The Trade Desk Fees Explained: Platform Fee, Data Fees and What the 10-K Shows

The Trade Desk sells a self-service buying platform. Its clients are agencies, advertisers and service providers that sign master services agreements (MSAs). Those MSAs run for one year, renew automatically, carry no spend commitment and can be ended on 60 days' notice (10-K, FY2025).

The client is billed for everything bought through the platform: media, value-added services, data and the platform fee. The company invoices monthly, usually on 30 to 90 day terms. Some agency clients have "sequential liability" terms, so they pay only after their advertiser pays them (10-K, FY2025).

The accounting matters for anyone reading the numbers. The Trade Desk reports revenue "as an agent on a net basis". It subtracts what it pays publishers, exchanges and data sellers, which the filing calls "Supplier Components". Revenue is booked when a bid is won (10-K, FY2025). So revenue is the platform fee plus the margin on data and features, not the media.

The filing names no rate. It lists what moves revenue per dollar of spend: service mix, client and channel mix, pricing and volume discounts. Accounting choices matter too, such as whether a supplier cost reduces revenue or counts as an expense (10-K, FY2025). Your own rate lives in your MSA or your agency's.

The Trade Desk discloses gross spend once a year, in its annual report. Gross spend is the client's spend on inventory, services and data, plus the platform fee. Divide revenue by gross spend and you get an implied take rate. The table shows the arithmetic, with the filing figures exactly as reported.

The 2022 and 2023 gross spend figures appear in the FY2023 filing rounded to the nearest million. Every rate in the table is our division, not a number the company states.

Three things follow from the filing. First, revenue grew 18% in 2025 while gross spend grew 11%, so the company kept more of each dollar (10-K, FY2025). The filing credits more use of value-added services and data, "increased pricing associated with value-added services and data", and higher platform fees. Second, the 21.6% blends every client. A large agency group with a negotiated rate and a small advertiser can pay very different amounts. Third, the rate is a share of gross spend, which includes the fee itself.

That last point changes how the number compares with a quote. A 21.6% take of gross spend equals a 27.6% markup on the $10,498.4 million that went to suppliers in 2025 (our calculation from the 10-K, FY2025). When a rep quotes "a percentage of media", ask which base it uses.

Worked example. Take a $1,000,000 annual budget and apply the 2025 average. The platform would keep about $216,200 and pass about $783,800 to publishers, exchanges and data sellers. Now apply the same rate as a markup on media by mistake: $1,000,000 of media plus 21.6% is $1,216,000. The difference is $16,000 on one budget line. All figures are our arithmetic on the 10-K, FY2025 average; your contract rate will differ.

The company has said the rate "has been consistently around 20% of spend on our platform" (AdExchanger, 28 April 2025). Digiday's buyers put the effective fee at the mid-teens to about 20% once data, identity and measurement are loaded (Digiday, 3 December 2025). These are reported ranges, not contract terms.

The platform fee is one line. The Trade Desk also sells access to more than 370 third-party data vendors and reaches inventory through more than 430 directly integrated exchanges, publishers and SSPs (10-K, FY2025). Each of those relationships can add a cost.

The table lists the fee lines a buyer can see on a Kokai campaign, with what is public about each.

Audience Unlimited is the clearest example. The company said advertisers who use third-party data "typically invest nearly 20% of their media costs on it" (company claim). It then priced bulk access as a flat share of impression cost (PPC Land, 29 September 2025). On $500,000 of impression cost, the 4.4% tier is $22,000 for data access (our calculation).

Performance Mode bundles Audience Unlimited, Predictive Clearing, Identity Alliance, Prism and measurement into one setting. Control Mode keeps manual control and prices those features one by one (PPC Land, 29 September 2025). A consultant writing in AdExchanger argued that the trade-off between the two modes is too steep. She also questioned a bid shading fee on OpenPath supply that the company itself connects (AdExchanger, 5 March 2026). That is an opinion, and we found no published response from the company.

The phrase "hidden fees" now points to one episode. In February 2026, Adweek reported that Dentsu and WPP had left OpenPath over transparency and fee concerns (PPC Land, 2 July 2026). In March, Publicis stopped recommending the platform to clients after an audit that alleged problems with fees, consent and cost transparency (Digiday, 23 March 2026).

The Trade Desk rejected the findings. Its chief executive, Jeff Green, defended the platform's processes, and the company cited contractual limits on sharing data with the auditor (Digiday, 23 March 2026). On 12 June 2026 the two companies issued a joint statement that resolved the dispute and disclosed no terms (PPC Land, 13 June 2026). No regulator or court has ruled on the allegations.

Digiday's sources framed the fight as a contest over margin between holding companies and the platform. They pointed to joint business plans (JBPs), which are client-level agreements that can carry rates different from those the agency negotiated (Digiday, 23 March 2026). The company told Digiday that "more and more of our business is managed through joint business plans" (Digiday, 3 December 2025).

