Quick answer: MADA charges $2,500 a month to run a TikTok Shop below $25,000 in monthly GMV, and 10% of monthly GMV at or above it — the commission replaces the retainer rather than adding to it. Ad spend, creator commission, samples and TikTok's platform fees are separate and paid by the brand. Engagements normally start with a three-month minimum.
What MADA charges
| Your monthly GMV | What you pay MADA |
|---|---|
| Below $25,000 | $2,500 per month, flat |
| $25,000 or above | 10% of monthly GMV |
One or the other, not both. The commission replaces the retainer once your shop crosses the threshold; it is not charged on top of it.
Both cover the same work: shop setup and Seller Center operations, listings, account health and violation handling, the affiliate program and creator operations in Affiliate Center, sample seeding, TikTok Shop Ads, and reporting. There is no separate setup fee and no per-service menu.
Why the model switches at $25,000
Because each model breaks outside its range, and pretending otherwise costs one side money.
Below $25,000 a month, a commission would not cover the work. The heaviest lifting on a small shop — category qualification, listings, opening the affiliate program, the first seeding waves — happens before there is meaningful GMV to take a percentage of. An agency on commission alone at that stage is being paid least exactly when the account needs the most attention, and it shows in how much attention it gets.
Above $25,000, a flat fee stops making sense in the other direction. If your GMV triples, the work grows with it, and you should not be paying us the same as a shop a tenth your size. 10% means we are paid more when you sell more and less when you do not, which is the alignment a flat retainer cannot give you.
The honest part: a commission is aligned on revenue, not on margin. GMV can be bought with discounts. That is a real weakness of every percentage model including ours, and the protection against it is that we set commission and pricing against your landed margin rather than your headline price — which is also how we set creator commission.
What the fee does not include
The agency fee is one line in a stack, and on most accounts it is not the largest one. You pay these directly, and they do not pass through us:
- Creator commission on every affiliate sale — normally the biggest variable cost in the model.
- TikTok Shop Ads spend, billed to your own advertising account. New shops often start around $30 a day and increase only when performance supports it.
- Samples and the shipping to send them. Many new shops start with a minimum of 50 units.
- TikTok's platform referral fee, plus any discounts or promotions you run.
- Your own COGS and fulfillment.
Build that full stack before judging whether any agency's rate is expensive, ours included. A brand that budgets the retainer and nothing else runs out of money in month two, which is a worse outcome than not starting.
How this compares to the market
Published market ranges for full-service TikTok Shop management cluster between $2,000 and $10,000 per month in retainers, with GMV commissions typically 3% to 15%. One published breakdown of TikTok agency pricing puts the most common arrangement at a retainer in the low-to-mid thousands plus a single-digit percentage of GMV.
Our $2,500 sits at the bottom of that retainer range, and our 10% sits in the middle of the commission range. The difference is that most agencies charge a retainer and a percentage. We charge one or the other.
Cheaper quotes exist and usually describe a different job — a freelancer sourcing creators, or a tool with a dashboard — rather than a team operating Seller Center, compliance, the affiliate program and paid media as one thing.
When you should not hire us
If your margins cannot support affiliate commission plus ad spend plus our fee, TikTok Shop will lose you money faster with an agency than without one. We would rather say that on the first call than take three months of retainer to arrive at it together.
The same applies to inventory. A shop that cannot restock quickly should not be paying anyone to generate demand it cannot fill — unfulfillable orders damage account health, which costs more to repair than the sales were worth.
We will tell you which of those you are in. It is a normal outcome of a first call, not a failed one.
Frequently asked questions
No. It is one or the other. Below $25,000 in monthly GMV you pay the $2,500 retainer; at or above it you pay 10% of monthly GMV instead, and the retainer stops.
No. Shop setup, listings, category qualification and opening the affiliate program are covered by the same fee as ongoing management.
New launch and turnaround engagements generally begin with a minimum three-month term. That is not a commercial device: creator seeding, content production and the first ad tests take roughly that long to produce a signal worth reading.
No. Advertising budget is separate and is paid through your own TikTok Shop advertising account, so you keep control of it and can see exactly what was spent.
Talk to us. The intent of the $25,000 line is that you pay whichever model fits the size of the shop, and a single unusual month should not lock you into the wrong one.
The first call covers what an audit would: what you sell, your landed cost, what you have already tried, and your inventory position. Those four answers are enough to say whether the channel is worth your time yet.
Talk to an official TikTok Shop partner
Tell us your category and where you are today. We will tell you straight what TikTok Shop can do for you — including when the answer is that it is not worth it yet.
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