> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Spend vs Budget, Amazon Ads > Spend vs Budget for Amazon Ads stores. Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it. **Metrics type:** [Key Metrics](/nerve-centre/overview#metrics-types-explained) • **Category:** [Ad Platform](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type) ## At a glance > Pacing check, **`actual_spend ÷ budget`** for the current month, with an alert when >90% of the budget is consumed before 80% of the period has elapsed (front-loaded burn). Amazon Advertising budgets sit at three levels: account-level (rare), campaign-level (most common), and portfolio-level (the optional grouping). This card aggregates campaign-level budgets to a synthetic account total and tracks burn rate against month-elapsed. | | | | -------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **The formula** | `total_spend_in_period ÷ total_budget_for_period`. Period is the current calendar month (Amazon's standard budget cycle). Budget is the sum of campaign-level daily budgets × days-in-month, plus any portfolio caps where set. | | **Reports API endpoint** | Spend from `POST /reporting/reports`. Budget from `GET /sp/campaigns` (and equivalents for SB / SD), the `dailyBudget` field on each active campaign. The card multiplies daily budget × days-in-month to estimate the period budget. | | **What "budget" means** | The sum of active campaigns' daily budgets multiplied by days-in-month. It does NOT mean "what the merchant intends to spend"; it's the **theoretical maximum** if every campaign hit its cap every day. Most accounts spend 60-85% of theoretical max. | | **ACOS vs ROAS framing** | This card is purely a pacing check; ACOS / ROAS are not part of the calculation. Pair with [ROAS](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/roas) to interpret: 90%-burn at 50%-elapsed AND ROAS-stable = scaling intentionally. 90%-burn AND ROAS-falling = front-loaded waste. | | **Attribution model** | N/A. Pacing is about cost timing, not conversion attribution. | | **Brand vs non-brand keyword scope** | Tracked together. Branded campaigns are usually the smallest budget allocation but the most consistent burn rate. | | **Sponsored Products vs Brands vs Display vs DSP** | All Sponsored types are aggregated. **DSP excluded**, DSP uses fixed committed-spend agreements rather than daily budgets, so pacing works differently. | | **Currency** | Account currency only. | | **Amazon-only attribution gap** | Not relevant for spend pacing. | | **Time window** | `T/30D`. Today's pace + 30-day rolling. | | **Alert trigger** | `>90% used before 80% of period`. Calendar-month based; the alert recalibrates on the 1st of each month. | | **Roles** | owner, marketing, finance | ## Calculation Calculated automatically from your Amazon Ads data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading. ## Worked example A US home-goods seller, mid-month read on 12 Apr 26 (day 12 of a 30-day month, 40% of period elapsed). | Campaign group | Daily budget | Theoretical 30D budget | Spend MTD (12 days) | % consumed | Pacing | | ----------------------- | --------------- | ---------------------- | ------------------- | ---------- | ----------------------------------------- | | **SP, Branded Search** | \$120/day | \$3,600 | \$1,160 | 32.2% | On pace (40% elapsed = 40% expected) | | **SP, Non-branded** | \$620/day | \$18,600 | \$9,300 | 50.0% | **Hot** (50% consumed at 40% elapsed) | | **SP, Auto Targeting** | \$140/day | \$4,200 | \$1,510 | 35.9% | On pace | | **SB, Brand Awareness** | \$200/day | \$6,000 | \$2,180 | 36.3% | On pace | | **SD, Remarketing** | \$70/day | \$2,100 | \$720 | 34.3% | On pace | | **Total (this card)** | **\$1,150/day** | **\$34,500** | **\$14,870** | **43.1%** | **On pace** (43% consumed at 40% elapsed) | What's interesting: 1. **Account-level pacing is healthy at 43% consumed vs 40% elapsed**, slightly hot but well within the alert threshold. The non-branded SP campaign is the hot one (50% consumed at 40% elapsed) and would, on its own, exhaust budget around day 24 if the burn rate continued. Worth watching. 2. **The 90%/80% alert hasn't fired** because total consumption (43%) is below the 90% trigger. The alert would fire if total spend hit \~\$31,000 before day 24, suggesting front-loaded waste rather than steady scale. 3. **Pair with [ROAS](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/roas)**: if ROAS is holding while non-branded burns hot, the team is intentionally scaling into a high-converting period. If ROAS is dropping, the burn is unintentional and likely auto-campaign drift. 4. **Theoretical max vs intended spend**: the $34,500 "budget" is the theoretical max if every daily cap hit every day. Realistic burn for most accounts is 70-85% of theoretical, so the team's *intended* spend is probably ~$28,000. At current pacing ($14,870 ÷ 0.40 ≈ $37,000 projected for the month), they will exceed intended spend by 30%. 