amBrain

What a DSP costs: published fees, build drivers and what a quote must contain

Published Sep 23, 2026Facts checked: Sep 23, 2026

Short answer

Renting a DSP is usually priced as a share of media spend, and most vendors do not publish the share. Epom does: "5% of your ad spend or $250 per month, whichever is higher" on its entry plan.[1] The Trade Desk discloses the model but not the number — "a platform fee generally based on a percentage of our clients' total platform spend".[4] Amazon says its tech fee "is based on a percent of media cost and disclosed at the time of campaign setup".[6] What you can compare before signing are the minimums: $50,000 for Amazon's managed service,[5] $1,000 prepaid at SmartyAds,[9] $500 per deposit at Adtelligent.[10] A DSP you own has no share of spend: its cost grows instead with bid requests, exchanges, regions, campaign tooling, reporting, data and the people who keep it answering.

On this page

What the vendors publish

These are the vendors' own published figures, read on 2026-09-23. Several charge a share of spend, so the same platform costs very different amounts at different budgets — and most do not publish the share at all.

Published DSP fees, minimums and terms
VendorPublished figuresAlso in the published terms
Epom white-label DSPLight "$250 per month" and Pro "$2000 per month", each footnoted "5% of your ad spend or [the plan fee] per month, whichever is higher"; "We may charge a one-time payment of $500 as a set-up fee"; "Up to 5 000 QPS" on Light and Pro against "Unlimited QPS" on Enterprise; bidstream data export from Pro[1]"Epom is not granting Client any rights whatsoever in the Software source code"; "all Account Data shall be erased from the Software within thirty (30) days of non-renewal or earlier termination"[2]
TeqBlaze white-label DSPNo prices: "White label DSP price depends on several factors, including platform configuration, infrastructure requirements, integrations, feature customization, and ongoing support needs"[3]Not published on the product page[3]
The Trade Desk"We generate revenue by charging our clients a platform fee generally based on a percentage of our clients' total platform spend and from providing value-added services and data to support their advertising campaigns." The percentage is not disclosed[4]"Generally, these MSAs have one-year terms that renew automatically for additional one-year periods, unless earlier terminated, and are terminable at any time upon 60 days' notice by either party"[4]
Amazon DSP"The tech fee is based on a percent of media cost and disclosed at the time of campaign setup", inside a "cost + fees pricing model, where advertisers can add a la carte fees for opt-in features and services";[6] "The managed-service option typically requires a minimum spend of $50,000 USD (minimum may vary per country)"[5]Audiences, measurement and third-party data "invoiced based on the published CPM price"[6]
StackAdaptNo dollar figure on the plans page. Tiers run Basic, Grow, Scale, Accelerate and Enterprise, and the FAQ says "Most DSPs charge a percentage of media spend as a platform fee. At StackAdapt, there are no hidden tech fees, and clients can choose self-serve, managed, or hybrid support models depending on their needs"[7]"THERE MAY BE A REQUIRED MINIMUM CAMPAIGN VALUE IN CONNECTION WITH SUCH INITIAL CAMPAIGN"; "Client will be invoiced monthly in arrears" with payment "due within 30 days of the invoice date"[8]
SmartyAds self-serve DSP"The minimum budget to launch a campaign on SmartyAds DSP is $1,000, which must be deposited as a prepayment before activating your account"; "Our current floor rates are set at $0.50 for banner, $0.70 for native, $3.00 for in-app video, and $10.00 for CTV"[9]Not published[9]
Adtelligent DSP"for your first Advertising Campaign, You are recommended to make a mandatory minimum deposit of USD 500 (five hundred)", and "After that, you have to deposit at least USD 500 (five hundred) every time your account gets refilled"[10]Prepaid accounts; "All payments through Our DSP are should be carried out in USD"[10]

A percentage fee is the line that moves with the business, so it is worth arithmetic before it is worth an opinion. On Epom's published formula, 5% of spend is $1,000 a month at $20,000 of monthly spend, $10,000 at $200,000 and $100,000 at $2 million — $1.2 million a year.[1] That arithmetic is ours, on the vendor's published rate. At The Trade Desk and Amazon the same model applies at a rate neither publishes,[4][6] so the only way to know what you pay is your own contract. A bidder you own has no such line: its cost follows requests, integrations and regions, which is why the build question belongs to high spend rather than to launch. The choice between renting a platform and owning the bidder is set out on white-label DSP vs own DSP.

