Soku AI
Search "best DSP platforms" and you will get a dozen listicles ranking demand-side platforms by price. Nearly all of those prices are invented.
The reason is simple and worth saying at the top: DSP pricing is not public. A demand-side platform typically charges a platform fee as a percentage of the media you run through it, that percentage is negotiated per account, and the contract that sets it is almost always under mutual NDA. There is no rate card to compare. When an article tells you Platform A charges 12% and Platform B charges 18%, it is either repeating an anonymous forum post or making it up.
So compare them on something that is knowable: what each platform lets you buy, whether you can get in without a salesperson, and at what spend level the fee stops eating the advantage.
This page is about choosing the buying platform itself. If you are earlier than that and want the map of how a DSP relates to SSPs, ad servers, identity, verification and measurement, start with the full programmatic stack, layer by layer and come back.
The one number in the category anyone publishes
Amazon is the exception that proves the rule. On its own product page, Amazon states:
The managed-service option typically requires a minimum spend of $50,000 USD (minimum may vary per country).
It also states that there are two ways in — self-service and managed-service — and, usefully, answers the question most people actually have:
I don't sell on Amazon. Can I still use Amazon DSP? Yes, you can use Amazon DSP even if you don't sell on Amazon.
That single published figure is more useful than every estimated fee percentage on the internet combined, because it tells you where the category's service tier actually sits. $50,000 is roughly the point at which a DSP vendor will assign a human to your account. Most other DSPs do not publish a minimum, and in practice that means the minimum is whatever the salesperson decides your account is worth — which correlates closely with the same number.
(Amazon's page verified 2026-09-22.)
How to actually choose: five axes
Price is not one of them, because you cannot see it until you are in a negotiation. These are:
1. What inventory does it uniquely unlock? This is the only axis that genuinely differentiates DSPs, because most of them can buy most of the open web. What varies is the exclusive supply: YouTube, Prime Video, Twitch, and the retail media networks are each reachable through specific doors.
2. Can you get in without a contract? Self-serve or managed. This determines whether you can start next week or next quarter.
3. What is the fee structure, not the fee? Ask whether the platform fee is charged on media spend or on total, whether data and inventory fees are separate line items, and whether the DSP takes a margin on the exchange side too. A transparent 15% is better than an opaque 10% with three hidden lines under it.
4. Does it report at the domain or app level? A DSP that will not tell you where your money went is a network wearing a DSP's clothes.
5. Who operates it? A DSP is not a tool you switch on. Somebody has to build audiences, manage inclusion lists, read verification reports and adjust bids. If that person does not exist, a managed service is not an upsell, it is a requirement.
The platforms
Amazon DSP — the retail data door
Unlocks: Prime Video, Fire TV, Twitch, IMDb and Amazon's owned properties, plus third-party exchange inventory. Crucially, Amazon's shopping signals.
Entry: self-service or managed. Managed typically requires the $50,000 minimum quoted above; self-service has no published minimum.
Choose it when your product is bought the way Amazon's audience buys, and the purchase-intent signal is worth more to you than open-web reach. It is also the main programmatic route into the largest retail media network — see retail media networks explained for how that layer works and who else sells it.
Its limit: you are buying Amazon's view of the user. That view is excellent for commerce and weaker for everything else.
Google Display & Video 360 — the YouTube door
Unlocks: YouTube inventory bought programmatically alongside display, plus Google's exchange and broad open-web supply. Integrated with Campaign Manager 360 and the wider Google Marketing Platform.
Entry: generally through a Google sales relationship or an authorised reseller/partner. No public pricing.
Choose it when YouTube is a material line in the plan and you want it bought in the same system, with the same frequency controls, as the rest of your video. That single-frequency-cap argument is the strongest case for DV360 and it is a real one.
Its limit: it is Google's platform and its incentives point at Google's inventory. If your reason for going programmatic was to buy outside the walled gardens, starting inside one is a strange first move.
The Trade Desk — the independent-scale door
Unlocks: the broadest independent supply in the category, especially CTV across publishers that are not Amazon or Google. Generally the default when you want reach that no single walled garden controls.
Entry: historically managed, through agencies and larger direct accounts. No public pricing, no published minimum.
Choose it when independence is the point: you want a buying platform whose commercial interest is not tied to the inventory it sells you, and you are large enough that it will take your account.
Its limit: the barrier to entry is a relationship, not a signup form. Smaller advertisers routinely find they cannot buy it directly at all and end up accessing it through an agency, which adds another margin.
StackAdapt — the self-serve door
Unlocks: open-web display, native, video, CTV and audio, with a self-serve interface that a small team can actually operate.