5. **Front-loaded burn is the danger pattern**. >90% consumed at \<80% elapsed = the team will run out of budget mid-month and lose impressions. **The fix is usually to lower daily caps, not raise total budget**, the burn rate is the symptom of auto-campaign drift. Quick sanity tests: * 40% elapsed + 35-50% consumed = on pace. Healthy. * 40% elapsed + 50-70% consumed = hot. Watch [Total Spend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/total-spend) and [CPC Trend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/cpc-trend). * 40% elapsed + >70% consumed = alert. Likely cause: a daily-budget cap got raised, or auto-campaign is matching new traffic. * 80% elapsed + \<60% consumed = cold. Either the team set caps too high or there isn't enough demand for the bid. * Pace flat + ROAS falling = scaling beyond efficient frontier despite normal pacing. ## Sibling cards merchants should reference together | Card | Why pair it with Spend vs Budget | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [Amazon Ads Total Spend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/total-spend) | The numerator. The absolute spend figure for context. | | [Amazon Ads ROAS](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/roas) | Pacing alone isn't actionable, ROAS qualifies whether the burn is healthy. | | [Amazon Ads Spend by Campaign](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/spend-by-campaign) | Drill-down: which campaigns are causing the front-loaded burn? | | [Amazon Ads Overspending Campaigns](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/overspending-campaigns) | Companion view: campaigns hitting daily caps repeatedly. | | [Amazon Ads Underspending Campaigns](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/underspending-campaigns) | The opposite, campaigns not hitting their daily cap (cold). | | [Amazon Ads Spend Anomaly](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/spend-anomaly) | The 2σ anomaly detector. Spike-detection complement to pacing. | | [Amazon Ads Budget Utilisation](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/budget-utilisation) | The deeper pacing-by-campaign view. | | [Google Ads Budget Pacing](/nerve-centre/google_ads/gads_budget_pacing) | Cross-platform parallel. | ## Reconciling against the vendor's own dashboard **Where to look in Amazon Ads Console:** [Amazon Ads Console > Campaign Manager](https://advertising.amazon.com/cm), the Daily Budget column shows each campaign's cap; the Spend column shows MTD usage. Sum manually for the account total. [Amazon Ads Console > Portfolios](https://advertising.amazon.com/cm/portfolios), if portfolios are configured, the portfolio-level monthly cap is the more authoritative budget figure. This card uses portfolio caps where set, falling back to daily-cap × days-in-month otherwise. [Amazon Ads Console > Recommendations](https://advertising.amazon.com/recommendations). Amazon often suggests "out-of-budget" warnings on campaigns hitting their daily cap consistently. **Why our number may legitimately differ from a manual sum in Amazon Ads Console:** | Reason | Direction of divergence | Why it happens | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Timezone**. Both use **PT (Pacific)**. Daily budget resets at midnight PT. | None. | Amazon's reporting backend is in Seattle. | | **Report-generation latency** (1-3 hours). | Today's pacing is provisional for \~24h. | Amazon batches report builds. | | **Theoretical-max vs portfolio-cap**. If the account uses portfolio-level caps, this card uses the portfolio cap; if not, it uses daily-cap × days-in-month. | Theoretical-max overstates "budget" when caps are aspirational. | Most accounts set daily caps higher than they intend to spend. | | **API rate limits**. Large accounts may have stale partial campaign-list refreshes. | Stale by up to 1 refresh cycle (\~4h). | The pull is paginated. | | **Mid-month budget changes**. If the merchant raises a cap mid-month, the "% consumed" recalculates to the new total, which can mask the front-loaded burn. | Looks better than reality. | This is the single most common reason a manual sum disagrees with the card. | **Cross-connector reconciliation:** | Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------- | | [`amazon_sp.amzn_sp_total_sales`](/nerve-centre/amazon_sp/amzn_sp_total_sales) | No direct relationship; pacing isn't a sales metric. | N/A. | | [`google_ads.gads_budget_pacing`](/nerve-centre/google_ads/gads_budget_pacing) | Cross-platform pacing comparison. Useful for cross-platform budget planning. | Independent platforms. | | [`shopify.total_revenue`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/total-revenue) | No relationship. | N/A. |
Edge cases and rare reconciliation issues * **DSP**: not in this card (DSP uses committed-spend agreements, not daily budgets). DSP pacing requires a separate calculation against the contract. * **Portfolio caps**: Amazon allows monthly portfolio-level budget caps. Where set, those override the campaign-daily aggregation in this card. * **Mid-month launches**: a campaign launched on day 15 contributes 15 days of theoretical budget, not 30. The card pro-rates correctly. * **Paused campaigns**: paused campaigns are excluded from the budget sum (they have no spend potential). * **Out-of-budget warnings**: if a campaign hits its daily cap before end-of-day PT, Amazon stops serving impressions until the next day. This card flags repeat offenders via [Overspending Campaigns](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/overspending-campaigns).
