Alternatives to GRIN and Aspire for smaller brands

The short answer

For most brands under $5M a year, the better fit is a lighter tool you can start month to month: Shopify Collabs if you pay creators by commission, Modash or Heepsy if someone on your team will search for creators and email them, or a marketplace such as Social Cat if you would rather creators came to you.

Before ruling GRIN out, look at its current pricing. It publishes self-serve plans, so it is not only an enterprise option.

What GRIN and Aspire cost now

GRIN has a free plan that charges a 20% management fee on the money you deposit to pay creators, and a Starter plan at $200 a month plus a 10% fee, with a 30-day free trial. Its self-serve plans run month to month; Enterprise is an annual agreement.

Aspire does not publish prices: its plans page asks you to book a demo. Upfluence, another established suite, quotes each brand individually and has a 12-month minimum contract. Suites like these suit brands with a dedicated influencer manager.

Tools you run yourself

Shopify Collabs is free to install on every Shopify plan except Starter and Retail, with a 2.9% processing fee on the commissions it pays out. It adds an application page to your store, lets you search for and invite creators, and handles gifts, discount codes and commission payments.

Modash costs $299 a month, or $199 a month billed yearly, with a 14-day free trial and no card needed. It searches more than 380 million creator profiles, sends email from your own Gmail or Outlook, and includes a Shopify integration for gifting and codes.

Heepsy has a free plan limited to 500 search results and 10 detailed profiles a month, and paid plans from $69 a month billed yearly, or $89 month to month, with no annual lock-in. Creator.co's Self Serve plan is $199 a month on an annual plan, or $299 monthly with a three-month minimum, and has a 14-day free trial.

Marketplaces where creators apply

Social Cat costs $99, $199 or $299 a month for up to 5, 15 or 30 creator collaborations a month on Instagram and TikTok. Creators apply to your campaign, there is a 7-day free trial, and you can cancel any time.

Afluencer, now part of Influencer Hero, lists a $49 a month marketplace plan where creators apply to join your campaign. Marketplaces save outreach time; the trade-off is that you choose from the creators who have joined the marketplace, most of them the ones who apply.

How to choose

Start with who will do the work. A search tool only pays off if someone spends time every week choosing creators, writing to them and chasing posts. If nobody can, a marketplace, a managed service or an agency will serve you better.

Then match the tool to how you pay creators: commission suits Collabs, while gifting and flat fees suit a search tool or a marketplace. Check the contract too: Upfluence asks for 12 months, while Modash, Heepsy, Social Cat and GRIN's self-serve plans are available month to month.