Effective today, TopRank Partners is eliminating two industry-standard fee practices we ourselves used to charge, annual contracts and reimbursement recovery percentages, and reaffirming a third we have never charged. Here is what changes, what does not, and why we are raising the standard on ourselves in public.
This letter announces two changes to how TopRank Partners charges marketplace clients. Both take effect today, August 1, 2026.
Change one: TopRank Partners no longer requires annual contracts. Every new engagement runs month-to-month, terminable at any time, no penalty, no notice period, no rollover.
Change two: TopRank Partners no longer takes a percentage of Amazon reimbursement recovery. Recovery work is included in the primary fee. Recovered dollars flow to the client's topline where the same sliding-scale rate applies, the same rate that applies to every other dollar of GMV.
A third practice, markup on ad spend, this firm has never charged. That has not changed. It never will. Ad spend passes through at cost, always. If Amazon charges a client $180,000 in advertising for the month, the invoice line says $180,000, and no line item next to it says "management."
The reason is not complicated, and it is worth stating plainly. I have sat on both sides of the table in this industry, running P&L for brands and running the outside teams hired to grow them, long enough to see which practices are structural service and which are commercial residue. The two we are eliminating today are commercial residue. They exist because they are industry standard, not because they serve the client. Standard is not the same as right.
Across the industry, a mid-market marketplace brand typically pays through three stacked fee streams: a management retainer or GMV percentage, a ten-to-twenty percent markup on advertising spend, and a fifteen-to-twenty-five percent cut of any Amazon reimbursements recovered on their behalf.
Twelve-month contracts are standard for full-service Amazon agencies, per 2026 pricing surveys from SupplyKick, ALFI, and Sotavento Medios. Cancellation clauses commonly require sixty to ninety days notice, penalties for early exit, or prepayment for a full quarter. A brand that decides in month four that the fit is wrong typically pays through month eight or longer before it can walk. That is not a partnership term. It is a retention mechanism.
Ten to twenty percent of ad spend is the most common commission on Amazon advertising management, per 2026 documentation from Darkroom Agency, Canopy Management, and Bridgeway Digital. An agency running a $200,000 monthly ad budget for a mid-market brand collects $20,000 to $40,000 every month in markup, before a single unit sells. The incentive runs one direction: the agency earns more when spend goes up, whether or not the spend was the right call.
Fifteen to twenty-five percent of recovered funds is the standard fee for Amazon reimbursement services, per 2026 documentation from Kwickmetrics, Eva, and Titan Network. Recovery is money Amazon owes the brand for lost inventory, damaged shipments, or accounting errors. The recovery work is real. The charge is not unreasonable in isolation. What is unreasonable is stacking it: three fee streams on one P&L, one signature.
The standard model stacks a management retainer, a 10 to 20% ad-spend markup, and a 15 to 25% reimbursement cut on one P&L. TopRank replaces all three with a single GMV fee. Ad spend passes at cost, recovery included.
Add those three streams together on a $2M/month Amazon brand and the total agency spend runs roughly $500,000 per yeara mid-market executive's annual comp, before any additional services line item is added and before the first rank point moves.
One fee. Sliding scale: one percent to three-and-a-half percent of gross merchandise volume, dropping as GMV grows, capped at $20,000 per channel per month. Billed monthly. Terminable at any time, no penalty, no notice period, no rollover. Effective August 1, 2026, for every new engagement.
The fee slides from 3.5% toward 1.0% of GMV as a brand grows, and the dollar fee is capped at $20,000 per channel per month. The same rate applies to every GMV dollar, recovery included. Illustrative, not to scale.
Ad spend passes through at cost. If Amazon charges $180,000 in advertising for the month, the invoice line says $180,000. No line item next to it says "management" or "optimization." That work is inside the primary fee. This has been the case for every client since founding.
Reimbursement recovery is included in the same primary fee, pursued as standard Pod operations, not billed as a separate service. Recovered dollars flow to the client's topline revenue, where the same sliding-scale fee applies.
In other words: TopRank Partners does not take a 15-to-25 percent cut of recovered funds. TopRank recovers the funds as part of standard operations, the recovered dollars return to the brand's topline, and the same 1.0-to-3.5 percent rate that applies to every other GMV dollar applies to those. Same rate. Same structure. Same invoice line. Effective today.
