Agency Desk · Pricing & margins
What Agency Desk costs, and what you can make on it
The commercial model in full: how the money moves, how to use the partner-named commission guidance around 2%, and the three ways agencies charge their own clients. Use the calculator with your own inputs.
There is no joining fee, no monthly programme fee and no published minimum order commitment. The only money that moves is for fulfilment actually performed. The Agency Desk page gives the short version.
- Operating since 2018
- 500+ active client accounts
- 4,000+ orders fulfilled daily
- Ships to 150+ countries
500+ active client accounts and 4,000+ orders fulfilled daily are RyanFulfil operating declarations dated 15 August 2026 across the whole business, separate from the measured order window (orders paid 1 May – 3 October 2026) and not figures for this programme, which is new.
How the money moves
Three invoices, one direction, prepaid to start
Here are the mechanics: who bills whom, in what order, in which currency, and why new partners start prepaid.
Your agency invoices your client
On Co-Manage and White Label the client contracts with you and pays you. You choose the terms, the billing currency and the collection method. On White Label the price is entirely yours and we never see what you charge.
RyanFulfil invoices your agency
We bill you, not your client, on a single consolidated partner invoice with client-level and store-level allocation — so you can pass a cost through or absorb it per client without unpicking one total.
You keep the spread
The difference between our net quote and what you charge is yours. Because a quote is product-, route- and assumption-specific, the spread is calculated on a real number rather than an industry average.
How you are billed, in detail
New partners start prepaid: you fund the account, we fulfil against it, and the consolidated invoice reconciles the work. Prepaid is also what keeps a white-label account clean. If you prepay us and invoice your client separately, our beneficiary details stay out of your client’s payment records. If money moves any other way, they can appear there: payment records show who was actually paid, and no provider can change that.
We bill in USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, AUD, NZD or SGD with no currency surcharge. TRY and HUF carry a small FX surcharge. Payment is by Wise or bank transfer. The agency margin calculator works in a single currency at a time and does not convert between them, so quote and charge your client in the currency you settle with us to keep the arithmetic honest.
The partner-named commission
Use the commission guidance as a starting point
Current programme guidance is around 2%. It is a starting point, not a cap, floor or proof that any client price will beat AliExpress or another marketplace.
Compare the complete customer-ready offer
Competitiveness depends on the exact product and variant, packed cost, destination, route, current marketplace prices or promotions, and service scope. Start with a real quote and compare the complete customer-ready offer like for like; AliExpress can still be cheaper for some orders.
What the commission actually sits on
When RyanFulfil includes the whole requested commission in its quote, estimated customer quote = eligible base ÷ (1 − requested rate), and estimated included commission = quote − eligible base. The eligible base includes quoted product, shipping and handling, excluding taxes, duties and pass-through surcharges. This is quote arithmetic before actual receipts, refunds and statement reconciliation. Referral commission is ultimately calculated on eligible actual receipts after refunds.
Set it higher, and know who carries it
A higher requested commission increases the customer quote. Whether the complete offer works is a product- and account-specific decision. For low-volume or management-heavy clients, also consider the retainer or hybrid structure so support work is included in the commercial model.
To defend the net cost your commission sits on, use the seller-side breakdown of what a customer-ready order actually costs — product, packed size, destination, route, branding and compliance, the five inputs that become one number — so you can answer the follow-up question instead of coming back to us.
Charging your client
Retainer, per-order commission, or hybrid
These are ways agencies charge for managing a client account. Choose the structure using real volume, fulfilment cost and support-work inputs; none is a quote or forecast of earnings.
A. Retainer
A one-off onboarding or migration fee plus a monthly operations retainer, with our costs passed through at cost or shown separately. Best when you already charge retainers and the client values the management, not the parcel — and it pays you in the quiet months, which is when a fulfilment account is most likely to be dropped.
B. Per-order commission
You take our net quote and add the commission you named. Simple, and it scales straight with volume. It also earns nothing in a slow month, and it gets volatile when a thin-margin client needs a lot of support — the support cost erodes the very spread that is paying for it.
C. Hybrid
A setup fee, a smaller monthly retainer, the modest per-order commission, and separate project fees for samples, packaging, product changes or a migration. The management cost gets paid by the retainer instead of eroding the per-order margin — which is why most agencies land here.
Model your own client with the agency margin calculator. When RyanFulfil includes the requested commission, it uses the gross-up formula above in your browser, sends nothing anywhere, and shows every line of working. It is arithmetic on inputs you supply — not a quote, and not a projection of what you will earn.
A launch-tactic mistake
Why not start with big discounts
The obvious way to win a first client or a first partner is to cut the number. On this model that move is more expensive than it looks, and it undermines the one argument that actually wins the account.
