Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC): pricing, features, API and alternatives

AMC answers questions that standard Amazon Ads reports cannot. Which mix of streaming TV, display and search ads leads to a purchase? How many buyers were new to the brand? Which shoppers added to cart but did not buy? Advertisers see "hundreds of fields" on impressions, clicks and conversions and can upload their own pseudonymous signals to join with them (Amazon Ads, AMC FAQ).

The second job is audiences. Queries can produce audience lists, such as cart abandoners or lookalikes of high-value buyers. Those lists go straight to Amazon DSP and sponsored ads campaigns. AMC Custom Models adds the option to train proprietary models on AMC signals inside the clean room.

Access widened in 2025. On 18 September 2025 Amazon made AMC available to all advertisers running Sponsored Products, Sponsored Display, Sponsored Brands or Sponsored TV, under "Measurement & Reporting" in the ads console (Amazon Ads, 18 September 2025). DSP advertisers using advanced settings still request access through an Amazon account executive. At unBoxed 2025 Amazon doubled the ad traffic lookback from 13 to 25 months, in open beta in the US and Canada from 11 November 2025 (PPC Land, AMC).

Under the hood, AMC is "built on AWS Clean Rooms" (Amazon Ads, AMC). Amazon says it moved AMC's compute to AWS Clean Rooms so marketers can use their own signals with more control (AWS customers page). Each advertiser gets a dedicated instance.

Amazon states three privacy rules on its product page:

• AMC accepts only pseudonymised inputs.
• Advertisers can access only aggregated, anonymous outputs, with "built-in aggregation thresholds".
• Signals an advertiser uploads stay in its instance and "cannot be exported or accessed by Amazon".

Amazon does not publish the threshold value. LiveRamp's documentation, which connects to AMC, cites AMC as the industry example of a high threshold at 100 unique users (LiveRamp docs). Treat that as a third-party description, not Amazon's specification.

Three API families let advertisers and partners automate the work (Amazon Ads, AMC). Reporting APIs run queries on demand or on a schedule. Audience management APIs create rule-based and lookalike audiences. Signal onboarding APIs stream or upload first-party data. For users without SQL, a homepage of no-code templates and an AI assistant called Ads Agent can write queries from plain-language requests.

AMC has three cost layers. The table uses only Amazon statements and dated reporting.

Amazon has not said what happens to first-party paid features on 1 January 2027. Media spend on Amazon DSP or sponsored ads is separate and is covered in Amazon DSP cost.

Strengths

• Unique data. AMC is where Amazon Ads exposure meets Amazon shopping signals, including retail purchases and Prime Video viewing in paid or beta datasets.
• Free core. There is no fee for the instance or standard queries.
• Direct activation. Audiences flow into Amazon DSP and sponsored ads without export.
• Long history. A 25-month lookback supports year-over-year analysis (Amazon Ads, AMC).

Limits

• One-way by design. Uploaded signals cannot leave, and outputs are aggregated, so AMC cannot serve as a general clean room with non-Amazon partners.
• Thresholds are not published. Analysts discover suppression by trial; small segments return nothing.
• Pricing can change. The free window for first-party paid features ends on 31 December 2026, and the later price is not public (PPC Land, June 2026).
• Amazon-centric measurement. Results describe Amazon media; cross-platform plans need another room. The Amazon Ads network profile covers the media side.

• The AMC aggregation threshold. Amazon says thresholds exist but publishes no number.
• AMC's launch date. Amazon wrote "launched in 2019" in September 2025, while PPC Land dates the beta to January 2021.
• Prices for paid features and the post-2026 terms for first-party features.
• The exact list of countries where AMC is available. Amazon's FAQ shows regions, not a count.

1. Amazon Ads, "Amazon Marketing Cloud" product page and FAQ (accessed 9 November 2026). https://advertising.amazon.com/solutions/products/amazon-marketing-cloud
2. Amazon Ads, "Amazon Marketing Cloud now available to all advertisers running sponsored ads campaigns" (18 September 2025). https://advertising.amazon.com/library/news/amc-for-sponsored-ads
3. PPC Land, "Amazon now lets AMC users query 1P paid features for free until end of 2026" (June 2026). https://ppc.land/amazon-now-lets-amc-users-query-1p-paid-features-for-free-until-end-of-2026/
4. PPC Land, "Amazon Marketing Cloud" topic page and timeline (accessed 9 November 2026). https://ppc.land/amc/
5. AWS, "AWS Clean Rooms customers" (accessed 9 November 2026). https://aws.amazon.com/clean-rooms/customers/
6. LiveRamp documentation, "Understanding LiveRamp Clean Room Privacy and Governance Controls" (accessed 9 November 2026). https://docs.liveramp.com/connect/en/understanding-liveramp-clean-room-privacy-and-governance-controls.html
7. US Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR submissions record for Amazon.com, Inc. (accessed 9 November 2026). https://data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK0001018724.json