The news: Agencies tell Digiday that The Trade Desk (TTD) is softening its long-held stance on pricing, opening the door to fee negotiations as Amazon DSP gains traction with lower costs and competitive performance.

• Buyers report that effective fees once viewed as fixed—often in the 15% to 20% range—are now negotiable, with 1% to 2% reductions or post-auction discounts available if agencies hit quarterly spend thresholds.
• These concessions are typically tied to joint business plans, and in some cases include “development credits” that give clients engineering resources at no added cost.
• TTD reps are becoming more service-focused, a shift agencies interpret as a response to Amazon’s rising influence among non-endemic advertisers.
• Buyers say they now approach negotiations assuming price flexibility rather than fixed terms.

State of the business: TTD’s response to Amazon DSP comes during a year where there’s been much speculation about the open web’s future, as recent earnings from the likes of Google, Meta, and Amazon have powered walled garden growth.

• Despite posting 18% YoY revenue growth in Q3, TTD’s stock is down roughly 67% this year as of this writing, increasing agency leverage in annual planning.
• Analyst data from Tikr shows TTD’s stock resetting around $40 per share, with consensus price targets near $62, implying about 57% upside.
• Models expect approximately 16.6% annual revenue growth through 2027 and operating margins around 22%, supported by ongoing CTV adoption and retail media partnerships.
• Despite those positive signs, TTD has seen substantial executive turnover over the past two years, including departures of its CRO, CFO, COO, and longtime CTO.
• The latest key departure is Jud Spencer, a senior engineering leader with more than twelve years at TTD and a key figure in supply-chain transparency efforts, AdExchanger reports. His exit comes amid strained relations between TTD and Prebid.org over universal Transaction IDs and TTD’s introduction of its own OpenAds wrapper.

Why it matters: Fee flexibility suggests TTD is responding to serious competitive pressure for the first time in years, especially as Amazon’s low DSP fees and expanding off-site inventory appeal to cost-conscious advertisers.

• The shift highlights a new dynamic: Agencies can now push for performance-aligned economics, narrowing a long-standing pricing gap between independent DSPs and walled gardens.
• Leadership turnover and friction with Prebid shows that TTD is recalibrating both externally and internally, with product ownership and infrastructure standards in flux.
• The combination of stock pressure and market competition is granting agencies more leverage at a time when DSP fees are under heightened scrutiny.

Key takeaway for marketers: The era of fixed DSP economics is fading.

• Advertisers should revisit programmatic fee structures, elevate competitive benchmarking in annual planning, and negotiate for joint business plans that tie costs to incremental spend or measurable outcomes.
• With TTD balancing competitive threats and internal change, marketers have more room to demand transparency, flexibility, and service support—especially for CTV, retail media, and identity initiatives like UID2.