FTC unseals Amazon ads complaint: surcharges of up to 250% alleged on peak days

The US Federal Trade Commission said on 5 November 2026 that it and 22 state attorneys general have filed an updated version of their complaint against Amazon, with previously redacted details now public. The unsealed passages allege that Amazon raised advertising prices by as much as 50% above auction results on ordinary days and by as much as 250% on major shopping days such as Prime Day and Black Friday. They also put dollar figures on the alleged surcharges for the first time: $87 million in extra worldwide revenue in the 2022 holiday season, and an internal push in 2023 to find at least $40 million from "reserves" to close a gap to plan. Every one of these points is an allegation. None has been tested in court.

What the FTC made public on 5 November

The FTC's press release, titled "New Details Emerge in Amazon Ads Auction-Rigging Case", describes the new filing as one that "makes public factual details that had previously been redacted." The underlying case is the one the FTC and its state partners brought in August 2026 in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington. It alleges that Amazon used deceptive and unfair practices to secretly inflate prices in its online search advertising auction.

The release adds four kinds of detail.

• On size, the FTC alleges Amazon secretly raised prices by up to 50% above the auction result on ordinary days and by up to 250% on high-volume shopping days.
• During the 2021 holiday season, the complaint alleges, Amazon raised advertisers' average cost per click by 20%, and some advertisers saw increases of more than 200%. During the 2022 holiday season, the FTC says, Amazon "secretly and successfully raised its surcharges to increase its revenue by $87 million worldwide."
• One large food and beverage advertiser faced price increases of more than 100% during Prime Day 2023, according to the release. The FTC says Amazon acknowledged internally that the resulting fall in that advertiser's return on ad spend was "destroying campaign performance."
• In 2023, according to the complaint, Amazon executives discussed the need to find an additional $40 million to meet corporate financial targets.

The two quotations that carry the case

The release quotes an email it attributes to the head of Amazon Ads, sent to Amazon's senior vice president of ad products and technology: "I'd like to pull out all of the stops (without doing unnatural acts) to close our gaps to plan. I suspect that the entire gap won't be closed, so whatever can be done with reserves (ideally at least $40MM would be helpful)."

The second quotation is about what advertisers were told. According to the FTC, an advertiser asked Amazon whether "something has changed with respect to the second price auction process, either by design or mistake." An Amazon account manager replied, as quoted in the release: "After reaching out to the product specialist team we were informed there is not a bug, or a change in auction style, so no worries there. This year the marketplace is even more crowded than any year previous, and we are seeing the spike in CPCs [costs-per-click] as a direct reflection." The FTC characterises that answer as false. That characterisation is the agency's position, not a finding.

The unsealed figures at a glance

The table below lists the figures the FTC's 5 November release attributes to the newly unredacted portions of the complaint. All of them are allegations.

What is new compared with RA's September coverage

Relevant Audience covered the original filing on 2 September 2026 in a post headlined "The FTC says Amazon charged advertisers their own bid 79 percent of the time. The lesson is about auctions, not lawsuits." That piece was built on the public version of the complaint as it stood then. It covered the mechanism (a generalised second price auction with an undisclosed "soft reserve" applied on top), the rise in the share of clicks charged at the advertiser's own bid from 4% in late 2020 to 79.1% in 2024, the staged rollout across Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Products and Display Ads, and the December 2021 and Prime Day 2023 episodes described in the filing. It also noted that several dollar estimates and average surcharge rates were redacted from the public version.

The 5 November release fills in part of that gap. Four things were not public in September.

1. A ceiling on the surcharge. The 50% and 250% maximums give a size to what was previously described mainly as a frequency (how often an advertiser paid its own bid). Whether these figures correspond to any specific internal guardrail, the release does not say.
2. Dollar amounts. The $87 million figure for the 2022 holidays and the $40 million target for 2023 are the first specific revenue numbers tied to the alleged surcharge in FTC materials RA has read. The August release spoke only of "tens of billions of dollars" in total over more than seven years.
3. Average CPC impact in a named season. The 20% average rise for the 2021 holidays, with some advertisers above 200%, is a cost measure an advertiser can compare against their own history.
4. What advertisers were told. The account manager's "not a bug, or a change in auction style" reply is new; the FTC says it falsely attributed the price increases to increased competition.

RA's September post, drawing on the filing, mentioned an account manager relaying a grocery client's complaint that CPCs were up more than 90% around Prime Day 2023. The November release refers to a large food and beverage advertiser with increases of more than 100% during Prime Day 2023. The release does not say whether these describe the same advertiser, so they should not be merged.

How a soft reserve differs from a floor price

Search Engine Journal, in a 5 November article by Brooke Osmundson, describes the case as concerning "soft reserve prices," which can increase the final cost per click above what competing bids would otherwise produce. SEJ notes that a soft reserve is different from a minimum bid required to enter an auction. It also reports Amazon's position that advertisers can win placements below the soft reserve, in which case they pay their bid.

The dispute turns on this. In a second price auction, the winner pays roughly what the runner-up bid. That rule is why advertisers are told they can bid what a click is worth to them without overpaying. The FTC's August release made the same point: in a first price auction, bidders tend to shade their bids down, while in a second price auction they bid closer to their true value. The FTC alleges that, beginning in 2019, Amazon added an undisclosed surcharge that it referred to internally as a "soft reserve price," and that Sponsored Products advertisers ended up paying their own winning bid close to 80% of the time.

