What a China sourcing agent costs

Agencies that publish their prices charge between 3 and 12 percent of the order value as a commission, or a fixed project fee starting at USD 2,999, or roughly USD 279 to 299 per day for factory visits, audits and inspections. On a EUR 50,000 order, a commission agent at those published rates costs about EUR 1,500 to 6,000.

All prices below were read on each agency’s own pricing page on 12 November 2026. Where a page gave no number, the agency is left out.

The four ways sourcing agents get paid

Percentage commission. The agent takes a share of the order value, usually the factory price of the goods. Sorva charges 6 to 12 percent of the ex-works value, meaning the price at the factory gate before export transport and paperwork. Several commission agents lower the rate as your volume grows.

Fixed project fee or retainer. You pay a set amount for a defined job, such as finding and vetting suppliers for one product. Cosmo Sourcing starts at USD 2,999 per project and offers a dedicated sourcing office from USD 2,500 a month.

Hourly or day rate. You pay for time. Sofeast bills factory identification at USD 40 an hour and inspections from USD 299 per man-day, one inspector working one day. Its pricing page says it has never charged a percentage.

Margin inside the unit price. Here the agent shows you a price per piece that already includes its earnings. Done openly, this is a legitimate model: Jingsourcing’s Pro Plan has a USD 0 service fee and states that all costs are included in the unit price. The problem is the hidden version, where an agent calls itself free or charges a small visible fee and also takes money from the factory. A June 2025 article by the law firm Harris Sliwoski describes an agent that inflated product prices by 35 percent and collected a further 10 to 15 percent from the factories. Renaud Anjoran wrote on QualityInspection.org in 2010 that hidden factory payments to agents are very common in China.

Published fees from named agencies

Commission agents also differ in what the percentage covers. Jingsourcing includes a standard quality inspection by default; Equilinq charges samples at cost plus EUR 150. Read the full page before you compare headline rates.

What Aslan charges

Aslan is paid by the buyer only. The published prices are:

• Sourcing commission: 4 to 8 percent of order value, depending on volume and complexity. It is invoiced to you, half at deposit and half at shipment. Aslan takes nothing from the factory side.
• Price benchmark report: EUR 199 per product, charged only if a cheaper factory price than yours is found. If your current price cannot be beaten, the report is free.
• Factory search project: quoted per project, for a new product or a whole range.
• Factory visit, audit or inspection: a day rate, quoted in advance, with travel at cost.

The factory invoices the goods to you, and Aslan invoices its commission separately. Aslan sources white-label and ODM goods only. ODM, short for original design manufacturer, means the factory’s own design sold under your brand. Typical buyers spend from about EUR 200,000 a year on Asian goods. More on the company is on the about page.

A worked example

The order below is invented for illustration, and the figures are arithmetic on each agency’s published rate.

A brand orders EUR 50,000 of deck brushes and telescopic poles, measured at the factory price. The commission at each published rate:

At Aslan’s range, the EUR 2,000 to 4,000 would be invoiced as EUR 1,000 to 2,000 at deposit and the same again at shipment. Across a year of EUR 400,000 in orders, the same 4 to 8 percent comes to EUR 16,000 to 32,000. Benchmarking five products and finding a lower price on three of them would cost EUR 597.

Now set those figures against a hidden margin. If an agent with no visible fee adds 10 percent to the factory price, the same EUR 50,000 order carries EUR 5,000 you cannot see, more than every visible fee in the table except the top of Sorva’s range. The number to compare across agents is your landed cost: the total price of the goods delivered to your warehouse, including freight, duty and every fee.

How to check an agent is not also paid by the factory

1. Ask in writing. Ask the agent to confirm that it receives no payment, commission or gift from any factory it proposes. When Anjoran’s firm contacted more than 30 factories for one buyer, it added a note to every email saying it would take no commission from anybody, so the factories knew too.
2. Get the factory’s legal identity. Ask for the full Chinese company name and its unified social credit code, the 18-character registration number on every Chinese business licence. Check both on China’s official company register, the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System at gsxt.gov.cn, run by the State Administration for Market Regulation. It is in Chinese only. The EU SME Centre, which the European Union (EU) funds to advise small and medium-sized businesses, notes that English company names in China have no legal value.
3. Have the factory invoice you. The company on the goods invoice should match the company on the licence, and you should pay its company bank account. Harris Sliwoski lists mismatched licences and invoice entities, and requests to pay personal or offshore accounts, among its red flags.
4. Speak to the factory yourself. Anjoran encourages his clients to contact the proposed factories directly and ask what his firm told them.
5. Ask for the cost breakdown. An agent working only for you can show the factory’s own quotation and explain each line. Being unable to explain a cost breakdown is another of Harris Sliwoski’s red flags.
6. Visit without notice. An agent that refuses unscheduled factory visits is on the same list.
7. Watch prices over time. Anjoran describes an agent who never looked for another supplier while the importer’s prices rose 15 percent year on year; he was 95 percent sure the agent was taking factory commissions.

Who invoices whom also decides who is the legal importer and where each margin sits. That is covered in sourcing agent, trading company or importer.