What is a fair markup on media buying?

Short answer: in India a traditional media commission sits at roughly 15–20% of media spend. A hybrid arrangement drops that to 5–10% plus a flat management fee. A fee-only arrangement charges 0% markup and bills for the people instead. All three are defensible. What is not defensible is not knowing which one you are on.

Those ranges are the ones reported publicly for the Indian market — see this breakdown of Indian media buying costs and, for the global picture, TrinityP3’s agency fees guide. We have not audited them; we are telling you where they come from so you can weigh them yourself.

The percentage is the wrong thing to negotiate

A 10% markup on an inflated invoice costs you more than a 20% markup on a real one. The number that decides whether you are being treated well is not the commission rate, it is whether you can see what the platform actually charged.

Ask for the Meta, Google or DV360 billing export for the month, in your own account, and reconcile it against the agency invoice line by line. If those two numbers match and the difference is the stated fee, the arrangement is clean at whatever percentage you agreed.

The three models, and who each one suits

• Commission on spend (15–20%). Simple, and the agency is paid more when you spend more. That incentive is the problem: nobody in that structure is rewarded for telling you to spend less.
• Hybrid (5–10% + retainer). The most common arrangement now. Reasonable, but check that the retainer is not quietly covering the same people the commission is already paying for.
• Fee only (0% markup). The agency has no financial stake in your budget going up. This is what we do, and it is the only model where "spend less this month" is a sentence the agency can afford to say.

The four questions that settle it in one email

1. Are the ad accounts in my company’s name, with the agency granted access — or in the agency’s name?
2. Can I have the raw platform billing export each month?
3. Does the agency receive any rebate, volume bonus or incentive from a platform or publisher on my spend?
4. If my budget doubled, what happens to your fee?

Question 1 is the important one. If the accounts sit in the agency’s name you cannot verify anything, you cannot leave cleanly, and the historical data you paid to generate is not yours. That is a bigger cost than any markup.