Ask what a China sourcing agent costs and you will be given a percentage. It is the least informative number on the quote. Two agents can both say "5%" and differ by thousands of dollars on the same order, because the percentage is charged on different things, covers different work, and in some cases is not where the agent makes its money at all.
We sell this service, so read what follows with that in mind. Every figure of ours quoted here is the same one published on our pricing page, and the arithmetic is shown so you can run it on anyone's quote, including ours.
The four ways agents charge
| Structure | What you are quoted | Where to look |
|---|---|---|
| Commission | A percentage of the order | What the percentage is charged on, and whether the factory invoice is yours to see |
| Flat project fee | A fixed sum per project | What scope is fixed in writing, and what counts as a new project |
| Day rate or retainer | Time | Who decides how much time the job takes |
| No stated fee | A delivered unit price | The margin is inside the price. That is a trading company, whatever it calls itself |
Commission is the most common. Published rates across the industry usually sit between 5% and 10%, with larger orders negotiated lower. A range that wide tells you very little until you know the answers to the next two questions.
What is the percentage charged on?
Take one order: goods worth $20,000 at the factory gate, $3,000 of ocean freight and $2,500 of duty.
| Commission base | 5% comes to |
|---|---|
| Ex-works goods value only ($20,000) | $1,000 |
| Whole invoice, freight and duty included ($25,500) | $1,275 |
Same rate, same order, $275 apart — and the difference is commission paid on shipping and tax, neither of which the agent negotiated. Neither basis is improper. You simply need to know which one you are being quoted before you compare two numbers that are not measuring the same thing. Ours is charged on the ex-works goods value.
Tooling belongs in the same conversation. A $12,000 mould does not involve twelve thousand dollars' worth of sourcing work, so ask whether mould and tooling payments sit inside the commission base. With us they are passed through at cost and sit outside it.
The cost that is not on the quote
The larger difference is not the base. It is whether the agent ever owns your goods.
An agent in the strict sense buys on your account: the factory invoice is yours to see and the fee sits beside it as a separate line. A trading company presenting itself as an agent buys the goods and resells them to you, and its margin lives inside the unit price. Run the same $20,000 order through both:
| Stated fee | Goods invoice you pay | Fee in money | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agent, factory invoice visible | 5% | $20,000 | $1,000 | $21,000 |
| Reseller, 8% inside the price | 3% | $21,600 | $648 | $22,248 |
The lower rate costs $1,248 more. The 8% is an illustration, not a claim about any company — the point is that once the margin is inside the price, no stated rate tells you what you are paying. The practical test is one question, asked in writing: do you take ownership of the goods, and is your fee stated separately from the factory invoice? How to tell which kind of supplier you are dealing with in the first place is covered in factory or trading company.
Minimums: why small orders cost more than the rate
Finding a factory, verifying it and getting samples made is much the same work for a $3,000 order as for a $30,000 one. A percentage alone does not cover it at the small end, so most agents apply a minimum fee, a minimum order, or both.
Our minimum is $320 per purchase order. At 5%, that is the fee on a $6,400 order, so below that value the minimum applies instead of the percentage. It is charged per purchase order rather than per product: four products on one order is one minimum, not four.
When a flat fee is the cheaper structure
A percentage scales with the order whether or not the work does. On one large order of a single product it can end up out of proportion to the effort involved, which is what a flat project fee is for. To compare the two, convert both to money at your actual order value:
| Order value (ex-works) | 5% commission | $1,800 flat fee |
|---|---|---|
| $10,000 | $500 | $1,800 |
| $36,000 | $1,800 | $1,800 |
| $60,000 | $3,000 | $1,800 |
Those are our two structures, and the crossover sits at $36,000. The method works for any pair of quotes: divide the flat fee by the commission rate and you have the order value at which they cost the same.
What the fee usually does not include
An agent's fee pays for the agent's work. The costs of the order itself are separate, and the useful question is how they reach you:
- Freight and duty — passed through. Ask to see the invoice behind the line; reluctance to show it is informative. Who is importer of record changes what you are responsible for, which is the subject of DDP or FOB from China.
- Samples and courier — normally passed through at what the supplier charges.
- Laboratory testing — charged by the laboratory, per material and per model.
- Inspection — sometimes inside the fee, sometimes a separate line with no stated scope. Ask what is inspected, at what quantity, and whether you receive the report whatever it says. Ours is included at the quantity we quote; what an inspection consists of is set out under quality inspection.
What we charge
Three structures, all published: 5% of the ex-works goods value with a $320 minimum per purchase order; a flat $1,800 per project with the scope fixed in writing before work starts; or a single service — a factory audit, a pre-shipment inspection or a supplier verification — at $320 each for buyers who already have their supplier. On the commission structure there is no fee if no order is placed. The full terms, including who pays when a sample has to be remade, are on the pricing page.
Whether you need an agent at all is a separate question, and for some orders the answer is no. Do you actually need a sourcing agent? sets out the cases.
