How Much Are Amazon Ads? Amazon Advertising Cost 2025

Rick Wong 16 January 2025
Amazon Advertising Cost

Mastering Amazon ads that can really boost your FBA business. But here is the deal: you can’t just toss cash at ads and wish for good results. Trust me, many of us have been there and found that out the tough way! To understand how they are doing, many Amazon Sellers want an answer to the question: How Much Are Amazon Ads? Read on to get a complete breakdown of Amazon Advertising Cost in 2025.

I will specifically share the average cost of Amazon’s main ad formats: Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display ads. I’ll also share some tips on how to interpret these costs and why it is important to look beyond just CPC (cost-per-click), or monthly ad spend to optimize your Amazon advertising.

Understanding Amazon Advertising Costs Basics

How does Amazon charge for Advertising?

Like most online advertising platforms, Amazon Ads also uses Cost-per-click (CPC) as basic bidding metric, it showcases how much advertisers pay each time when users click on their ad. As a result, it is important to master CPC bidding for the purpose of developing a successful advertising strategy because it can directly affect campaign budgets, profitability and ROAS (return on ad spend).

As of 2025, the average cost-per-click (CPC) for Amazon ads falls within the range of $0.71 to $1.20, depending on product category, keyword competition, and seasonality. In highly competitive categories like electronics the CPC can rise even further, while niche or less competitive categories usually have lower CPC rates. E.g. According to industry research by Sellics, the average CPC is $0.85 for category ‘health and personal care’, while categories like ‘electronics’ and ‘home improvement’ have rates of about $1.50.

CPC is NOT merely unit cost – Understand why this Matters

  1. Bidding purpose:
    It tells you how competitive the target keywords are (rate gets higher when more competitive!), and how much you should bid to stay competitive without overpaying.
  2. Budget planning:
    Knowing average CPC helps you work out roughly how much traffic you can buy with the given budget, and see if re-allocation is needed. 
  3. Performance impact:
    High CPC increases your cost and without decent conversion rates it can hurt your ROAS.

Average CPCs of Different Amazon Ad Formats in 2025

Cost of Amazon Sponsored Products Ads

Amazon Sponsored Products Ads are best suited when the goal is to drive conversions directly to product listings. 

Average CPC in 2025 is between $0.81 – $1.30 (varies significantly depending on keyword’s competition level). Overall the CPC of sponsored products ads are often lower than the CPCs of other ad formats – however they can go up a lot when bidding on highly competitive keywords. To prevent this, target “long-tail keywords” (more on this later). 

Cost of Amazon Sponsored Brands Ads

Amazon Sponsored Brand Ads come with more creative flexibility and display a seller’s custom headline, logo, and up to three products.

  • Average CPC in 2025: $1.10 – $2.50. Various depending on category’s competition level, e.g. In the beauty category, the CPC for Sponsored Brands can reach $2.30, while in less competitive categories like home decor, ranges around $1.20.
  • Creative requirements drive extra cost: It is important that sponsored brands ads require sellers to create custom visual assets such as logos, product images and video (optional). A professional video ad may cost between $500 and $5,000, depending on the quality. So this also impacts the total cost of advertising. 

Cost of Amazon Sponsored Display Ads

Amazon Sponsored Display Ads allow Sellers to target shoppers based on audience interests and shopping behaviors (both on and off Amazon). 

The average CPC of sponsored display ads in 2025 is between $0.80 – $1.60. Unlike Sponsored Products or Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display Ads can also operate on a Cost-Per-Mille (CPM) basis. Sellers pay for every 1,000 impressions rather than clicks, making it suitable for brand-building campaigns. Average CPM rates for Sponsored Display range from $4 to $12, depending on targeting criteria and placement.

Creative requirements: Require engaging visuals, such as static images and lifestyle photos. To further elevate ad performance, you can also use video content (optional). Creative assets can cost an additional $300 to $3,000, depending on complexity.

Quick Cost Comparison: Sponsored Brands vs Sponsored Display

While both Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display fall into Display Ads category, they are quite distinct due to placements, targeting methods and with regard to Amazon advertising cost.

Ad FormatAverage CPC/CPM (2025)Additional CostsBest Use Cases
Sponsored BrandsCPC: $1.10–$2.50Creative assets: $500–$5,000 for logos/videosMulti-product promotion, brand awareness
Sponsored DisplayCPC: $0.80–$1.60CPM: $4–$12Creative assets: $300–$3,000Retargeting, audience-based targeting

Cost-Influencing Factors in Amazon PPC Advertising

Product Category Competition

High demand industries usually draw more competition, hence the high CPC rates. Since many sellers are vying for attention, keywords such as ‘wireless headphones’ or ‘ergonomic office chairs’ have high CPCs.

