While most people know that influencer collaborations are a great way of increasing sales and brand awareness, few would argue that spending hours searching hashtags and looking through every individual profile is a good use of their time.

Data suggests that brands on average can earn 5x the value of their influencer marketing investment (and as much as 20x for the most successful campaigns). For this reason and more, there are plenty of online services that can help you get into influencer marketing, such as CreatorIQ. 

In this CreatorIQ review, we’ll walk you through their key features, pricing and the pros and cons of the service. We’ll also introduce you to an alternative, Collabstr, if you think that CreatorIQ isn’t the best fit for your business. So let’s get into it!.

CreatorIQ vs Collabstr: Feature comparison

• Finding influencers. CreatorIQ gives you access to search through their extensive database of influencers, factoring in metrics such as audience size, demographics and location. It also shows you a wealth of public data about the accounts, helping you quickly find the right influencers to work with.

Similarly, Collabstr allows you to search through their library of more than 200,000 creators, filtering for location, audience size, platform and more. From there you can access their essential information, such as social media handles, portfolio and pricing, to aid you in your decision making.

• Pricing. CreatorIQ doesn’t publicly show their prices. Collabstr, on the other hand, provides a simple pricing scheme and an affordable percentage fee structure.

• Influencer relationship and campaign management. CreatorIQ has a built-in feature for team collaboration, allowing influencers and employees working on a campaign to communicate all in one place. It also provides you with a creator portfolio where you can manage influencers that work with you. 

Collabstr also provides you with tools for campaign management, such as their free campaign brief template which you can use to create professional, informative instructions for your creators. It also connects you with creators via instant chat when you purchase their services, giving you a place for all campaign-related communications.

• Measuring performance. Creator IQ’s software allows you to check an influencer’s metrics, such as their engagement, social media reach and an integrity quotient ranking based on the influencer’s authenticity.

Collabstr’s tools are simple in comparison, but you can gather data using their free Instagram engagement rate calculator to complement the essential information from the creator's bio and portfolio. Additionally, there’s an Instagram price calculator you can use to find out how much you can expect to pay for content.

What is CreatorIQ?

Founded in 2014 by Igor Vaks, CreatorIQ is an influencer marketing platform that provides businesses with a white-label platform where they can run their Influencer campaigns. 

It offers everything you need when running an influencer campaign. Brands can search for influencers, analyze their performance metrics and hire them for campaigns. On top of that, it gives companies a platform to handle all of their campaign management as well as access and interact with relevant reports and analytics.

CreatorIQ provides their premium service to a number of well-known, international businesses, such as CVS, H&M and Sephora.

CreatorIQ’s Key Features

• Influencer search. CreatorIQ connects natively to all of the main social medias’ API, such as Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok and Pinterest. Because of this feature, businesses can search through billions of accounts from different platforms all in one place. 

Plus, their machine-learning algorithm helps CreatorIQ find creators who match a brand’s desired criteria, such as demographic, audience size and performance metrics. This allows you to hand-pick from a curated list who’ll fit your niche. All of this can save businesses time when searching for influencers, although a tool with this level of detail has a relatively steep learning curve.

• Content capture. CreatorIQ’s software finds real time mentions of a client’s brand across social media, including those from influencers that aren't working with them yet. This ensures they never miss their brand being talked about and can automatically find more creators to collaborate with. Not to mention it gives the company a better idea of how their brand is perceived online.

• Creator CRM. Their services such as built-in team collaboration and bringing all of a company's influencer’s data into a single dashboard, can help you organize important information effectively. Here businesses can monitor their creator’s performance metrics as well as work on building lasting relationships with influencers, which benefit the company in the long run.

• Integrity quotient. CreatorIQ uses their AI to verify influencers’ authenticity. It gives creators a score that is affected by  the amount of fake and bot accounts that follow them. This tool automatically analyzes all the accounts in its database and those with a low integrity quotient don’t end up making it into their AI-made recommendations. This ensures that when you pay for an influencer, you gain access to an audience of actual people, rather than bots who’ll never buy your products.

• Reporting and insights. One of the best features of CreatorIQ’s software is their detailed analytics that clients can interact with fully. Businesses can choose which data is shown in their reports and also which statistics to compare. With the use of CreatorIQ’s traceable links you can measure real ROI. 