For a buyer, the practical lesson is narrow. A fee is "hidden" when it appears on an invoice line you did not price, or when a setting turns it on by default. The fix is a full fee schedule and the logs to check it. The checklist in our DSP RFP template asks for both.

Kokai is the buying platform. It launched on 6 June 2023 and replaced Solimar; by February 2026 the company said almost all clients used it (PPC Land, 21 October 2026). Its pricing modes decide which features are bundled and which are billed one by one.

OpenPath connects the DSP directly to publishers. It changes who pays: the publisher pays the flat 4.5% fee, and Green described it as "meant to be nearly breakeven to slightly profitable" (PPC Land, 13 June 2026). A buyer pays no OpenPath line, but the publisher's fee comes out of the same clearing price.

Deal Desk launched on 9 June 2025 as part of Kokai. It centralises private marketplace and programmatic guaranteed deals and scores deal quality (PPC Land, 9 June 2025). It has no separate published fee.

Ventura is a streaming TV operating system the company announced on 20 November 2024 for TV makers and other streaming platforms (The Trade Desk, 20 November 2024). It does not appear as a buyer fee line. It matters because it can add supply that buyers reach through the same platform.

Most spend reaches The Trade Desk through agencies. In 2025, two holding companies each passed 10% of gross billings and together accounted for 30% (10-K, FY2025). The agency usually holds the seat, signs the MSA and invoices the advertiser.

That puts a second fee between you and the platform. The UK competition regulator found media agency fees of 4% to 14% of open display spend in 2019, with a weighted average of 5% (CMA, Appendix R, 1 July 2020). The same study put the weighted DSP average at 14%, with self-service platforms at 4% to 16%. These figures are old, but they are the only regulator-grade split we found.

Discounts also flow through this layer. Buyers told Digiday in December 2025 that they won tech-fee reductions of 1 to 2 points after passing spend thresholds, and post-auction discounts that had to be passed to the client (Digiday, 3 December 2025). The Q2 2026 filing confirms "volume and other discounts in connection with joint business plans" (10-Q, Q2 2026). Who keeps a discount is a contract question. The steps to check it are in how to audit your agency's programmatic buys.

1. Get the fee schedule in writing. Ask for the platform fee as a share of gross spend, the base it applies to, and every add-on that can appear on an invoice.
2. Ask which pricing mode each campaign uses. Control Mode and Performance Mode bundle different features (PPC Land, 29 September 2025).
3. Request the raw cost report. Match media, data, feature and platform lines to the invoice. The case for log-level data rests on this step.
4. Read the agency contract next to the MSA. Check who holds the seat and who keeps rebates or JBP discounts.
5. Model the whole chain. The ad tech fee chain calculator adds the SSP and agency layers; the ad tech tax explained page shows the industry studies behind each layer.

The comparison with a commerce-owned rival is on Amazon DSP vs The Trade Desk, and Google's buying tool is covered in DV360 fees explained. The wider series sits in the in-house programmatic hub.

1. The Trade Desk, Inc., Form 10-K for fiscal year 2025 (filed 27 February 2026). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1671933/000167193326000014/ttd-20251231.htm
2. The Trade Desk, Inc., Form 10-K for fiscal year 2023 (filed 15 February 2024). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1671933/000167193324000014/ttd-20231231.htm
3. The Trade Desk, Inc., Form 10-Q for the quarter ended 30 June 2026 (filed 6 August 2026). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1671933/000167193326000086/ttd-20260630.htm
4. The Trade Desk, Inc., "The Trade Desk Reports Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results", Exhibit 99.1 to Form 8-K (6 August 2026). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1671933/000167193326000085/ttd-20260806x8kexx991.htm
5. PPC Land, "The Trade Desk launches data marketplace overhaul with AI scoring" (29 September 2025). https://ppc.land/the-trade-desk-launches-data-marketplace-overhaul-with-ai-scoring/
6. PPC Land, "The Trade Desk gains first Dutch publisher for OpenPath at 4.5% fee" (2 July 2026). https://ppc.land/the-trade-desk-gains-first-dutch-publisher-for-openpath-at-4-5-fee/
7. PPC Land, "Publicis and The Trade Desk make up as ad tech's trust layer cracks" (13 June 2026). https://ppc.land/publicis-and-the-trade-desk-make-up-as-ad-techs-trust-layer-cracks/
8. Digiday, "Publicis vs. The Trade Desk isn't really about transparency: it's about who gets the margin" (23 March 2026). https://digiday.com/media-buying/publicis-vs-the-trade-desk-isnt-really-about-transparency-its-about-who-gets-the-margin/
9. Digiday, "The Trade Desk loosens its grip on pricing amid buyer pressure" (3 December 2025). https://digiday.com/media-buying/the-trade-desk-loosens-its-grip-on-pricing-amid-buyer-pressure/
10. AdExchanger, "Will The Trade Desk right-size its margins?" (5 March 2026). https://www.adexchanger.com/the-big-story/will-the-trade-desk-right-size-its-margins/