What a China sourcing agent’s 2–8% actually pays for
A 2–8% sourcing fee on a USD 30,000 order is USD 1,500, which works out at USD 45–60 an hour for the 25 to 35 hours a normal sourcing job takes. That is what the percentage buys. A fee charged on the saving buys something else: a benchmark that nobody can audit, chosen by the party who benefits from it.
Two business models share the name “sourcing agent”, and they are priced in ways that cannot be compared. One charges a share of the order value. The other charges a share of the saving it produces. The second sounds more generous. It is also the one that is easiest to make look good on paper.
The problem with charging on the saving
A fee on the saving requires a benchmark, and the benchmark is chosen by whoever benefits from it. Compare a Chinese purchase against a retail price at home and almost any order shows a 60–70% saving, most of which belongs to the difference between retail and wholesale rather than to anything the agent did. Compare the same purchase against the export quote the buyer would realistically have received and the saving is a few per cent, which is too little to bill a living on.
So the agent picks the benchmark that flatters the invoice. You cannot audit that choice, because you never had the other quote. In practice the buyer pays more, and the number on the invoice claims to be a share of a saving nobody can verify.
There is a worse effect. An agent paid on the saving has no reason to tell you when a factory is already at its floor price. That is the single most valuable sentence a buyer can hear, and it costs the agent his fee.
What the 2–8% is actually spent on
A 2–8% fee on a USD 30,000 order is USD 1,500. Here is roughly where that goes on a normal sourcing job, and it is worth seeing the hours because they explain why the number cannot go much lower without something being skipped.
| Stage | What happens | Working time |
|---|---|---|
| Screening | Specification read, cluster identified, 8–15 candidate plants filtered to 3–5 | 4–6 h |
| Quotation | Same brief sent to each plant, answers normalised into a comparable table | 3–5 h |
| Audit | Travel, site visit, licence and certificate checks, written report | 6–10 h |
| Negotiation | Two or three rounds, cost breakdown argued line by line, sample handled | 5–8 h |
| Order follow-up | Production schedule, spec drift caught early, documents issued | 4–8 h |
Call it 25 to 35 hours of work by someone who speaks the language, knows the cluster and has been on the floor of the plant. At USD 1,500 that is USD 45–60 an hour of billable work, before office cost in Ningbo. It is a real service at a real price, which is why the percentage is on the order rather than on a saving.
Where the 2–8% stops
Worth being precise, because “2–8%” is often quoted as if it covered everything.
- It covers finding the plant, verifying it, negotiating, and following the order through production.
- It does not cover inspection, certification testing, or freight. Those are pass-through costs with their own invoices, and we would rather show them separately than bury them.
- It does not cover the audit, which is $299 per factory and charged whether or not you proceed, because somebody paid for the train.
A full-service arrangement, where we also run inspection, certification and shipping, is 8–10% of order value. The difference is not a bigger margin on the same work. It is the cost of a person standing in a factory at 7am checking the first-off pieces.
The comparison buyers actually need
The question is not “which agent is cheaper”. It is “what would this order cost me without an agent”. Three routes exist, and they are priced differently in ways that matter more than the headline fee.
| Route | What you pay | Where the risk sits |
|---|---|---|
| Buy direct from a trading company | No fee, but the export price carries the trader’s margin, usually 8–20% over factory | You cannot see the margin, so you cannot tell whether the price is good |
| Hire an agent on order value | 2–8%, fixed in writing | You see the factory price, so the fee is the only number to judge |
| Do it yourself | Flights, hotels, a week in Guangdong, and the cost of the first order that goes wrong | Fully yours, including the parts you did not know to check |
For a first order in an unfamiliar category, the third route is usually the most expensive, and not because of the airfare. It is because the specification gets written by the factory, the sample gets approved by someone who has not seen the alternatives, and the first inspection happens at destination, when the goods are already paid for.
Our fee structure, with the four steps and what each one costs, is set out on the services page. If you want to know whether an order is worth doing at all, send it to us first: screening is free, and telling you to buy direct is a normal answer.
Common questions
How much does Hengshuo charge for sourcing?
2–8% of the order value, scaled by order size and complexity: 2–3% on large repeat orders, up to 8% on small or complex first orders. The rate is fixed in writing before any work starts. Factory audits are separate at US$299 per factory.
Why not charge a percentage of the saving instead?
Because the saving depends on the benchmark, and the benchmark is chosen by whoever benefits from it. Measured against a retail price at home, almost any order shows 60–70% off, most of which is the retail-to-wholesale gap rather than the agent’s work. Measured against the export quote the buyer would actually have received, the saving is a few per cent.
What is not included in the 2–8%?
Inspection, certification testing and freight are pass-through costs with their own invoices. The factory audit is charged separately at US$299 per factory, because somebody paid for the train whether or not you proceed. A full-service arrangement including inspection, certification and shipping is 8–10%.