The handling fee, explained.
Running ads through ShipAd.io costs your ad spend, plus a 15% handling fee.
That fee is what covers the work between "I have an idea" and "an ad is running on the right platform, for the right people, shown at the right time." It's the line item most platforms bury. We put it on its own page.
What the 15% covers
- Generating and iterating ad creative from your brief.
- Setting up and managing the campaign on the ad platform.
- Routing your budget, watching delivery, pausing losers, promoting winners.
- Keeping the agent pipeline running — research, copy, creative, media buying.
- The unglamorous plumbing: billing, receipts, platform compliance, support.
If you've ever hired a marketing agency, you know what this work looks like. You also know what it usually costs.
What it costs vs. what agencies charge
| Who | Typical handling fee on ad spend |
|---|---|
| Boutique marketing agencies | 20–30% |
| Full-service growth agencies | 25–35% |
| ShipAd.io | 15% |
We are, as far as we know, the cheapest handling fee in the industry.
If you find one cheaper that ships real creative and runs real campaigns, tell us. We want to know.
The math, plainly
When you top up your idea's ad-spend wallet by $25:
- $21.74 goes to the ad platform as actual spend on your campaign.
- $3.26 is the 15% handling fee.
Same for every amount. Top up $100, you get $86.96 in ad spend and a $13.04 fee. No hidden multipliers. No tier-dependent surcharges. Same 15% for everyone.
Where you'll see it
- On your invoice. Every receipt from our payment processor shows the fee as its own line. We don't hide it inside "services."
- In your wallet balance. When you top up, we show what goes to ads and what the fee is before you confirm.
- In the pricing page footnote. We mention it there too.
- Here. We made you a whole page about it.
Why we're showing it to you up front
Two reasons.
First, you'll see the fee anyway when the invoice lands. We'd rather you knew what it was for before it showed up, not after.
Second, if you're comparing options, the fee is part of the comparison. A 5% cheaper ad platform that's wrapped in a 25% agency fee costs you more than we do. This page makes that math easy to do.