Criteo: What It Actually Does, What It Costs, and Who It Fits
A large-scale commerce media and dynamic retargeting platform built on one of the biggest proprietary ad networks on the open web, aimed at larger commerce brands and agencies that want deep, product-level retargeting sold through a managed relationship.
Criteo is the right pick for a larger commerce brand or agency that wants dynamic, product-level retargeting run at scale across a large proprietary ad network, typically supported by a managed onboarding and account team. It's not the most accessible entry point for a small store wanting to self-serve its way into retargeting this week - AdRoll generally fits that better - but for a brand with real ecommerce volume and a budget to match, Criteo's network reach and dynamic creative depth are hard to match.
What Criteo Is For
Criteo is a commerce media and dynamic retargeting platform built around one of the largest proprietary ad networks on the open web. Its flagship product, dynamic retargeting, serves ads showing the exact products a shopper viewed on a retailer's site but didn't buy, distributed across thousands of publisher sites, and the platform has since expanded into cold-audience prospecting, retail media, and cross-channel supply spanning open web, social, video, and in-app inventory.
It's built for larger ecommerce brands, retailers, and the agencies buying media on their behalf, businesses with enough product catalog complexity and traffic volume to benefit from Criteo's Commerce AI predictive bidding and dynamic creative at real scale. Onboarding typically runs through Criteo's own team, installing the Criteo OneTag and launching campaigns over several weeks, which makes it a heavier lift and a less accessible starting point than a small-to-mid-size brand wanting to self-serve its way into retargeting, which is where a platform like AdRoll tends to fit better.
Key Features
- Dynamic retargeting showing the exact products a shopper viewed, served across a large proprietary publisher network
- Commerce AI predictive bidding and dynamic creative generation built on billions of shopping events
- Prospecting tools for reaching new, cold audiences beyond people who already visited the site
- Retail media and Commerce Media products connecting advertisers to retailer-owned audiences and inventory
- Cross-channel distribution across open web, social, video, and in-app placements from one platform
- Managed onboarding, including Criteo OneTag installation and dedicated account support for larger advertisers
Pros & Cons
Pros
- ✔ One of the largest commerce-specific ad networks on the open web, with reach well beyond a typical retargeting platform
- ✔ Dynamic, product-level creative and predictive bidding built on a very large proprietary shopping dataset
- ✔ Expanded beyond retargeting into prospecting and retail media, useful for a brand wanting one commerce-media partner
Cons
- ✕ No published self-serve pricing tier - budgeting requires a sales conversation rather than a plan you can pick off a page
- ✕ Effectively built for higher-spend advertisers - a small store with a modest budget is not the intended customer
- ✕ Managed onboarding over several weeks is slower to launch than a genuinely self-serve platform aimed at smaller teams
Pricing
| Model | Price (approximate) | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Media (CPC or CPM) | Set by the advertiser's own budget, no public minimum | Dynamic retargeting and prospecting ads billed against the click or impression volume delivered |
| Platform fee | A percentage of media spend, not publicly disclosed | Commerce AI bidding, dynamic creative, and access to Criteo's publisher network |
| Implementation | Roughly $1,000 to $5,000 for a small-to-mid advertiser, higher for complex enterprise setups | OneTag installation, catalog feed setup, and managed onboarding |
Criteo does not sell a flat software subscription - advertisers set their own media budget and pay Criteo a percentage-based platform fee on top of it, so the total cost scales directly with spend rather than a fixed monthly plan.
Pricing checked as of late 2026 and hedged as approximate - Criteo's platform fee percentage and implementation costs are negotiated per account and not fully published, so confirm current figures directly with a Criteo representative before budgeting.
Common questions
No - Criteo does not publish a flat subscription price. Advertisers pay on a cost-per-click or cost-per-impression basis against a budget they set, plus a platform fee calculated as a percentage of that media spend, so actual cost depends on the account and is typically discussed directly with Criteo.
Neither is objectively better - they're built for different sizes of business. Criteo runs a much larger proprietary commerce-media network with deeper dynamic product retargeting, typically sold through a managed relationship for larger brands, while AdRoll is faster to set up and more accessible for a small-to-mid-size ecommerce brand running its own retargeting. See our full AdRoll vs Criteo comparison for the detailed breakdown.
Technically yes, but Criteo is effectively built for higher-spend advertisers, and a small store with a modest monthly budget is not the intended customer. A self-serve platform like AdRoll is generally a more accessible starting point for a smaller brand.
Larger ecommerce brands, retailers, and the agencies buying media on their behalf, businesses with enough catalog complexity and traffic volume to benefit from dynamic, product-level retargeting at scale across a large proprietary ad network.
Not sure if Criteo is the right fit for your retargeting budget?
We'll look at your catalog size, traffic volume, and media budget before recommending a retargeting platform, sometimes a large-scale network is exactly right, sometimes it's overkill.
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