## Known limitations / merchant FAQs **What does "budget" mean in this card?** Theoretical-max budget = sum of campaign daily caps × days-in-month, or portfolio-level monthly caps where configured. **It is NOT the same as "what the merchant intends to spend"**, daily caps are usually set above intended spend to avoid impression loss on high-demand days. Most accounts spend 70-85% of theoretical max. **My pacing alert fires every month, but I always end the month at 85% of budget. Should I worry?** The alert is structured around front-loading: 90% consumed before 80% elapsed. If you're consistently hitting 90% by day 24 (80% of 30) but ending the month at 85%, that means days 25-30 are slow. Two diagnoses: (a) **Lightning Deal or Prime Day in the first half** of the month creates artificial early burn; this is normal and not actionable. (b) **A specific high-spending campaign exhausts mid-month**; check [Overspending Campaigns](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/overspending-campaigns) to confirm. **Why doesn't DSP show in pacing?** DSP uses fixed committed-spend agreements with Amazon (\$35K+ minimums for managed-service), not daily budget caps. Pacing for DSP is governed by the contract and the campaign flight dates, not by daily budget consumption. This card excludes DSP; manage DSP pacing separately. **The 90%/80% alert seems too sensitive, every month I get flagged.** Tune the alert in your Vortex IQ settings. The default 90/80 is a strict pacing rule for accounts that need tight cost discipline; for scaling accounts, 95/85 or 100/90 may be more appropriate. The alert structure is `consumption% > X AND elapsed% < Y`. **My team raises daily caps mid-month and the card looks healthy again. Is this gaming?** A bit. Raising the cap *increases the denominator* of "% consumed", which makes the pace look slower. It does not actually slow the burn. **Pair with [Total Spend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/total-spend)**: if the absolute spend has continued to rise, you're scaling, not pacing. If absolute spend has plateaued because you hit the new cap too, you've solved nothing. **Why does my pacing differ from what Amazon Ads Console shows?** The Console shows per-campaign daily-cap consumption (not month-level pacing). To see month-level pacing in the Console, you'd manually compute `MTD-spend ÷ (daily-cap × days-elapsed)`. This card does that aggregation for you across the account. **Multi-marketplace, can I see global pacing?** Not in a single card. Each Amazon Advertising account is single-currency single-marketplace; pacing is per-account. **What's the right action when pacing alerts?** Three options in order of preference: (1) **Lower daily caps** on the offending campaigns (find them via [Overspending Campaigns](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/amazon-ads/overspending-campaigns)). This is usually the right answer. (2) **Pause the offending campaigns** and redeploy budget to higher-ROAS lines. (3) **Raise the total budget** if the burn is on profitable inventory and you can fund it. Most accounts default to (3) and shouldn't. **My calendar month is a strange one (28 / 31 days), how does the alert handle that?** The "elapsed%" is calendar-aware: day 14 of February is 50% elapsed; day 14 of March is \~45% elapsed. The card adjusts automatically. *** ### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre *Spend vs Budget* is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Amazon Ads and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. [Start for free](https://app.vortexiq.ai/login) or [book a demo](https://www.vortexiq.ai/contact-us) to see this metric running on your own data.