Seasonal Variations

Major shopping events including Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Prime Day increase the CPC. This is because advertisers increase their bid to capture the intended buyers in these periods. This is in anticipation of increased platform usage and sales opportunities. Amazon Advertising data shows that the CPC for holiday related keywords like “Christmas decorations” can rise by more than 30%. So sales events are a key driver of Amazon advertising cost increases.

Bidding Strategy Impact

Amazon offers manual and automated bidding methods and the two have different effects on the CPC outcome. Automated bidding uses a machine learning algorithm to set your bid based on your campaign goals, while manual bidding allows you to control the cost. Using automatic bidding can expose Amazon advertisers to unexpected CPC hikes and in many cases manual bid strategies are the better way to go as they offer more control. You can find a detailed discussion on this topic in our blog post on Manual PPC or Automated PPC.

Ad Placement Options

Advertisers have to pay more for the space at the top of the search results for sponsored ads and hence these have higher CPC. This is because the expected CTR is higher and thus ads ranking in higher positions will generate more sales and thus demand higher CPCs. Amazon states that ads in premium placements receive 2x higher click  through rates as opposed to those in lower positions.

The Product Price

A major factor that impacts CPCs is the price at which a product sells. That is because most advertisers will calculate the maximum price they are willing to pay for a click as a percentage of the revenue an item generates. That is why on average, the CPC of expensive items are higher than the CPCs of lower priced items. 

Advertising Budget Guidelines For Amazon Sellers

Advertising budget for Amazon FBA businesses ranges from tens to hundreds of thousands dollars annually, depending on the size of the business, sales goals, and how competitive the product category is. These benchmarks are important for sellers to know in order to spend their resources wisely and get a good return on investment (ROI).

New Sellers ($500–$1,000/Month)

If you are new to FBA and you can start with more conservative budgets to try to test the waters and identify effective campaign budgets. Focus by allocating budget to keywords that will likely have the most immediate impact on sales. Concentrate on spending on Sponsored Products Ads and if you have enough traffic on your product listings, test Sponsored Display Ads for retargeting campaigns (this will however only work if you already have a lot of people visiting your Amazon Listings).

Word of advice: If you spend too little on Amazon ads, you will also get limited data. You will end up with just a few clicks and it will be difficult to draw statistically viable conclusions from your first attempt at running ads. Thus spending too little almost always leads to failure as clicks are too random and conversions really depend on whether you got lucky or not. 

Mid-Level Sellers ($2,000–$10,000/Month)

This is for Sellers who already have an established customer base and are trying to scale their operations and to run ads across the entire Amazon marketing funnel. Their objective is to increase market share by expanding various ad campaigns across multiple placements.

In this phase, while the majority of your budget is still going into Sponsored Products ads, you are also tapping into Sponsored Brands ads with better, custom creatives and you can definitely leverage Sponsored Display ads to build brand awareness and retarget valuable users.

Enterprise Sellers ($20,000+/Month)

Enterprise sellers which include large brands with significant revenue streams. For brands in this category it’s key to defend top ad placements to maintain top-of-mind awareness with push for aggressive growth. Besides scaling Amazon Ads, you will likely also look for ways to drive external traffic to your Amazon listings by leveraging Google Ads for Amazon Listings. More on this in our blog post on How to drive external traffic to Amazon.

How to Measure and Optimize Amazon Ad Campaign Cost

Understanding ACoS

ACoS stands for Advertising Cost of Sale as is Amazon’s way to measure ROI. It basically shares the same idea of cost revenue radio, which allows you to measure the efficiency of advertisers’ ad spend.

ACoS Formula and calculation: (Ad Spend ÷ Revenue from Ads) × 100

Understanding what your ACoS is, is significantly more meaningful than just looking at total ad spend, or Amazon CPCs. If your ads are highly profitable, CPCs really lose meaning and can be regarded as a filter metric, rather than a KPI. To know where you stand, check out this blog post on: What is a good ACoS on Amazon.

