The Brand Management Contract: What to Get in Writing

Most brand owners read the price and the term, then skim the rest. The rest is where the expensive surprises live: an ad account set up under the agency's business, photos you paid for that the agency still owns, a 90-day notice period you did not notice, or a non-solicit that stops you hiring the freelancer you liked.

A good Amazon brand management agreement is short and boring. It says what the brand manager does, how many hours, what it costs, what it does not include, who owns what, and how you leave. If you are still choosing a provider, our guide on how to hire an Amazon brand manager has the questions to ask before you get to a contract, and testing an agency on one ASIN shows how to start small.

The 14 clauses below are the ones we think matter most for a brand on Amazon, Shopify or TikTok Shop. For each one you get what it should say, why it matters, and a warning sign. Use it as a checklist when you read any proposal.

This is the clause brand owners most often assume and least often check. Under federal copyright law, the person who creates a work is normally its author. A work only belongs to the hiring party automatically as a work made for hire in two cases: an employee creates it in the scope of the job, or it is specially commissioned and falls into one of nine listed categories, with a written agreement signed by both sides that expressly calls it a work made for hire. U.S. Copyright Office Circular 30 (revised August 2024) lists those four conditions for commissioned work and the nine categories, which include contributions to a collective work, parts of an audiovisual work and compilations.

Product photos and listing images from an outside agency may not fit neatly into those categories, so many agreements also include an assignment: a written transfer of copyright to you. Federal law says a transfer of copyright ownership is valid only in writing, signed by the owner of the rights or their agent (17 U.S.C. 204). The practical point for a brand owner: if you want to own the creative, the contract should say so in writing, and it should say when ownership passes. Your attorney can tell you which wording fits.

For context on what agencies charge and the pricing models these clauses describe, see Amazon agency pricing in 2026 and our ecommerce agency hiring glossary, which defines terms like scope of work, change order, notice period and hour block.