In-House Amazon Team vs. Hiring an Agency: What’s the Smarter Move?

As Amazon gets more competitive, brands face a familiar question: Should we build an in-house Amazon team or partner with an Amazon agency?

On the surface, hiring internally sounds straightforward. In practice, scaling Amazon in-house is far more complex, costly, and time-consuming than most brands expect.

Here’s the reality.

1. Hiring and Training Take Time

Finding experienced Amazon talent is difficult, and training them takes even longer. Recruiting fees, salaries, benefits, health insurance, and overhead add up quickly. Meanwhile, Amazon doesn’t wait for new hires to ramp up.

Time lost is often more expensive than money spent.

2. Amazon Is Not a One-Person Job

Most brands quickly realize that one hire isn’t enough. To properly manage Amazon, you often need multiple roles, including:

• Inventory management and forecasting
• Catalog and variation management
• Advertising and DSP
• Content creation and creative refreshes
• Ongoing policy and compliance monitoring

For many brands, this means hiring 2–4 employees or more just to keep pace.

3. Specialized Skills Are Required

Amazon today requires specialists, not generalists. Expecting one person to master advertising, SEO, content, inventory, and policy changes is unrealistic and risky.

4. Technology Is Required to Scale

To compete effectively, internal teams need advanced tools for:

• Keyword research
• Advertising optimization
• Catalog health and compliance
• Competitive insights
• Emerging surfaces like Amazon Rufus

Enterprise-level tools are expensive and often cost six figures annually, before you even account for the people needed to operate them.

5. Expansion Adds More Complexity

Selling on Walmart or international Amazon marketplaces (UK, DE, CA, EU) introduces new compliance rules, tax considerations, and operational challenges, often requiring additional hires with regional expertise.

Why Brands Partner With an Amazon Agency

1. A Full Team From Day One

With an agency like Podean, brands gain immediate access to a team of specialists across:

• Advertising & DSP
• Merchandising & catalog optimization
• SEO & keyword strategy
• Content & creative
• Inventory management

You’re effectively getting a team of 5+ experts for the cost of one hire.

2. Proven Experience at Scale

Agencies manage hundreds of accounts, hundreds of thousands of ASINs, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of Ad spend. That experience translates into proven strategies, faster execution, and fewer costly mistakes.

3. Enterprise Technology Included

Podean leverages 10+ enterprise platforms that would cost brands $500K+ per year to license independently, built directly into the engagement.

4. Faster Growth, Lower Risk

Instead of spending months hiring, training, and testing, brands can focus on growth while the agency handles complexity, execution, and optimization.

The Bottom Line

Insourcing Amazon can work, but it requires multiple hires, expensive tools, and significant time to reach maturity.

For most growing brands, partnering with an experienced Amazon agency delivers faster results, lower risk, and better scalability without building everything from scratch.