Take rate

Take rate is the share of advertiser spend that an intermediary keeps as its fee, expressed as a percentage of the gross amount that passes through it; in retail media it also means the share of media revenue a platform vendor retains from a retailer's network.

Every hop in programmatic has a take rate: the DSP's platform fee, the SSP's fee, data and verification fees, the curator's margin. The ANA's benchmarks, as reported by ExchangeWire, found that after all of them 43.9% of a DSP dollar reached the consumer in 2024 and 45.1% in Q2 2026 (ExchangeWire, 16 September 2026). Take rates are rarely flat: Adalytics found one SSP charging a single publisher between 7% and 42% on the same site with the same buyer (ExchangeWire, 16 September 2026).

In retail media the term is used for the vendor's cut. Platforms sold as a percentage of spend plus platform fees (Criteo's model, per a vendor comparison) have a take rate; platforms sold as SaaS without revenue share (Kevel's model, per the same comparison) do not, but cost a license and a sales team instead (Osmos, 4 June 2026). A retailer evaluating platforms should compute the effective take rate at its expected spend, including any demand fee, and compare it with the cost of owning the stack; the comparison grid is in Retail media network platforms compared.

Example: a brand spends $100,000 through a DSP; the DSP keeps 12%, the SSP 15% of what remains, and data fees take 8% of the original; the publisher receives $66,800 and the combined take rate is 33.2%.

Related: working media, ad tech tax, SPO, retail media network.

Source: ANA Programmatic Transparency Benchmark figures and Adalytics findings as reported by ExchangeWire (16 September 2026); vendor pricing models per Osmos (4 June 2026).

1. ExchangeWire, 16 September 2026
2. Osmos, 4 June 2026