Marketplace manager: in-house, freelancer or agency

A marketplace manager is the person who runs the seller account: product cards, shipments, advertising, reviews, promotions. Demand for the role is huge and the barrier to entry is low — hence the spread from strong operators to graduates of three-day courses practicing on your account. Here is when a manager is actually needed, which format to choose and how not to hand your business over blindly.

Delegated: account operations — creating and optimizing product cards, planning shipments, running advertising, handling reviews, joining promotions, first-level analytics.

Not delegated: strategy and money — the choice of niches and assortment, pricing policy, unit economics and profit control, supplier relationships. The manager executes; the owner decides — otherwise the business acquires a second owner without a stake.

In-house manager. Maximum involvement and control, grows together with the business. The most expensive option (salary + taxes + workplace), slow to hire, with the risk of becoming irreplaceable. Justified from the turnover level at which the account is a full daily workload.

Freelancer. Cheaper than in-house, starts quickly, scales flexibly. Risks: runs 5–10 accounts in parallel (yours is not the priority), churn, limited depth of immersion. A workable format for small and medium turnover with control in place.

Agency. A team of competencies (content, advertising, analytics) instead of one person, with processes and interchangeability. More expensive than a freelancer, standardization instead of individual attention, quality depends on the specific account manager. Makes sense when you have growth ambitions and need every competence at once — or selectively: hand promotion to the agency and keep operations in-house.

1. 1Cases with numbers and context: not "took it to the top", but what the situation was → what was done → what the result was → whose budget paid for it. Ask to see the dynamics inside the accounts (with the owners' consent).
2. 2Test task: an analysis of your product card or niche — the quality of the hypotheses shows how the person thinks; a template audit along the lines of "everything is bad, pay us" is a marker.
3. 3Questions on economics: a manager who does not calculate ad spend share and margin will burn your budget on your own money: the minimum on ad spend share.
4. 4References from current clients — two or three calls are worth months of trial and error.

• Access by role. Do not hand over the main account: the platforms have role-based access for employees; finances and bank details stay with the owner only: account security.
• Weekly metrics: sales, margin, ad spend share, stock, rating — one short report in a fixed template: what to count.
• KPIs tied to profit, not turnover: a percentage of revenue motivates burning advertising; the "profit + quality of metrics" pairing is healthier.
• Your own access to the primary source: look into the account yourself once a week — the manager's report must not be your only window into the business.

A criteria-based comparison of contractors is in the ranking of marketplace agencies.

"What does a marketplace manager do?" Runs the account operations: product cards, shipments, advertising, reviews, promotions, reporting. Strategy, assortment and control of the money stay with the owner.

"How much does a marketplace manager cost?" The ranges are wide and depend on the format (in-house/freelance/agency), the size of the account and the tasks. Compare not the price but the cost against the volume you delegate, and check the cases — a cheap executor burning the advertising budget costs more than any professional.

"Freelancer or agency — which should I choose?" Small turnover and clear tasks — a proven freelancer with metric control. Growth and a need for the full set of competencies — an agency or an in-house hire. A hybrid (operations inside, promotion outside) is a frequent optimum.

"What access should the manager get?" Role-based and minimally sufficient: work with product cards, advertising, shipments. The main account, finances and bank details are never handed over.

"How do I tell that a manager is doing a bad job?" Activity reports instead of money metrics, turnover growing while margin falls, surprises in the account that you discover on your own. A weekly report on fixed KPIs reveals this in weeks rather than quarters.