The platform also makes it easy to share reports with other individuals who aren’t using CreatorIQ, but might need to see the statistics. While overwhelming to learn, it’s certainly one of the most comprehensive data collection and analytics tools for influencer campaigns.

CreatorIQ Pricing

CreatorIQ, similar to other premium white-label software, doesn’t make their pricing public. In order to receive a quote you need to contact them with your company details or book a demo of their product. 

While this can be useful for companies that want to pay for exactly what they get, it might be off-putting for companies working on a shoe-string budget. And with no price estimations, it’s difficult to tell exactly how much you’ll be paying. 

CreatorIQ Review: Pros & Cons

Pros

• All-in-one influencer marketing tool

• In-depth reporting

• Creator performance analysis and integrity quotient

• Great for scaling large businesses

Cons

• Premium pricing

• Steep learning curve for features such as the discovery tool

• No free trial (but you can book a product demo)

CreatorIQ’s alternative: Collabstr

If you’re looking for a more accessible alternative to CreatorIQ, or simply need to purchase influencer content on an irregular, flexible basis, we recommend you check out Collabstr. As an influencer marketplace, Collabstr lets you hire creators from YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. Collabstr can help get you the audience reach you need, without the premium price tag. 

If you’d like to access influencer marketing in easy steps, without initial commitment, Collabstr is an option you should definitely consider. Trusted by over 130,000 brands, including Wealthsimple, Hopper, and Deezer, it can be a great CreatorIQ alternative for small to medium businesses.

Collabstr’s Key Features

• Influencer library. You can find an influencer easily with Collabstr. You can browse the extensive library of influencers for free, look through their bios and portfolio, check out their social media and check their prices. There’s no initial financial commitment to this process and you’ll pay a 10% transaction fee only when you place an order with a creator. This helps to keep costs low and it ensures you’re paying only for what you need. There’s even the handy influencer price calculator, to help you manage your budget.

• Connect with creators all around the world. You can currently collaborate with influencers from 40 different countries through Collabstr, helping you grow an international audience where needed.

• Increase your reach. With Collabstr you can purchase content on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, presenting your product or service to a wide audience. Data suggests that Instagram advertisements alone reach almost 30% of internet users.

• Vetted influencers. Every influencer’s social media is thoroughly checked to ensure you always receive high-quality, professional content. It should give you the peace of mind that you're investing in creators who can benefit your business. If they’re no good, they aren’t even allowed to advertize on the platform.

• Instant chat. Upon placing an order you’ll immediately gain access to an online chat with the influencer directly. Influencers can provide demos on how they’ll advertize your product, allowing you to change certain aspects as you see fit. This ensures that you only get the content that you want.

• Purchase one-off content or run campaigns. If you want to launch a campaign involving multiple influencers, you can do so through your Collabstr Pro account. Simply fill out the campaign brief and either select creators personally (filtering for niche, location, following and more) or wait for influencers to apply for the campaign itself. You can chat with them before accepting, to ensure you get exactly the content you’re looking for. Alternatively, you can contact the Collabstr team if you require assistance with running the campaign, giving you as much or as little involvement as you require.

• Secure purchases. Once you make your payment, the money will be held safely by Collabstr until the influencer completes the order. Only once you’re happy with and approve the delivery, will the funds be released to the creator, protecting your transaction.

• A selection of useful tools. Access an engagement rate calculator or a campaign brief template. Having an idea of  the creator’s actual relationship with their followers will help you when calculating your ROI, and the campaign brief template presents your instructions in a professional manner and saves you time.

Collabstr pricing 

Collabstr doesn’t have a rigid payment structure. Instead, you can search their library of influencers for free and pay a 10% transaction fee if you decide to work with them.

There are payment plans available for those who’d rather post their campaign plans instead of manually searching. This allows influencers to come to you, instead of the other way round. Prices start from $299, which will allow you to post multiple campaigns, with upgrades available depending on the amount of influencers who apply to your campaigns per month. 

Picking the right solution for your business 

Overall, CreatorIQ provides a great amount of useful tools that you can use to grow and manage your social media presence, making it a good choice for large companies looking to scale their business.

Alternatively, if you’re looking for a more accessible way of purchasing content and running influencer campaigns, you can sign up to Collabstr for free. If you want to make influencer marketing even easier, consider signing up to the pro plan. This makes finding influencers simple, and requires no time or effort on your part. Just post your campaign and influencers will sign up. Have a look at our monthly plans and put your influencer campaign on autopilot.