Epom alternative: white-label ad tech you rent vs own

What Epom sells and what its terms say

Epom sells two white-label products: a DSP^[1] and an ad server.^[2] The DSP price list has three plans.^[1]

Epom may also charge "a one-time payment of $500 as a set-up fee".^[1] The 5% fee overtakes the flat price at $5,000 of monthly spend on Light and at $40,000 on Pro. At $500,000 of monthly spend, 5% is $25,000 a month.

The ad server has its own plans: $250, $1,000 and $2,500 a month, with 8.5 million, 40 million and 150 million display impressions included. Overage costs $0.1, $0.08 and $0.06 CPM, video overage $1 to $0.5 CPM, and traffic above the included gigabytes $0.02 to $0.015 per GB. White-labelling adds $250 a month.^[2]

The terms Epom publishes are the "Epom Server Terms and Conditions", written for Epom's hosted ad-serving software; the "Terms & Conditions" link on the DSP pricing page opens the same document. Whether your DSP order form changes them is a question for your contract. What they say:^[2]

• Term. "Client shall use Epom ad server for a minimum of 6 months, starting from the date of the first impression served", and the agreement "will automatically renew for periods of twelve (12) months each" unless either party gives notice at least 30 days before the term ends. A separate clause allows termination for convenience with 30 days' notice.
• Code. The software is used "only as hosted on Epom's Server and solely for Client's own internal use", "Epom is not granting Client any rights whatsoever in the Software source code", and development "during the course of this Agreement will remain the property of Epom or its licensors".
• Data. The client owns "the usage information and traffic patterns" (Account Data), and Epom may use it "to improve its services" and distribute it in aggregate. Epom agrees that "all Account Data shall be erased from the Software within thirty (30) days of non-renewal or earlier termination."
• Billing. Numbers from "Epom's reporting system" are "deemed conclusive"; at low fill rates Epom may multiply prices by two (fill rate above 10% and up to 30%) or by three (10% or below); refunds are capped at "50% of the Client's latest monthly payment".

The DSP page's FAQ describes the model differently: "YOU are the one who owns the platform, with no middlemen involved."^[1] Read together: the brand on the platform is yours (own logo, colours and domain from Light up),^[1] the Account Data is yours under the terms, and the software stays Epom's.^[2]

Epom vs an own DSP

Stay on Epom if…

1. 1.You are testing demand with a small budget. Below $5,000 of monthly spend, Light costs a flat $250 a month.^[1] At that volume there is nothing to save by building.
2. 2.You need supply on day one. Light includes 50+ SSPs,^[1] and the white-label page says buying starts "without setup or negotiations".^[3] Negotiating seats with SSPs yourself is a separate workstream that takes calendar time.
3. 3.Your traffic fits 5,000 queries per second and your edge is service, not the algorithm. If you sell media and account management rather than a bidding model, the software is a cost of doing business, and Epom publishes that cost in its price list.^[1]

Consider leaving Epom if…

1. 1.Symptom: the platform fee rises every time a client scales. The 5% fee is proportional to spend above $40,000 a month on Pro.^[1] At $1 million of monthly spend, that is $50,000 a month for software you do not own.
2. 2.Symptom: an investor or a buyer asks what you own, and the answer is a brand. The terms grant no source-code rights and keep custom development with Epom.^[2] A company whose value rests on "our DSP" needs code it can show.
3. 3.Symptom: your data team works from dashboards and exports, not from raw bid logs. Bidstream data export starts at Pro, the billing numbers are Epom's, and account data is erased within 30 days after you leave.^[1][2] If your models need every bid request, the logs have to land in your own storage.

A migration path in four steps

1. 1.Export before you give notice. Campaign setups, creatives, reports and, on Pro and above, bidstream data.^[1] Account data is erased within 30 days of termination,^[2] so archive continuously rather than at the end.
2. 2.Move supply into your own name. List which SSP connections are Epom's pre-connected ones and which you set up yourself through Custom SSP setup;^[1] sign direct contracts where you need them.
3. 3.Run in parallel. Put one client or one SSP on your own bidder and compare spend, win rate and impression counts against Epom's reporting, which is the billing basis under the terms.^[2]
4. 4.Cut over and time the notice. Give notice at least 30 days before the 12-month renewal date and remove ad tags within 15 days of termination.^[2]

For the build decision itself, see building, licensing or renting a DSP.

What drives the cost of building your own

These are the cost drivers, not a price.

• Queries per second. Every bid request is received, parsed and answered or dropped. The Trade Desk's annual report lists hosting costs for "internet traffic" associated with "queries per second" and computing power as part of its platform operations expense;^[6] an own DSP pays the same bill at its own scale.
• Latency budget. OpenRTB 2.6 defines tmax as the "Maximum time in milliseconds the exchange allows for bids to be received including Internet latency to avoid timeout", and the specification's video example request sets it to 120.^[5] Garbage-collection pauses in the bid path eat into that budget; see Rust vs Go for RTB bidders.
• SSP integrations. Each exchange has its own OpenRTB variant, its own testing and its own contract.
• Bid logs and reporting. Storing and querying every request is what you get in exchange for owning the data.
• Fraud and brand safety. Verification vendors are a separate contract; Epom's white-label DSP includes "Automatic Pixalate verification".^[3]
• Privacy and consent. In IAB Europe's framework, DSPs are among the vendors: they apply for "an annual Vendor membership", appear on the Global Vendor List and update their software to "Retrieve and/or receive users' choices in real-time" and respect them.^[4]
• Operations. A bidder earns money every second it is up, so it needs on-call cover around the clock.

Disclosure: this page is published by amBrain. From amBrain's AdTech services: "DSP development, real-time bidding platforms, and ad exchange engineering." Every Epom fact on this page links to its source. Epom is a trademark of its owner and is used only to identify the product discussed.