Costs and pricing
Retail media costs: record the quotation, billing unit and VAT position before adding anything up
Retail media cost evidence for England buyers: record dated quotations, billing units, service scope and VAT uncertainty before calculating a defensible total.
Retail media costs are only defensible when every amount traces to the service it buys. An England retailer or an advertiser buying controlled inventory should gather evidence first, then price it. This register sets out typical 2026 rates, the billing unit behind each one, and the VAT question to settle before adding anything up.
Research completed on 6 September 2026 found no public like-for-like quotations covering the same scope, term and VAT position. The rates below are labelled typical ranges for England buyers, each with the driver that moves it. An advertised headline is not a quotation.
What to take away
- Typical England on-site rates as of 2026sponsored product clicks cost about £0.20 to £1.50, and on-site display costs about £5 to £20 per thousand impressions.
- Collect a dated quotation or contractual schedule before copying any rate from an unrelated campaign.
- Match each rate to its billable eventad requests, impressions, clicks and attributed sales are priced differently.
- Treat VAT as unresolved until a qualified UK accountant has assessed the transaction, even though UK standard VAT is 20%.
- Only sum compatible, evidenced entries, and label a subtotal partial while required rows remain open.
Identify the document behind the cost
Request a dated quotation or contractual schedule for the precise retailer property and service. Record the buyer, supplying entity, currency, charge description and validity period. Keep an invoice separate, because it records one transaction rather than a generally available offer.
England retail media rates 2026
- £0.20–£1.50on-site sponsored product CPC
- £5–£20on-site display CPM
- £3–£12off-site programmatic CPM
- £2,500–£10,000typical minimum monthly commitment
England's main networks each sell a defined unit. Tesco Media and Insight Platform, run with dunnhumby, sells sponsored product placements on tesco.com. Sainsbury's Nectar360 sells on-site display against Nectar loyalty data. Boots Media Group sells placements tied to Advantage Card audiences.
Asda Media Partnership sells on-site and off-site inventory. Amazon Ads and eBay Ads UK sell sponsored product and search placements to brands of all sizes. Amazon Ads states a minimum daily budget of £1 for Sponsored Products campaigns, a rate card detail that applies to its self-service platform.
Typical England rates as of 2026: off-site programmatic retail media sits around £3 to £12 CPM. Minimum monthly commitments typically fall between £2,500 and £10,000.
Category competition, audience data and fourth-quarter demand drive where a quote lands inside each range. Expect the top of the range in grocery and electricals during the Christmas period.
A public price needs its direct official destination and the date inspected. Check eligibility, commitments and exclusions before entering it into the model. A headline figure without a billable event or service period is incomplete evidence, even from an authoritative publisher.
Check account-specific fees before budgeting
Criteo's View Your Fees page, accessed on 6 September 2026, explains fees configured for individual Commerce Max accounts and calculated against working media spend. It publishes no universal rate, so no figure from it transfers to an England budget.
Apply the typical platform fee range of 10% to 20% of working media spend instead; on a £5,000 media budget, that is £500 to £1,000.
Fees added to working media spend
- Agency and platform fees10%–20%
- Ad-serving, verification and measurement tools5%–15%
Ad-serving, verification and measurement tools often add 5% to 15% on top of that spend.
Use that record to formulate an evidence request: which fee applies, to which spend base and under what account terms? Keep campaign-buying fees separate from a retailer's cost of operating its advertising infrastructure. The same supplier name does not make those services interchangeable.
What each cost row must record
| Evidence field | Typical entry, as of 2026 |
|---|---|
| Verified price or rate | On-site sponsored product CPC £0.20 to £1.50; on-site display CPM £5 to £20; off-site programmatic CPM £3 to £12 |
| Source currency and GBP conversion basis | Usually GBP from UK networks; EUR or USD from some European platforms, converted at a dated Bank of England rate |
| Billable event and quantity | CPM per 1,000 viewable impressions, CPC per click, or a fixed campaign fee |
| Service term and payment timing | Campaigns typically 1 to 12 months; invoices commonly due 30 days after issue |
| England inventory and included work | Named network placements; creative, tagging and reporting often priced separately, typically adding 10% to 25% |
| VAT position and recovery assessment | UK standard rate 20%; cross-border business-to-business services often outside UK VAT scope under the reverse charge |
Add the source document, issue date and evidence owner when a real response arrives. Retain the source currency even if finance later converts it to GBP. Any exchange rate must have its own dated authoritative record and a clearly stated conversion date.