There is no fat margin to discount from
Use the actual quote and your account costs before choosing a discount. Any discount reduces the amount available for your account work; model that effect before making a promise.
A discount resets the starting line
Cut the number to close the deal and the next renewal begins from the discounted figure, not the real one. You have not won a client at your price; you have trained a client to expect a lower one, on an account whose margin was never large enough to carry it.
Check the complete offer before discounting
The guidance rate alone does not make your price better than anyone else’s. Before you discount, compare the whole offer: sourcing, agreed checks, packing, delivery estimates and exception support.
Better pricing is earned, not promised
Volume pricing follows proven aggregate activity rather than being promised for signing up. The honest sequence is a fair net cost now and a better net cost as real volume appears — not a launch discount committed before a single order has shipped.
The one time a lower number is the right call
If a client’s route or product genuinely lets us quote a lower net cost, that shows up in the quote itself, because the quote is built from the real product, route and assumptions. That is not a discount — it is the number being right. What we are warning against is discounting off a fair number to win business you then cannot run profitably.
What partner status costs
Nothing to join, nothing to hold
The only money that moves is for fulfilment actually performed. There is no fee to become a partner and no fee to stay one.
What is confirmed after you are accepted
Founding-partner terms are agreed after a fit assessment. Any later changes are communicated before they apply to you. Which path you are on decides who charges whom: on Co-Manage and White Label your agency contracts with, invoices, supports and prices its own client, so the three models above are entirely yours to set; on Refer the commercial mechanics are the ones in the next section. The four paths are compared on the programmes page.
The one path with a disclosure rule
On Refer, the commission is disclosed in the quote
Everything above assumes you own the client price. On the referral path you do not, and that changes one thing about how the commission is handled — deliberately, and in your favour as much as the seller’s.
Why the disclosure exists
Refer is the one path where RyanFulfil contracts with, invoices, supports and prices the seller. That makes a referrer’s named commission a fee inside a quote we issue on our own paper — so the quote states that a partner fee is included. You still name the figure and still earn it on eligible shipped orders; the seller simply is not surprised by it later, which protects you as much as it protects them. We do not describe a hidden margin on a client we own.
Contrast that with Co-Manage and White Label, where you hold the client contract and set the price outright. There is no disclosure obligation to RyanFulfil on those paths, because the price is yours — though the claims you make to your own client are always yours to stand behind. The full referral mechanics, including how introductions are confirmed and when payouts occur, are on the referral programme page, and the money flow they sit inside is summarised under the commercial model.
Pricing questions
The money questions, answered plainly
These pick up where the summary on the Agency Desk page stops. Broader programme and operations questions are answered on the Agency Desk FAQ.
Do I pay RyanFulfil before or after fulfilment?
Before, at launch. New partners start prepaid: you fund the account, we fulfil against it, and a single consolidated partner invoice reconciles the work with client-level and store-level allocation. Prepaid also keeps a white-label account clean, because our beneficiary details stay out of your client’s payment records.
Which currencies can I be billed in?
USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, AUD, NZD or SGD with no currency surcharge. TRY and HUF carry a small FX surcharge. Payment is by Wise or bank transfer. Quote and charge your client in the same currency you settle with us, because the agency margin calculator works one currency at a time and does not convert.
Does the commission apply to shipping as well as the product?
The net cost we quote is product, shipping and handling for that product and route, as one number. That quoted amount is the eligible base used in the gross-up estimate above. It is separate from the actual-receipts basis used for referral statement reconciliation.
Can I change my commission later?
Yes. You name the commission per quote, so a new quote carries the new figure. The guidance near 2% is guidance, not a cap or a floor — set it higher and the client carries the difference, which is a trade between your margin and their price competitiveness.
How is the agency margin calculator different from a quote?
The calculator is arithmetic on numbers you type, run in your browser. A real net cost comes from a real product, a real destination and a stated set of assumptions, and it moves when any of those move. The calculator also shows gross spread, not profit — it does not subtract your time, payment fees, refunds you absorb or the tax you owe.
Is there really no joining or monthly fee?
None at launch. There is no joining fee, no monthly programme fee and no published minimum order commitment for the founding pilot. The only money that moves is for fulfilment performed. Founding-partner terms are confirmed after a fit assessment, and anything that changes will be published here before it applies to you.
Founding partner pilot
Bring your client’s numbers. We will help you price the account.
Apply with your current services, client count, target markets and expected order volume. We will recommend referral, co-managed, white-label or strategic access — and tell you plainly if it is not the right time.
The calculator uses inputs you supply; its results are estimates, not quotes or forecasts. Partners remain responsible for finding and managing their own clients and for the claims they make to them. We do not guarantee sales, profit, product-market fit or carrier outcomes.