Ad Campaign Cost Optimization Strategies

Controlling the cost of Amazon advertising is necessary for efficiency and optimization. Since costs such as CPC (Cost Per Click) are influenced by competition, yet are under control of the sellers in terms of how effectively their budget is being spent, there are strategies that can be employed to reduce advertising costs without compromising campaign effectiveness.

Negative keyword management

Negative keywords prevent ads from being displayed for irrelevant searches, brand safety concern and low converting keywords, only spend on desired/converting keywords. 

Example: If you sell high-end leather wallets, adding “cheap” as a negative keyword ensures your ad doesn’t show for searches like “cheap wallets.” A study by Sellics found that using negative keywords can reduce wasted ad spend by up to 30% in competitive categories. More on this in our guide on managing Negative Keywords Amazon.

Product Listing Optimization

A well-optimized product listing enhances relevance and improves click-through rates and conversion rates. As a first step, make sure high-volume, relevant keywords are in titles and bullet points and use high-quality images to provide users with all information they need to make a purchase. According to Amazon data, enhanced content increases purchase likelihood by 5%–10%. Also consider adding Amazon A+ Premium Content. If you need help with this refer to our Amazon Listing Optimization Services.

Strategic Bid Adjustments

Be sure to set CPCs that make commercial sense given the sales price of your products. Also experiment with bid adjustments based on factors such as day or the week, hour of the day and so on. Tweaking bids is one of the easiest ways to directly improve the profitability of your ads – and one of the reasons why we have developed our own proprietary Amazon PPC Software

Target Long-tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords are keywords or keyphrases that are more specific. Because it’s usually longer than more commonly used keywords, they are less competitive and generally have lower CPCs while maintaining relevance. Instead of targeting “laptop bag,” use “durable waterproof laptop bag 15-inch.”

Campaign Performance Monitoring

Review campaign performance on a regular basis to make sure you identify underperforming ads in time and adjust strategies accordingly. Sellers, who conduct weekly campaign reviews achieved an average 15% improvement in ad efficiency. 

Tools to Help You Manage Amazon Ad Costs

To manage Amazon Ad cost more efficiently, consider using some 3rd party tools to help leveraging campaign insight as much as possible. These tools allow sellers to keep an eye on performance, tweak bids, and find areas to cut costs. 

List of Tools to Monitor and Optimize Amazon Ads Costs

  1. Sellermetrics
    Not to blow our own horn, but provide an advanced bidding optimization that can help you optimize ACoS via dynamic bid management. It uses advanced algorithms to auto adjust bids based on keyword performance, helping users to reach the perfect balance between CPC and conversions (product sales on Amazon). It also provides detailed analytics, including ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sales), CTR (Click-Through Rate) and so on, empowering users to make data driven decisions.
  1. Helium 10
    Known for its comprehensive suite of tools, such as keyword research, campaign optimization, and competitor analysis. Helium10 features a ‘Keyword Tracker’ that identifies high-performing and underperforming keywords, which allows users to make campaign adjustments accordingly.
  1. Amazon’s Campaign Manager
    Amazon’s own built-in tool for monitoring and adjusting campaigns. It allows you to Check and identify where ads perform better or worse (e.g., top-of-search or product pages).The amazon ad platform also provides AI-generated suggestions and recommendations for bid adjustments.
    However, a word of advice: while one of the benefits of relying on Amazon’s campaign manager is that it is free to use, the hidden cost comes in the form of inflated recommended CPC bids etc. So always keep “recommendations” made by an advertising platform with a grain of salt.
  2. Jungle Scout
    Primarily known for its product research, however, it also offers PPC optimization features. Jungle Scout for instance has an “Opportunity Finder’ that provides new keyword suggestions related to product specific niche keywords. This helps with more precise targeting at a lower cost.

For more inspiration check out this comprehensive review of Amazon PPC Tools

Conclusion: Understanding & Optimizing Amazon Advertising Cost is Key for FBA Businesses 

While Amazon advertising costs can range from $500 to $20K+ per month, with the right strategies, it is totally possible to maximize ROI when budget is limited or maintain ROI target when scaling up. If you’re new to FBA business, I hope this article gives you enough information to start with, and if you’ve already started with Amazon ads, I hope it also give you a better picture of how by further utilizing external tools, can better understand CPC trends, keywords relevance, and resource allocation. With these elements in place, I am confident you’ll be well-positioned to expand your market presence while maintaining healthy profit margins. If you need more support, do not hesitate to enquire about our Amazon Advertising Management and Amazon Product Ads Management services.

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