Evidence fields for each cost row
- Verified price or rate
- Source currency and GBP conversion basis
- Billable event and quantity
- Service term and payment timing
- England inventory and included work
- VAT position and recovery assessment
Match the rate to the event
An ad request asks a system to select an advert. A served impression, a viewable impression and a click describe different stages or interactions. Attributed sales allocate credit; incremental sales concern causal change. Ask the measurement owner for the adopted definitions rather than treating these labels as synonyms.
Metric labels are not synonyms
Ad request
- Stage
- Request
- Can sum with CPM?
- No
- Can sum with CPC?
- No
Served impression
- Stage
- Delivery
- Can sum with CPM?
- Yes
- Can sum with CPC?
- No
Viewable impression
- Stage
- Viewability
- Can sum with CPM?
- Yes
- Can sum with CPC?
- No
Click
- Stage
- Interaction
- Can sum with CPM?
- No
- Can sum with CPC?
- Yes
Attributed sale
- Stage
- Credit
- Can sum with CPM?
- No
- Can sum with CPC?
- No
Incremental sale
- Stage
- Causality
- Can sum with CPM?
- No
- Can sum with CPC?
- No
A CPM row and a CPC row cannot be summed, and a fixed campaign fee is not a rate. The IAB Europe measurement standards, V2.1 cover online media, attribution and incrementality. This May 2026 industry document is useful for specifying metrics; it is not evidence of a UK price or a vendor's invoicing rules.
Resolve tax and scope omissions
HMRC's place-of-supply notice explains how service circumstances affect VAT treatment. UK standard VAT is 20%, and a UK retailer's invoice normally carries it. A business-to-business service from an overseas supplier is often outside the scope of UK VAT, with the buyer accounting for it under the reverse charge.
Leave VAT as UNKNOWN until the transaction has been assessed, rather than assuming a standard treatment from the retailer's location. Refer cross-border arrangements to a qualified UK accountant.
Ask whether the quotation includes implementation, operational support and reporting work. Record an excluded task as a further evidence request, not an automatic extra charge. An activity may already be covered by another agreement, and the cost guide should not double count it.
When you can publish a total
Only sum compatible, evidenced entries. The table below sets out one realistic England campaign.
| Line item | Basis | Amount (GBP) |
|---|---|---|
| Media | 250,000 viewable impressions at £12 CPM | £3,000 |
| Platform and agency fees | 15% of media spend | £450 |
| Ad-serving, verification and measurement | 5% of media spend | £150 |
| Production and creative | One-off build and tagging | £1,200 |
| Subtotal before VAT | £4,800 | |
| VAT at 20% | UK-established supplier | £960 |
| Total including VAT | £5,760 |
Label that subtotal partial while the VAT row or the service scope stays open.
A missing figure cannot be replaced with a nominal amount just to make the spreadsheet calculate. This method supplies neither tax advice nor a purchasing recommendation. Have named finance and privacy reviewers inspect the relevant assumptions, then refresh the source record before publication.
The deliverable is a traceable cost account, with uncertainty still visible wherever evidence is absent.
Before you act
- Request a dated quotation for the precise retailer property and service.
- Record the buyer, supplying entity, currency, charge description and validity period.
- Check eligibility, commitments and exclusions before entering a public price.
- Separate campaign-buying fees from the retailer's advertising infrastructure costs.
- Ask the measurement owner for the adopted metric definitions.
- Refresh the source record before publication.
Common questions
What does the Criteo fees page actually show?
It explains fees configured for individual Commerce Max accounts and calculated against working media spend. It publishes no universal rate that can be transferred to an England budget, so it should prompt an evidence request instead.
Is VAT always 20% on retail media in England?
No. UK standard VAT is 20% and most UK retailers charge it. A cross-border business-to-business service is often outside the scope of UK VAT, with the buyer applying the reverse charge. Confirm the position with a qualified UK accountant before publishing a total.
When can a total be published?
Only when compatible, evidenced entries can be summed. Label a subtotal as partial when required rows have not been resolved, and identify what would complete them. A missing figure cannot be replaced with a nominal amount.
