Buy side · what advertisers pay

Amazon Ads CPM

By Oliver Wakefield-Smith · updated July 2026

Benchmarks reviewed July 2026 · next review October 2026

The short answer

Amazon publishes how its ads price (auction-based self-serve for Sponsored Display, managed entry for the DSP), not what they cost per thousand. No Amazon-published average CPM exists. The channel's pricing story is structural: retail media is the fastest-growing slice of ad spend in dentsu's forecasts, and growing demand against finite shelf-adjacent inventory pushes clearing prices one direction.

Official positionno published rateAmazon Ads publishes pricing models (auction, managed minimums for DSP), not CPM ratesAmazon Ads Sponsored Displayretrieved July 2026

Demand contextgrowthRetail media is among the fastest-growing ad spend categories in dentsu's global forecastdentsu global ad spend forecastretrieved July 2026

Why closed-loop attribution carries a premium

Amazon knows what you bought after seeing the ad, on the same property, at SKU level. No social or display channel closes that loop without modeling. Advertisers pay for certainty as much as for reach: an impression whose conversion you can verify is worth more per thousand than one you attribute by faith. That is the economic logic; the specific premium your category pays emerges only in your own campaign reporting.

Entry routes by budget

Sponsored Display (self-serve). Auction pricing, advertiser-set budgets, the low-commitment door for sellers already on the platform.
Amazon DSP (managed or self-service). Programmatic buying on and off Amazon; managed service historically carries invoice-level minimums quoted at sales time, not published as a rate card.

The wider fee mechanics of programmatic buying apply once you leave Amazon-owned pages through the DSP: programmatic CPM and the fee chain covers where each dollar goes. Display context: Google Display CPM. Full table: /rates.