Why is the model built this way? Because the alternative, the industry standard, which we ourselves charged until today, is a fee structure that pays the agency more when the client is losing more, and pays the agency a premium percentage on money that Amazon owed the client in the first place. Neither of those is a partnership. Both are commercial structures dressed up as service. Recognizing that inside our own operations was the reason for the change.
| Practice | Industry Standard | TopRank Model (Effective 8/1/2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Contract Term | 12-month annual retainer with 60 to 90 day exit notice or penalties | Month-to-month, terminable at any time, no notice, no penalty |
| Ad Spend Handling | 10 to 20% agency markup on top of platform ad cost | Pass-through at cost; no markup, since founding |
| Reimbursement Recovery | 15 to 25% cut of funds recovered from Amazon | Included in primary fee; recovered dollars flow to client topline at same rate |
| Primary Fee Structure | Flat retainer or 3 to 8% of revenue, often stacked with services fees | 1.0 to 3.5% of GMV sliding scale, capped at $20K/channel/month |
Below is an illustrative comparison across three revenue tiers, using published 2026 industry pricing ranges for the standard model, twelve-month retainer, fifteen percent ad spend markup, twenty percent reimbursement recovery cut, against TopRank's going-forward model. Assumptions used: ad spend at ten to fifteen percent of GMV, reimbursements at roughly one-and-a-half percent of annual revenue, flat retainer scaled to brand size within documented ranges. Every brand's math will look slightly different; the direction does not.
Industry fees rise with the brand; TopRank holds at the ~$240K cap. On a $10M/month brand that is roughly $2M a year that stays on the brand's books. Directional figures; assumptions below.
| Monthly Amazon GMV | Industry Standard (Annual Fees) | TopRank Model (Annual Fees) | Annual Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1M / month | ~$366,000 | $240,000 (capped) | ~$126K |
| $3M / month | ~$852,000 | $240,000 (capped) | ~$612K |
| $10M / month | ~$2,304,000 | $240,000 (capped) | ~$2.06M |
Illustrative comparison built from published 2026 industry ranges. Assumptions: 10 to 15% GMV in ad spend, ~1.5% annual reimbursements, industry flat retainer $5K to $15K by tier, 15% ad markup, 20% reimbursement cut. Individual results will vary based on ad efficiency, reimbursement volume, and channel mix.
The pattern is not subtle. At every tier where GMV exceeds roughly one million dollars per month, TopRank's fee structure produces a materially smaller total agency invoice, and the differential grows non-linearly with scale because the $20,000-per-channel cap holds. On a $10M/month brand, the difference is roughly $2 million per year, every dollar of which stays on the brand's books.
Clients currently on legacy terms, meaning any existing annual contract or any active reimbursement recovery percentage agreement, will continue on those terms until their agreements naturally end or are renegotiated. No client will see a surprise change to their existing invoice. No amendment is being sent unilaterally. The commitment to the terms already in place is the same commitment the firm has always kept.
Any existing client who wants to move to the new structure earlier, at a renewal window, a renegotiation, or an off-cycle conversation, can do so. Reach out through the usual channels and it will be handled directly.
The new structure applies to every new engagement starting today, August 1, 2026, and to every renewal or renegotiation from this date forward.
Three questions to send to your current agency in writing. If the answers come back clean and the numbers work for your P&L, keep the agreement. If they do not, you already know the next step.
A good answer is a single number that includes the primary retainer, any ad spend markup or commission, any reimbursement recovery percentage, any separate services line item, and any performance bonus, arrived at inside sixty minutes, with a line-item breakdown attached. If the answer requires a two-week accounting exercise or comes back as "approximately," that is the answer.
A good answer is $0 and immediate notice. Anything longer than thirty days notice, any early-exit penalty, and any prepayment forfeiture is a retention mechanism, not a partnership term.
A good answer is zero percent, recovery included in the primary fee. Any other answer means the agency has structural incentive to slow-roll or over-invoice recovery work. Industry standard is fifteen to twenty-five percent. Do the math on your last twelve months.
Prefer these questions as a shareable one-pager? Download "Three Questions to Ask Your Marketplace Agency" as a PDF.
Download the PDFBecause a pricing model that saves brands six figures per year should not be a competitive secret. It should be industry standard. If publishing this makes it easier for another marketplace agency to move to a similar structure, good. It should have happened already. It should have happened here already.
If we ever change any of the three, we will amend this letter publicly and date the change. That is the point of publishing it. Until then, this is what the firm charges, and does not charge, as of August 1, 2026.
A Marketplace Assessment is a senior operator's read on your current account, including a line-item breakdown of what you are actually paying across every fee category and what the account is producing against it. No pitch attempt if the current structure is working. Just an honest look.
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