Entry: self-serve, with a lower practical barrier than the enterprise platforms.
Choose it when you are below the level where The Trade Desk or DV360 will engage, but you genuinely need open-web inventory that Google and Meta cannot sell you. It is the most common honest answer for the mid-market.
Its limit: it does not unlock the walled-garden exclusives. No Prime Video, no programmatic YouTube.
Yahoo DSP, Microsoft Invest (Xandr), Viant, Basis, Adform
These are real platforms with real businesses, and for most advertisers they are chosen for a specific reason rather than on general merit:
- Yahoo DSP — owned-and-operated Yahoo inventory plus open web; often chosen where its identity graph fits the advertiser's data.
- Microsoft Invest, the buy side of the former Xandr — relevant where Microsoft's inventory and audience data matter, and increasingly tied to Microsoft's broader advertising offering.
- Viant — built around household-level identity and CTV, and unusual in the category for being publicly listed, which means more of its financial shape is visible than its competitors'.
- Basis Technologies — sold on workflow as much as buying: the pitch is consolidating planning, billing and reporting around programmatic rather than out-bidding anyone.
- Adform — the strongest independent presence in Europe, and often the answer when EU data handling is the deciding constraint rather than reach.
If none of those specific reasons applies to you, none of these is your answer, and that is a fine conclusion to reach.
A note on MediaMath
If you find a 2026 listicle recommending MediaMath, close it. MediaMath filed for bankruptcy in 2023 and its assets were acquired; it is not a platform you can go and buy today. Its continued presence in "best DSP" articles is the clearest available evidence of how much of this category's content is copied rather than checked.
What you actually need, by spend
Rough bands, in open-web budget — that is, budget that is not going to Google Search, Meta or a retail media network:
- Under ~$20K/month. No DSP. The platform fee plus the operating cost will exceed what you gain. Spend it inside the walled gardens and the retail networks where the targeting is handed to you.
- ~$20–50K/month. Self-serve only — StackAdapt, or Amazon DSP self-service if your category fits Amazon's signal. You are operating it yourself, so pick the one you can actually use.
- ~$50–250K/month. The managed tier opens. This is where Amazon's $50K threshold sits and where DV360 and The Trade Desk become realistically accessible. Fee negotiation starts to matter more than platform choice.
- Above ~$250K/month. You will likely run more than one, and the question stops being "which DSP" and becomes "how do I hold frequency and measurement together across several". That is an identity and measurement problem, not a buying-platform problem.
The questions that get you a real answer
When you do get a vendor on a call, these five produce more signal than any feature list:
- What is the platform fee, is it on media or total, and what else is billed separately?
- Do you take any margin on the supply side of the same transaction?
- Can I see domain-level and app-level delivery, exportable, without asking you?
- What is the actual minimum for my account — not the published one?
- What happens to my audiences and my historical data if I leave?
A vendor who answers all five plainly is worth more than one with a better deck.
Where the creative comes from
A DSP decides where the impression is bought. It does nothing about whether the ad is worth showing — and open-web programmatic is unusually punishing on creative, because you are buying across thousands of placements at once and cannot hand-tune for each.
That is a volume problem. Running one concept across the ratio, length and message variants that open-web and CTV placements demand is where most programmatic plans quietly break down: the media plan is ready and the creative is three files. If that is where you are, dynamic creative optimization tools cover the automated-assembly side, and CTV advertising platforms cover the specific creative specs that connected TV demands.
Soku sits on the creative side of that line rather than the buying side. It generates and versions the ad creative — the ratios, the cuts, the message variants — and pushes it into the platforms where campaigns run, so the media plan is not waiting on the asset list. It is not a DSP and does not try to be one; if you need to buy open-web inventory, you still need one of the platforms above.
FAQ
Is there a single best DSP?
No, and any page that names one without asking what inventory you need is not answering the question. The category's genuine differentiator is exclusive supply, and exclusive supply is by definition different for each platform.
Why will nobody tell me the price?
Because platform fees are negotiated per account and covered by NDA, and because a published rate would immediately become the ceiling in every negotiation. The practical consequence is that your fee depends on your spend and your negotiating position, which is an uncomfortable answer but the true one.
Can I use a DSP without an agency?
Yes, if you pick a self-serve platform and have someone to operate it. The enterprise platforms are harder to access directly at smaller spend, which is a large part of why agencies still intermediate this category.
Platform capabilities and the Amazon DSP minimum-spend figure were verified against vendor documentation on 2026-09-22. Fee structures are described generically because, with the noted exception, DSP pricing is not publicly disclosed — we have deliberately not estimated numbers that vendors do not publish.