Analysis. The new figures describe how far above the auction-determined price the charge could go. Read literally, a price raised by 250% above the auction result is 3.5 times that result, though the release does not spell out the arithmetic; either way, the charge stays capped by the winner's own bid. That cap is why Amazon can say no advertiser pays more than its maximum bid, and why the FTC can say advertisers paid far more than the auction they were told about would have charged. Both statements can be true at once, because they use different reference points.

Amazon's position

SEJ reported that the newest FTC release did not include a public response from Amazon on the unsealed details. In its response to the original suit, SEJ said, Amazon denied deceiving or harming advertisers, defended its reserve pricing and said advertisers never pay more than their maximum bid.

Amazon's published response to the August lawsuit goes further. It states that from 2019 through 2024 the average cost per click for Sponsored Products search ads "remained flat adjusted for inflation," that conversion rates grew 24% from 2021 to 2025, and that average winning bids fell 50% from 2019 to 2025 on Sponsored Products search ads. Amazon also estimates that advertisers saved more than $8 billion from 2021 to 2025 because it prioritises ad relevance rather than selecting ads on bid price alone. Those are Amazon's figures and, like the FTC's, they have not been tested in court.

The two sides are not necessarily measuring the same thing. An inflation-adjusted average across all Sponsored Products clicks over six years can stay flat while specific advertisers, on specific days, see the spikes the FTC describes. Neither source reconciles the two views, and RA has not seen the underlying data.

What the source did not say

The FTC release is a summary of an amended complaint, and it leaves several things open. As SEJ pointed out, the release does not state whether the alleged surcharge practices continued past 2023, or which specific Amazon ad formats the new examples involve. Earlier FTC material, including the August release, names Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Display Ads, and quotes a 2024 discussion between senior executives. The 5 November release gives no figure for any country outside the United States beyond the worldwide $87 million, nothing for Southeast Asia, and no date for any hearing, ruling or settlement.

What advertisers can check now

The practical points below are analysis, not claims about Amazon's conduct. They hold whatever the court eventually decides.

• Re-read 2021 to 2023 peak-season benchmarks. SEJ suggests that anyone using Prime Day or Q4 data from those years as a year-over-year baseline should review those windows before setting future targets. If the FTC's allegations are right, those periods may overstate the "normal" cost of a peak-season click.
• Track charged CPC as a share of your maximum bid. A rising CPC trend is hard to interpret. A rising ratio of charged price to submitted bid is a sharper signal that the auction is behaving more like a first price auction. This only works where you set the bid yourself.
• Separate cost from demand in the coming peak. With Black Friday and Cyber Monday ahead, SEJ recommends watching CPC alongside conversion rate and impression share, so that a drop in efficiency can be traced to click cost or to shopper behaviour.
• Write down the platform's explanation. The account manager quote shows why. When a platform explains a cost spike as competition, keep the explanation and the date. It is the only record you will have if the explanation later turns out to be disputed.

The same habits apply to any closed auction in which one company sells the inventory, runs the auction and reports the results. That includes the auctions behind Google Ads and Facebook ads. This is a statement about how the structure works, not an allegation about either platform. The FTC's case concerns Amazon only.

What this means for Thai marketers

The FTC describes auctions on Amazon.com and its mobile app, and the release gives no Thai or Southeast Asian figures. Its relevance in Thailand is indirect. In RA's reading, Thai brands advertising on Amazon are the ones most directly concerned. For everyone else, the lesson is about marketplace auctions in general. Retail media on regional marketplaces is run by the same company that sells the inventory and reports the results, and an advertiser's own records are the only independent baseline.

With 11.11 and 12.12 ahead, a team running ecommerce marketing across marketplaces can start by logging bids, charged CPCs and the platform's stated reasons for any jump during the campaign window. Nothing in the FTC filing says any regional platform behaves the way Amazon is alleged to have behaved. The point is that, without your own data, you would not be able to tell.

FAQ: the unsealed Amazon ads complaint

What did the FTC reveal on 5 November 2026?

The FTC published previously redacted allegations from its complaint against Amazon, including surcharges of up to 50% above auction results on ordinary days and up to 250% on major shopping days. The release also cites a 20% average CPC rise in the 2021 holiday season, $87 million in extra worldwide revenue in the 2022 holidays and a 2023 internal push to find $40 million from reserves.

Has Amazon been found liable?

No, nothing in the case has been decided. The FTC and 22 states filed the suit in August 2026 in the Western District of Washington, and the amended complaint announced on 5 November has fewer redactions. Amazon has denied deceiving or harming advertisers.

Does the case affect advertisers in Thailand?

Not directly, because the complaint concerns advertising on Amazon's platforms and the FTC release gives no figures for Thailand or Southeast Asia. Thai brands advertising on Amazon's global marketplaces may want to review their own historical cost data, but the release does not say how any non-US advertiser was affected.

What is a soft reserve price?

A soft reserve, as SEJ describes it, is a price that can raise the final cost per click above what competing bids would produce, which makes it different from a minimum bid to enter an auction. Amazon says advertisers can still win below the soft reserve and pay their own bid, and never pay more than their maximum bid.

Did the surcharges continue after 2023?

The 5 November release does not say. The new examples run from 2021 to 2023, while the FTC's August release quoted a 2024 executive discussion and named Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Display Ads.

The case will take time, and the figures on both sides will be contested. Advertisers do not need to wait for a ruling to keep better records of what they bid and what they were charged. If you want a second view on your marketplace or search ad costs before the year-end peak, Relevant Audience can help. The full FTC announcement is on the Federal Trade Commission's website.