The following paper deals with the question of what effects a marginal provider approach would have on the derivation of support levels for agri-environmental measures. The background to the considerations is that the EU's Strategic Plan Regulation explicitly stipulates that the intended ambition level should be taken into account when determining the payment levels. Furthermore, in the case of a politically intended high penetration of certain measures, average cost considerations are not adequate to achieve the objectives. Against this background, the economic considerations behind the marginal bidder approach are briefly explained. In a second step, it is explained to what extent corresponding considerations are explicitly included in the current derivation of payment levels for agri-environmental and climate measures in the federal states. This is followed by an outline of various approaches as to how a marginal bidder approach can be integrated into the derivation of payment levels and what prerequisites would be necessary in terms of technology and data in each case. Of the four options presented, only one approach, namely the one based on an ad-hoc definition of the marginal bidder, can be implemented in the short term for the majority of measures. The paper concludes by outlining a work programme that would lay the foundations so that a marginal bidder approach could be more widely applied when deriving payments levels in the next CAP funding period (from 2027)