What drives the cost of building your own

A DSP of your own has no list price. These are the drivers, the mechanism behind each one, and the answer that has to exist before anyone can price the work.

Cost drivers of building a DSP
DriverWhy it moves the priceSettle before asking for a quote
Bid requests receivedServers and bandwidth scale with every request you answer, including the auctions you lose; rented plans meter the same thing, such as Epom's "Up to 5 000 QPS" on Light and Pro[1]Expected requests per second per exchange, at peak
Supply integrationsEach exchange or SSP has its own OpenRTB version, extensions, certification and change schedule[11]The first one or two exchanges, named
Deadline and regionstmax is the "Maximum time in milliseconds the exchange allows for bids to be received including Internet latency to avoid timeout", and the OpenRTB video example sets it to 120;[11] Google lists four trading locations — Northern Virginia, the San Francisco Bay Area, Amsterdam and Singapore[12] — so answering in time means running near each oneWhich regions carry the supply you buy
Channels and formatsWeb display, in-app, video and CTV each bring their own creative formats, signals and measurement; floor prices differ by an order of magnitude between them, as SmartyAds' published floors show[9]The first channel, and the second
Campaign managementBudgets, targeting, schedules, creatives, roles and an API; opening it to outside advertisers adds sign-up, payments and approvalsWho uses it: your own traders or outside advertisers
Pacing and frequencyBudgets shared across regions need one allocation the whole fleet respects, and spend is applied on billing notices rather than on win notices[11]The over- and under-delivery you will tolerate
Reporting, billing and reconciliationEvery event counted once, kept for as long as disputes last, and reconciled against each exchange's numbers — the vendors put their own analytics at the centre of billing, so yours has to stand next to it[8]The invoice basis and the discrepancy you accept
Data, identity and consentWhat you may store and pass on differs by market, and each identity or data partner is another integration billed on its own basis, as Amazon's à la carte audience and measurement fees show[6]Markets served and data sources used
Pricing and modelsFirst-price auctions need a pricing strategy; a model inside the bid path needs features, a latency budget and a fallback[11]Rules first, or a model from day one
Traffic quality and brand safetyPre-bid checks come from vendors with their own fees, or become a product of your ownVendor, build, or both
Payments and creditPrepaid balances or credit lines for advertisers need ledger and collections logic — which is why self-serve DSPs run on prepayment[9][10]Prepaid, invoiced, or both
OperationsExchanges change specifications and traffic shifts without notice, so a bidder is watched every day it earnsWho is on call after launch

What a written quote must contain

Three quotes are comparable only if all three answer the same questions in writing. Ask for these lines, and read a missing one as an open question rather than a saving.

  • Scope by component. Bidder, supply adapters, campaign tools, pacing, reporting, billing, traffic quality — each marked in or out.
  • Traffic assumptions. Requests per second per exchange, the regions, and the latency target as a percentile measured against each exchange's tmax rather than as an average.[11]
  • Named integrations. Which exchanges, data partners and verification vendors, and who holds each contract.
  • Running costs, separately. Cloud or hardware, bandwidth, storage retention and third-party fees, estimated at your traffic — the cost that grows with every request whether you bid or not.
  • Milestones with acceptance tests. Certification, a low-budget live period with reconciliation, and one full campaign flight on target.
  • What you own. Code, build and deployment instructions, runbooks, and anything the builder keeps. A "custom DSP" with no source code in the deliverables is a white label with your logo on it.
  • Support after launch. Who watches the bidder, response times, and the basis on which changes are priced.
  • No fixed price before the traffic questions are answered. A number that arrives before anyone has asked about your exchanges, regions and channels is a placeholder, whoever sends it.

