Amazon PPC agency vs software vs in-house: how to choose

Every Amazon advertiser ends up in one of three set-ups, or a mix of them. The right one depends less on the size of your ad budget than on who in your business understands the margins and has the time to act on them.

• An agency. A team outside your business manages campaigns in your Amazon Ads account: structure, keywords, bids, budgets and reporting. Many also offer listing work, creative, Amazon DSP or wider account management. Amazon lists agencies and tool providers in its own partner directory.^[1]
• Software. A tool connects to your Amazon Ads account through Amazon's API and automates the repetitive part: bid changes, negative keywords, keyword harvesting, hourly schedules and reports. You decide the targets and the strategy.
• In-house. An employee or a founder runs the account, usually with software, because changing bids one at a time in the Amazon console does not keep up once there are more than a few campaigns.

Mixed set-ups are common: an agency that runs software for you, or an in-house manager who uses software and brings in a specialist for a launch.

Agency pricing models

• Percentage of ad spend. The fee is a share of what you spend on ads each month, often with a monthly minimum.
• Flat monthly retainer. A fixed fee for an agreed scope, whatever you spend.
• Retainer plus percentage. A base fee plus a share of spend, sometimes only above a threshold.
• Performance-based. A share of ad-attributed sales, or of growth over an agreed baseline.
• Extras. Setup or onboarding fees, minimum contract terms and notice periods. Ask about all three.

Why the model matters more than the rate

A fee tied to ad spend rises whenever spend rises, whether or not your profit does. Good agencies still manage for profit, but it is worth knowing which number the fee follows, because that is the number with the most gravity in every conversation about budgets.

Performance-based fees line up with sales, but read how "attributed sales" and "growth" are measured, and whether sales the ads did not cause can count towards the fee.

Software pricing models

Software is usually a monthly subscription, flat or tiered by ad spend, number of accounts or marketplaces. Some tools also take a percentage of ad spend once spend passes a threshold. The published pricing of named tools is on our comparison pages.

In-house costs

Salary or founder time, training and the tools the team uses. The hidden cost is continuity: when the person who built the account leaves, so does the reasoning behind it, unless it lives in a tool or in writing.

• Nobody on your team has the time to own advertising, and you would rather buy hours than build the skill.
• You need more than bids: a structure for a large catalogue, launch plans, creative, listings, Amazon DSP or channels beyond Amazon.
• You want a named person accountable for results and a regular review with them.
• You are entering a new marketplace or category and want experience you do not have yet.

A good agency brings judgement that software does not: whether a product deserves ad money at all, when a price change beats a bid change, and how to respond when a competitor moves. If those questions are the hard part of your business, pay for people.

• Someone on your side knows the margins and can set targets. Software carries out a goal; it does not choose your strategy.
• You want control: to see every change, approve or undo it, and change direction the same day.
• You want the cost of running ads to stay put when ad spend grows.
• You want decisions tied to profit after Amazon fees and cost of goods, not to ACoS alone.
• Most of the work is repetitive: bid steps, negatives, harvesting search terms into exact match, hourly bid schedules.
• You want to keep the knowledge: targets, settings and the history of changes stay with you.

Whoever runs the account, judge it on profit and on TACoS (ad spend divided by total sales), not on ad-attributed ACoS alone. The TACoS calculator and the break-even ACoS calculator take a minute with your own numbers.

In-house works when advertising is core to the business and you can keep the person who runs it. Pair them with software so their hours go into decisions rather than spreadsheets.

It is also a natural step after an agency. Campaigns live in your own Amazon Ads account, so the structure an agency built stays when the agency goes, and software can take over the repetitive part from day one.

Before hiring an agency

• What is the fee based on: spend, sales, a retainer or a mix? Is there a minimum, a setup fee, a minimum term and a notice period?
• Whose account is it? Campaigns should live in your own Amazon Ads account with the agency invited as users. On Amazon Ads only Admins can invite, update or remove users, and access levels include Admin, Editor and Viewer, so keep the Admin role yourself.^[2]
• How do you set target ACoS? The answer should start from your margin (your break-even ACoS), not from an industry average.
• Do you report profit, or only ACoS and ROAS?
• Can I see every change you make, with the reason, and who made it?
• Which tools do you use, and will I have my own login?
• What happens to the account, the tools and the data if we stop working together?

Before choosing software

• What changes automatically, what waits for my approval, and can I undo a change?
• Is there a fee on ad spend, or only a subscription?
• Where does the target come from, and can I set it per campaign?
• Does it show profit after Amazon fees and cost of goods, and how fresh is the data?
• Does every change say why it was made?

Shurq is software, not an agency. Shurq Pro is $200/month with one connected Amazon account included. Extra connected accounts are $50/month each, team seats are free (up to 100), and there is no percentage of ad spend. It comes with a 30-day free trial and no credit card is required. See pricing.

What it does for the account:

• Profit by product after Amazon fees and your cost of goods (profit dashboard).
• Hourly ad performance data (Stream).
• A bid optimizer that previews each proposed change with its reason, so nothing reaches Amazon until you apply it, plus rules, dayparting, keyword harvesting and negatives (AI Ad Manager). How it sets bids is in our bid optimization guide.
• A log of applied optimizations that can be rolled back in one click.

What it does not do: decide your strategy, write your brand story or sit in a weekly meeting with you. If you need that, an agency is the right call, and agencies can run Shurq for their clients too.

• Amazon bid optimization: setting targets and bids from your margin.
• Amazon dayparting: when hour-of-day bidding is worth it.
• Compare Shurq with other Amazon PPC tools: sourced, dated comparisons.
• Pricing: what Shurq Pro includes.

1. Amazon Ads, Find a Partner. https://advertising.amazon.com/partners/directory. Checked 3 October 2026.
2. Amazon Ads Support Center, Add or remove users from your account. https://advertising.amazon.com/help/GDQVHVQMY9F88PCA (updated 17 April 2026). Checked 3 October 2026.