts budget. Add a minimum monthly fee.
- Projects protect the retainer. If A+ Content were included, one new product launch would wipe out the month's margin.
To work out your own loaded hourly cost, see how to calculate your agency hourly rate.
Step 5: Choose a pricing model
| Model | How it works | Fits | Tradeoff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flat retainer | Fixed monthly fee | Smaller or stable accounts | You absorb extra work if spend or catalog grows |
| Percentage of ad spend | A percentage of managed spend | Larger accounts with growth plans | Income drops when the client cuts spend; can look like an incentive to overspend |
| Base plus percentage | Fixed base plus a percentage of spend, with a minimum | Most advertising and full-service accounts | Slightly harder to explain |
| Performance-based | Share of revenue above an agreed baseline | Established brands with 12+ months of clean data | Needs precise definitions of baseline and attribution; high variance |
For new agencies, base plus percentage with a minimum fee is usually the most defensible. Write performance terms only when the client has a stable baseline and the contract defines "attributable revenue", the baseline period and how returns and stock-outs are treated.
For pricing structures across service types, see agency pricing models, retainer vs project pricing and hourly vs fixed price.
Step 6: Land your first sellers
Sell a paid audit first. A paid audit is easier to say yes to than a 6-month retainer, and it shows how you think. A useful audit covers listing quality on the top ASINs, ad account structure and wasted spend (search terms with spend and no sales), organic rank on key terms, Brand Registry tools not in use, and a 90-day plan with priorities.
Find brands with visible problems. Missing A+ Content, no Brand Store, weak images, poor reviews on the main listing or listings that sell out often are all visible from the product page. Send a short, specific note with three observations and an audit offer.
Be useful in seller communities. Seller forums, Reddit communities such as r/FulfillmentByAmazon, and Amazon seller events are where sellers ask for help. Answer questions properly; inbound follows reputation.
Use Amazon's own channels. Amazon's partner programs include the Service Provider Network (agencies manage client relationships and list services through the Solution Provider Portal) and the invite-only Amazon Stores Agency program for agencies bringing new brands to Amazon (Amazon partner programs).
Partner with adjacent providers. Product photographers, 3PLs, trademark attorneys and Shopify agencies all meet sellers who need what you do.
Step 7: Run delivery so it scales
Amazon accounts produce the same recurring tasks every week, which makes them easy to systemize and easy to neglect.
- Daily: account health and budget pacing checks.
- Weekly: search term harvesting, negative keywords, bid changes, stock levels on top ASINs.
- Monthly: listing health review, client report and strategy call.
- Quarterly: competitor and category review, pricing review, plan for peak seasons.
Write these as SOPs and put them on a recurring schedule so nothing depends on memory. AgencyPro handles the agency side: project management for tasks across seller accounts, a client portal for reports and approvals, and retainer invoicing through recurring billing. On the Pro plan and above, recurring requests create the weekly and monthly work for each account on schedule, and time tracking lets you check the margin math above against the hours you actually spend.
Common mistakes that sink new Amazon agencies
- Running ads to weak listings. Fix listing basics before you scale spend, or you pay to send shoppers to a page that doesn't convert.
- Optimizing ACoS alone. A higher ACoS can be worth it when it drives organic rank and total sales. Report TACoS and total sales alongside ACoS, and agree which one you are managing to.
- Ignoring unit economics. Growth that loses money per unit after referral fees, FBA fees and ad cost is not growth. Ask for the client's landed cost per unit before you set targets.
- Breaking platform rules. Review manipulation, misleading claims and workarounds for suspensions can get a client's account suspended and your agency blacklisted by their peers.
- Promising fast results. Ranking and ad efficiency changes take weeks to show. Set expectations in the proposal and report leading indicators in the meantime.
- Taking accounts faster than you can systemize them. Each new account adds recurring weekly work. Hire or say no before quality drops.
When an Amazon agency is not the right fit
- You want to avoid platform risk. Your clients' revenue depends on one marketplace's rules, fees and algorithm, and so does yours. A suspension can end a client relationship overnight through no fault of yours.
- You prefer brand and creative work to operations. Much of the work is spreadsheets, catalog maintenance and support cases.
- Your prospects are very small sellers. A seller doing a few thousand dollars a month cannot afford a retainer that covers your time. Productized audits or courses may suit that market better than agency work.
- You have never operated in Seller Central. Get hands-on experience first; this is not a niche where you can learn on a paying client.
Your first 90 days
| Weeks | Focus |
|---|---|
| 1-2 | Choose your first service line, start Amazon Ads certifications, register in the Partner Network |
| 3-4 | Draft one package with hour-by-hour margin math, a paid audit offer and a contract with access and conduct boundaries |
| 5-8 | Run 3 to 5 audits (paid or discounted), publish what you learn, join seller communities |
| 9-12 | Convert audits to 2 or 3 retainers, write weekly and monthly SOPs, document results for case studies |
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to sell my own product on Amazon before starting an agency?
It helps a lot, but it is not the only route. Working inside sellers' accounts at an existing agency or brand teaches the same platform skills. What you cannot skip is real hands-on time in Seller Central and Amazon Ads before you take responsibility for a client's account.
How much does Amazon take from a $100 sale?
On a $100 sale in a category with a 15% referral fee, Amazon takes $15 as the referral fee. If the seller uses FBA, fulfillment fees based on size and weight come on top, and Professional sellers also pay $39.99 a month. Advertising costs are separate. Fee schedules are on Amazon's pricing page.
How does percentage-of-ad-spend pricing work?
You charge a percentage of the advertising spend you manage, usually on top of a base fee. For example, a $3,500 base plus 8% on $25,000 of monthly spend is $5,500 a month. Add a minimum fee so your income doesn't fall below your costs if the client cuts spend.
What is Amazon's Service Provider Network?
It is Amazon's program for third-party providers that serve sellers. Agencies use the Solution Provider Portal to manage client relationships and list their services, so sellers can find them. See Amazon's partner programs page for current eligibility.
Can I guarantee rankings or sales to clients?
No. Amazon's search ranking depends on factors no agency controls, including competitors and Amazon's own changes. Commit to the work you control (campaign management, listing quality, account health, reporting) and to clear targets for leading indicators, not guaranteed positions.
Should I specialize in one product category?
Usually yes, once you have a few clients. Category knowledge (regulations, seasonality, keyword sets, competitor behavior) makes your work faster and your case studies more relevant to the next prospect. Choose a category where you already have experience.