Agency, internal hire, freelancer, or fractional team. The right answer is brand-stage dependent. This page exists to help you pick — including the cases where the answer isn't us.
Each option is right for a specific stage. Find yours below — and if it isn't us, that's the right answer. We'd rather you pick the option that actually fits.
You're $1–$5M, need execution capacity at low cost, and don't yet need senior strategic input.
You're past $10M and frustrated by junior account managers, templated playbooks, and a roster of 30+ accounts per AM.
You're $50M+, Amazon is a strategic channel, and you can absorb a 6-month ramp plus full-time loaded headcount.
You can't justify $200K+ loaded headcount, can't find senior Amazon talent, or need capacity in 30 days not 6 months.
You're under $1M, need basic PPC management, and can tolerate a single-point-of-failure operating dependency.
You need integrated strategy across PPC + listings + ops, or you can't tolerate vacation-and-illness service gaps.
You're $5M–$100M, Amazon is 15%+ of revenue, and you want senior expertise without the cost of building in-house.
You want low-touch outsourcing, your brand is under $5M, or your team won't commit to a weekly operating cadence.
The dimensions a CFO will ask about. Color-coded so you can scan in 60 seconds — green is the strongest position on that row, red is the weakest, yellow is the middle.
| Dimension | Agency | Internal Hire | Freelancer | Fractional Team |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 total cost | $36K–$120K | $430K–$580K | $24K–$60K | $120K–$180K |
| Time to operational capacity | 30–60 days | 5–7 months | 14 days | 14 days |
| Scope of work covered | Often PPC-only or limited | Full Amazon function | One narrow capability | Full Amazon function |
| Seniority of who does the work | Junior account manager | Senior (if you hire well) | Mid-level operator | Senior — capped roster |
| Accountability model | Retainer-tied (hours) | Performance-tied (job) | Retainer-tied (hours) | Outcome-tied (margin) |
| Flexibility to scale up or down | Add tier, kill contract | Lay off, severance | End the engagement | Add modules, 30-day exit |
| Risk if it doesn't work out | Sunk months; switch costs | $200K+ wasted; legal risk | Low — cancel anytime | Low — 30-day notice |
| Best for (brand stage) | $1M–$10M | $50M+ | Under $1M | $5M–$100M |
For most $5M–$100M brands the real comparison isn't agency vs fractional. It's build internal vs hire fractional. Here's the Year 1 math in detail. Take a screenshot.
Year 1 savings: ~$359K. Time-to-operational-capacity advantage: ~5 months. Same senior coverage, no hiring risk, 30-day exit clause if it doesn't work.
Four objections sophisticated buyers raise with us. Here's the honest answer to each — including the cases where the objection is right.
Maybe true. The honest test: pull the last 6 months of your monthly reports and identify three specific strategic actions the agency recommended. If you can name three real recommendations that moved the business — keep the agency.
If you can name reporting summaries but not strategic moves, the agency isn't bad — it's just running the maintenance playbook on autopilot. That's fine for $2M brands. It's expensive opportunity cost for $20M+ brands where senior judgment compounds.
True — and also expensive. The control argument is real: an in-house Head of Amazon attends every meeting, owns the relationship with internal stakeholders, and accumulates institutional knowledge.
The trade-off is the math you just saw above ($575K vs $216K Year 1) plus the 5–7 month ramp before the role is producing. For most $5M–$50M brands, fractional bridges to in-house — start with the fractional team, transition to in-house once Amazon revenue justifies the loaded headcount.
If that's genuinely true — a freelancer or focused PPC agency is the better hire. We're explicit about this on the page.
The pattern we see: brands convince themselves PPC is the only problem, hire a specialist, then realize 3 months in that listings need rework, A+ Content is out of date, and inventory isn't aligned with the ad strategy. PPC in isolation rarely fixes itself. If your audit shows the problem is genuinely one-channel, hire one channel. If it's broader, the integrated fractional team is more efficient than three vendors.
Some agencies are rebranding as "fractional" right now to ride the trend. The structural test is simple: how many active accounts does the senior person on your engagement also run?
Real fractional caps at 4–6 brands per senior operator. Anything above 8 is an agency wearing a fractional label. Ask the question before you sign. The answer will sort the real teams from the relabeled agencies in 30 seconds.
The audit gives you a category-by-category margin estimate in 2 minutes. The Diagnostic is a 30-minute live walkthrough of your actual Amazon account. Either way, you walk out with the most honest read of your Amazon channel you've gotten.
Answer 8 quick questions and get a category-by-category estimate of where your Amazon business is leaving money on the table — plus what to do about each leak.
2 minutes. No call required.
We'll pull up your account live, walk through exactly what's holding back your growth, and show you the specific changes we'd make — with the data to back it up.
Limited spots available each month.
