Amazon agency or freelance Amazon consultant: which one to hire
Amazon agency or freelance consultant? Who does the work, scope, pricing models and fit compared side by side, plus eight questions to ask before you sign.
Gazi El Halabi ·
In short
Hire an agency when you need a team to run everything at once, advertising, creative and day-to-day operations, and you have the budget for a monthly retainer. Hire a freelance consultant when the problem is specific (catalogue, listings, expansion, account health) and you want a senior person doing the work, not supervising it.
The short answer
Both can be the right choice. The difference is who does the work, how much of the business they take on, and how you pay for it.
| Amazon agency | Freelance Amazon consultant | |
|---|---|---|
| Who does the work | A team: account manager, specialists, often juniors on day-to-day tasks | The person you hire |
| Typical scope | Full service: advertising, creative, listings, operations | Specific areas, done in depth: catalogue, listings, expansion, account health, data |
| How it is priced | Usually a monthly retainer, sometimes plus a share of sales or ad spend | Per project or a monthly scope |
| Commitment | Often a minimum term | Usually per project |
| Best for | Brands that want to hand over the whole channel | Brands with a team that needs senior help on specific problems |
| Watch out for | Who actually works on your account | Capacity: one person, and what is out of their scope |
When an agency is the better fit
- You need advertising management run every day alongside the catalogue.
- You need creative production: photography, video, A+ design.
- Nobody in-house will own Amazon, and you want one supplier for everything.
- The budget supports a monthly retainer for the long term.
When a consultant is the better fit
- The problem is specific: suppressed listings, broken variations, a catalogue that differs in every market, a launch in a new country.
- You have someone in-house, or an agency for ads, and need senior expertise on catalogue and listings.
- You want the person who diagnoses the problem to be the one who fixes it.
- You prefer a defined project to an open-ended retainer.
Many brands use both: an agency for advertising, a consultant for catalogue and expansion. That works well when both have a clear scope.
Eight questions to ask before you sign
- Who will work on my account, and how senior are they?
- What access do you need? Expect to add them as a user in Seller Central with specific permissions, never to share your login.
- What exactly is included, and what is not?
- How do you report, and how often?
- Is there a minimum term or notice period?
- Who owns the content, files and data you create?
- Which marketplaces have you worked in? Ask for examples in yours.
- What will you do in the first 30 days? A clear answer means they have done it before.
Where I fit
I am an independent Amazon consultant: catalogue, listings, account health, expansion between Europe and the US, and automation. Advertising management and creative production are outside my scope, and I coordinate with whoever does them. If you are not sure which you need, start with the free listing auditor or ask me for a free mini-audit of one listing.
Dealing with this across several Amazon marketplaces?
Talk to me about it