Reseller, direct seat or managed service: which DV360 model fits you

Three models get sold with almost identical vocabulary — seat, access, managed — and they behave completely differently once you are inside. The differences that matter are not features. They are who holds the account, who operates it, who carries the platform cost, and who keeps the data when the relationship ends.

If you are earlier in the process, how to get DV360 access covers the routes, and how much DV360 costs covers the cost structure underneath all three.

The three models side by side

	Direct seat	Reseller / access provider	Managed service
Account holder	You, under your own contract with Google	The provider, with your advertiser account beneath it	Usually the provider or agency
Who operates	Your team	Your team, the provider, or both	The provider
Entry requirement	Committed volume, trained staff	Commercial agreement, typically no Google minimums	Commercial agreement
Time to access	Weeks to months	Days	Days
Platform cost	Direct on your invoice	Through the provider, often on their credit lines	Bundled into the service
Data and audiences	Yours by default	Depends on the provider — ask explicitly	Depends on the provider — ask explicitly
Best for	Large, stable spend with an in-house team	Teams that want control without the contract	Teams without a DSP operator and no plans to hire one

Direct seat: clean but expensive to qualify for

You sign a platform agreement with Google directly. The account hierarchy is yours, the platform fee appears on your own invoice, and nothing is ambiguous about ownership.

The cost is the entry. Google provisions and supports direct relationships itself, so direct agreements involve committed volume — Google publishes no figure, and the numbers circulating come from buyers rather than from Google. You also need a genuinely trained team: DV360 is not a platform that runs well on good intentions.

Choose it when: spend is large and stable, you already employ DSP operators, and you want no intermediary in the structure at all.

Reseller or access provider: the volume barrier removed

A provider holds the top-level account and creates an advertiser account for you underneath it. Because volume is aggregated across many clients, the committed-spend requirement is met collectively rather than by each advertiser, which is the entire reason this model exists.

This is also the model with the widest quality range, so the questions matter:

• Do I get my own advertiser account, or do my campaigns live inside a shared one? Shared accounts limit what you can segment, report and export.
• Can my team log in and operate, or is every change a request?
• Are my audience lists and conversion history exportable?
• Is the fee a percentage, a fixed monthly floor, or both? A floor behaves like a minimum spend from your side.
• What are the exit terms? Get them in writing before you need them.

A provider that answers all five clearly is a different product from one that does not, even if the marketing page reads the same.

Choose it when: you want control and your own data, but not a Google contract or a committed spend.

Managed service: buying outcomes

The provider plans, activates, optimises and reports. You buy results rather than software, and you learn by proximity rather than by doing.

It is the sensible starting point when volume does not yet justify a dedicated hire, or when a campaign needs to be live before anyone could realistically be trained. The risks are the usual ones for delegated work: less visibility into what is actually being bought, dependence on the provider's priorities, and — again — the data question. Ask where your audiences and conversion history live and what happens to them if you leave.

Choose it when: you need senior operation now and hiring is not on the table.

Five red flags, in any model

• "You don't need to log in." Sometimes true for managed service. Never true as an answer to "can I?"
• Reporting only as a slide. If you cannot see publisher and line-item level data, you cannot audit what you bought.
• Vagueness about the fee structure. A percentage, a floor or both is a simple question with a simple answer.
• No written offboarding process. The moment you need it is the moment nobody wants to discuss it.
• Your audience lists are described as "ours". Whatever the contract says, that answer tells you how it will go.

The question underneath all three

Everything above reduces to one thing: who accumulates the asset?

Campaign history, audience lists, conversion data and the learning that comes with them compound over years. A model where that asset stays yours is worth paying something for. A model where it resets every time you change providers is more expensive than its fee suggests, and the bill arrives later.

The related decision — whether your team operates or someone else does — is covered in self-serve DSP vs managed service.

Where SeatNMD fits

SeatNMD is an access provider with the operating model left open. You get DV360 without a direct Google contract and without the spend minimums Google asks of an agency, provisioned in days rather than months, across YouTube, CTV, DOOH, audio, display and video, with Google audiences and premium inventory. You choose how it runs: Self, where your team operates; Support, the model most clients pick, where you operate with senior backup; or Managed, where we operate end to end — and you can move between them as the team grows, without re-contracting. Billing is monthly and platform costs sit on our credit lines. Audiences, history and measurement stay yours.

FAQ

What is a DV360 reseller?

A company holding a top-level DV360 account that provides advertiser accounts to clients underneath it. Because it aggregates spend across clients, it can offer access without the committed volume a direct Google agreement involves.

Is a direct DV360 seat better than a reseller?

Not automatically. A direct seat gives unambiguous ownership but requires committed spend and an in-house operating team. A good provider gives you your own advertiser account, your own data and no volume commitment. The difference is in the terms, not the label.

What is the difference between managed service and a reseller?

A reseller is about access — who holds the account. Managed service is about operation — who runs the campaigns. They are separate questions, and one provider can offer access with any operating model on top.

Can I switch from managed to self-operated later?

With some providers, yes, without re-contracting. With others, changing how you operate means renegotiating or rebuilding the account. Ask before you sign, because it is the most common reason teams end up stuck.

Who owns the data in a reseller model?

It varies by provider, which is exactly why it needs to be asked explicitly and answered in writing. The things to confirm are the advertiser account, the audience lists and the conversion history, and whether all three are exportable.

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