Frequently asked questions

Epom publishes "5% of your ad spend or $250 per month, whichever is higher" on Light and the same against $2,000 on Pro, plus a possible "$500 as a set-up fee".[1] TeqBlaze publishes no price and says it "depends on several factors".[3]

"A platform fee generally based on a percentage of our clients' total platform spend", plus value-added services and data. The percentage is not disclosed in the filing.[4] The side-by-side with StackAdapt is on The Trade Desk vs StackAdapt.

It depends on the platform. Amazon: "The managed-service option typically requires a minimum spend of $50,000 USD (minimum may vary per country)".[5] SmartyAds: "$1,000, which must be deposited as a prepayment".[9] Adtelligent: "a mandatory minimum deposit of USD 500".[10] StackAdapt's terms say "THERE MAY BE A REQUIRED MINIMUM CAMPAIGN VALUE" on the initial campaign.[8]

There is no list price, and anyone who gives one before asking about your traffic is guessing. What moves the number is bid requests, exchanges, regions, channels, campaign tooling, reporting, data and operations; the table above gives the mechanism behind each. Build, license or rent a DSP covers the decision itself.

When the share of spend you pay in a year exceeds what a bidder, its integrations, its servers and its team cost to run — and the answer moves with your spend, because a percentage fee grows with every campaign while a bidder's cost grows with requests.[1][4] The language and runtime of the bidder are part of that cost: see Rust and Go for RTB bidders.

Disclosure: this page is published by amBrain. From amBrain's AdTech services: "DSP development, real-time bidding platforms, and ad exchange engineering." Every rent-side figure is the vendor's own published price or term as read on 2026-09-23 and links to its source; no figure on this page is a quote for your project. Epom, TeqBlaze, The Trade Desk, Amazon DSP, StackAdapt, SmartyAds and Adtelligent are trademarks of their owners and are used only to identify the products discussed.

Sources

  1. [1]Epom, Epom DSP Pricing (Light, Pro and Enterprise plans, set-up fee, QPS caps, bidstream data export). Vendor's own page · checked Sep 23, 2026
  2. [2]Epom, Epom Server Terms and Conditions (source code, minimum term, renewal, account data on termination). Vendor's published terms · checked Sep 23, 2026
  3. [3]TeqBlaze, White Label DSP. Vendor's own page · checked Sep 23, 2026
  4. [4]The Trade Desk, Inc., Form 10-K, annual report for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025 (revenue model and master services agreements), Dec 31, 2025. Company filing · checked Sep 23, 2026
  5. [5]Amazon Ads, Amazon DSP. Vendor's own page · checked Sep 23, 2026
  6. [6]Amazon Ads, Pricing transparency guide. Vendor's own page · checked Sep 23, 2026
  7. [7]StackAdapt, StackAdapt Plans and Packages (tiers from Basic to Enterprise, and the pricing FAQ; no dollar figure on the page). Vendor's own page · checked Sep 23, 2026
  8. [8]StackAdapt, StackAdapt Platform Terms of Use (page header reads "Last updated and effective: December 12, 2025"), Dec 12, 2025. Vendor's published terms · checked Sep 23, 2026
  9. [9]SmartyAds, Demand-Side Platform. Vendor's own page · checked Sep 23, 2026
  10. [10]Adtelligent, Terms of DSP Service (header reads "Effective date 22.09.2026 - present"), Sep 22, 2026. Vendor's published terms · checked Sep 23, 2026
  11. [11]IAB Tech Lab, OpenRTB 2.6 specification (definition of tmax and the video example request). Specification · checked Sep 23, 2026
  12. [12]Google, Authorized Buyers peering guide, trading locations. Official documentation · checked Sep 23, 2026

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