What a China Sourcing Agent Charges — and Why Mine Are Printed on the Website
“Sourcing Agent 101: Who are They? How They Work? How They Charge?”
— recurring thread title, Redditr/sourcing_from_china“How much does a China sourcing agent usually charge?”
— a question that appears in the FAQ section of nearly every sourcing agency website“How do I know if a sourcing partner is actually working for me and not the factory?”
— the same FAQ sections, usually two questions further down
Same question, three ways: what is the job, what does it cost, and — the one that actually matters — whose side is he on.
I am Walker Wang, an independent buyer-side sourcing consultant in Guangzhou. This article answers the second with real numbers, and answers the third by explaining why those numbers can be printed at all.
The three ways a sourcing agent gets paid
Almost every commercial arrangement in this industry is one of the following, or a blend of them.
1. Commission — a percentage of order value. Common, easy to understand, and not inherently wrong. [TODO: 市场常见佣金区间 — 需 Walker 提供可信来源后再写具体数字，不写则删掉本句] The number is not the issue. The question is who pays it. A commission invoiced to you and disclosed in writing is a fee. A commission paid by the factory is not a fee — it is a rebate, and the person receiving it now has two clients.
2. Markup — the agent buys and resells. You are quoted a unit price; you never see the factory’s own quotation, and you pay the agent rather than the factory. This is a legitimate business model, but it is not representation. You cannot audit a markup, because the only document that would reveal it does not exist in your inbox.
3. Fixed fee or retainer — billed to the buyer, disclosed up front. Least common, and the only one where the agent’s income is independent of how much you pay the factory.
Here is the only test that matters:
Can you see the factory’s own quotation, and can you pay the factory directly? If yes to both, the agent’s income is not hidden inside your unit price.
If the answer to either is no, you are not being represented. You are being sold to.
Why “free” is the most expensive option
A service that costs you nothing is still being paid for. In a China sourcing transaction there are only three parties: you, the factory, and the intermediary. If you are not paying the intermediary, the factory is.
That is not a moral judgement; it is arithmetic. And it has a predictable consequence at exactly the moment you need your agent most — goods late, bulk quality off sample, a mould that needs reworking and somebody has to absorb the cost. An agent paid by the factory has to choose between the relationship that pays him and the client who does not. He will rarely say so out loud; he will say the factory is “doing its best”.
So: if an agent tells you the service is free, ask who pays them, in writing. The answer tells you more than any proposal document will.
My fees, published
Four engagement models. These are the figures on my services page; they are not a starting point for negotiation, they are the fee.
| Engagement | What it is | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Supplier Scan | A written shortlist of Chinese factories that can make your item | Lite USD 500 · Standard USD 800–1,000 · Complex USD 1,500+ |
| Project Sourcing | End-to-end handling of one purchasing project, from shortlist through to shipment | 3–5% of order value, minimum USD 1,500 |
| Ongoing Retainer | A standing sourcing desk for buyers placing repeat orders in China | USD 2,000–4,000 per month, or 2–3% of order value |
| Buying Office | An outsourced China buying office on a flexible scope | Scope and fee discussed case by case |
Three things about that table:
- Your fee is billed to you, separately. Supplier payments go from you to the factory. Nothing is added on top of the factory price.
- Scope and fee are confirmed in writing before any work starts. There is no checkout, and no price appears at a checkout, because scope has to be read before it can be priced.
- Trade orders are settled by T/T bank transfer, the normal method for bulk shipments from China. Consultancy fees are invoiced separately from supplier payments.
What is not in those numbers: [TODO: 明确列出不含项 — 例如第三方验货费、模具费、样品费、国际运费是否另计。Walker 确认后补，不确定就整段删除]
Why I can put prices on a website
Not because transparency is a virtue. Because of three constraints I have accepted:
- No factory ownership. I do not own or invest in any factory. A shortlist is ranked on fit for your specification, not on who pays me.
- No resale. I do not buy goods and sell them to you. You see the factory price and you pay the factory directly.
- No supplier commission. I accept nothing from suppliers. A factory cannot buy a place on your shortlist, which removes the usual incentive to inflate a quotation.
The reason price transparency is possible is not generosity. It is the absence of a second income stream. An agent who also takes a factory rebate cannot publish a clean fee, because his real income has two parts and only one of them is his to disclose. That is why most agency websites say “contact us for a quote” where the fee should be. It is not coyness. It is structural.
Publishing fees does cost me something: buyers who compare on price alone will go elsewhere. That is an acceptable trade. The buyers I want are the ones who have already worked out that the expensive part of sourcing from China is not the agent’s fee.
Five questions to ask any agent before you sign
- Who pays you — me, the factory, or both?
- Will I see the factory’s own quotation, with the factory’s name and bank details on it?
- Is your fee billed separately from the goods, or is it inside the unit price?
- What happens to your fee if the order value goes up? (Under a percentage model, your agent’s income rises with your purchase price. Ask him to say so plainly.)
- What is not included — inspection, tooling, samples, freight?
If question 1 comes back as “don’t worry, I get a small commission from the factory”, translate it directly: your agent has a second client, and that client is the one you are negotiating against.
Where a fixed fee beats a percentage, and vice versa
A percentage model is fair when the order is large and the work scales with it. On a small first order it does not work in your favour — a percentage of a small number is a small number, which is exactly why commission models carry minimums.
Still testing a product? A fixed-fee shortlist is the honest starting point. Got a specification, a quantity and a ship date? A project fee makes more sense. The right question is not “which is cheaper” — it is “which one stops paying me when I stop needing it”.
The short version
You are not buying hours. You are buying the removal of a conflict of interest in a transaction where you are not in the country, do not speak the language and cannot easily enforce anything. That is worth a fee you can see, from someone with no other way to be paid.
Tell me what you need sourced, the target quantity and the destination port. Scope and fee are confirmed in writing before any work starts. → Request a quote