Pay creators fair market. Not their wishful number.
Half of creator rate cards are guesses. The other half are anchored at agency-quoted ceilings. You need a defendable number you can bring to procurement, negotiate from, and not regret six months later.
Free. No signup. Use it on every creator in your shortlist.
Creator pricing has no exchange. Just rate cards, gut feel, and Slack-thread anecdotes.
Programmatic ad buys have CPMs you can benchmark against the market in real time. Sponsorships don't. A creator sends you a media kit with a number, and you either know enough to push back, or you don't.
Pay too much and you erode your CAC math. Pay too little and the creator phones it in. Or worse, your team gets a reputation as the brand that lowballs and word travels. Either way, you're losing.
The fix isn't more spreadsheets. It's an instant cross-check before you reply to the email.
What you get in 30 seconds
Paste a creator's channel and get back the data a sponsorship manager would build manually in 20 minutes.
Three-tier market rate
Conservative, market, premium ranges based on niche CPM, tier, and engagement. Anchor your counter offer at conservative, fall back to market.
Defendable to procurement
Every number is backed by a formula and cited industry source. Forward the link to your finance team so they can audit how you got there.
Engagement vs tier baseline
Catches the channels with inflated subscribers and dead audiences. If engagement is below the tier baseline, you're probably paying for views that don't convert.
Modifier toggles
Toggle exclusivity, usage rights, rush, multi-video discount. See exactly how each term moves the number. Useful for both negotiation and internal docs.
Price by placement, not just by creator.
A pre-roll, a mid-roll integration, and a dedicated video are three different ad units. Each one has its own CPM band. Buying the wrong format for your goal is the most common overspend in influencer marketing.
🎙️ Mid-roll integration
The workhorse format. Lower skip rate than pre-roll because viewers are committed. Best for products that need 30 seconds of context to make sense (SaaS, DTC subscriptions, financial services).
Subscription products, conversion-driven campaigns, anything that needs a tracked promo code.
Demand integration in the first half of the video. End-of-video reads lose 30% of attention.
Base CPM x 1.0 (this is the default rate the calculator returns)
Base CPM is the niche rate Channeltics returns for a standard 60 to 90 second mid-roll integration. Multiply or discount from there.
Two creators, same niche. Which one would you greenlight?
Both are in tech reviews. Both could be on your shortlist. A 30-second check tells you the right call.
200k subs · 80k avg views · 4.1% engagement · Tech reviews
- 01CPM band: $25 to $40 (premium category)
- 02Market rate per integration: $2,400 to $3,200
- 03Engagement is 1.6x above tier baseline
- 04Quote you got: $2,800. Reasonable.
850k subs · 35k avg views · 0.4% engagement · Tech reviews
- 01CPM band: $25 to $40 (premium category)
- 02Market rate per integration: $1,050 to $1,400
- 03Engagement is 0.3x of tier baseline (audience stale)
- 04Quote you got: $9,500. Triple-flagged.
Creator A has the smaller channel but earns more per dollar spent. That's the difference vetting makes.
When to run a creator
- 01
A creator just quoted you $20,000
Is it fair, or are they hoping you'll just pay? Drop the channel into Channeltics. If the market rate for their tier and niche is $8,500, you have a defendable counter offer with a paper trail.
- 02
Shortlisting 30 creators for a campaign
You don't have time to manually vet each one. Quickly compare their CPM bands and engagement-tier health side by side. The outliers, both overpriced and underpriced, surface fast.
- 03
Internal budget approval
Your finance lead asks "how did you land on $15k?" Show them the formula, the CPM band, the engagement tier. Not a vibe. Procurement teams approve numbers backed by methodology.
- 04
Spotting inflated rate cards
When a creator's quote is 3x the market rate for their tier and niche, that's not a negotiation. It's a starting position. Now you know which conversations are worth having.
Signals to watch in the report
The metrics matter as much as the price. Here's what to look at before you wire money.
🚩 Walk-away signals
- Engagement below tier baseline
A 500k-sub channel with 0.4% engagement is a red flag. The audience is stale, viral-past, or partially inactive. Adjust your offer down or walk.
- Audience country mismatch
Creator quotes US rates but their audience is 70% Tier 3. If your campaign needs US-market conversions, you're paying for views that won't convert.
- Average views nowhere near subscriber count
A million subs but 30k average views means real reach is 30k, not 1M. Price the deal off views, not subs. Always.
- Upload cadence dropping off
If they've been posting once every two months and you need timely delivery, factor in a rush premium. Or expect delays.
- Sub spike with no engagement bump
Bought subs are a thing. If subscriber count jumped 200% in a quarter but likes and comments stayed flat, the audience is hollow.
- Comment section deserted
Top-of-funnel awareness still works on quiet channels, but conversion campaigns need conversation. Empty comments mean cold trust.
✅ Pay-up signals
- Engagement above tier baseline
A 200k-sub channel hitting 4% plus engagement is over performing. Their audience trusts them. Pay closer to the premium end. They earn it.
- Consistent upload cadence
Weekly or bi-weekly uploads for 12+ months means reliable delivery. Your campaign won't be stuck waiting on a video that never ships.
- Niche match
A tech reviewer pitching your SaaS product is a 1.5x CPM channel doing what they always do. Their audience is already in your funnel.
- Cross-platform reach
If they also have TikTok, IG, or a newsletter, you're getting more than just one platform. Negotiate a package that captures it.
- Returning audience signals
Watch-time per video staying high across the last 30 uploads means the audience comes back. That's repeat exposure for your brand.
- Past sponsorship case studies
If the creator has documented a previous campaign with results, you have evidence-based pricing leverage on both sides of the table.
Procurement-ready checklist
Four things on the brief before it goes into your DAM, your finance queue, or your legal review.
Pricing methodology attached
Forward the Channeltics report URL so finance can audit the CPM band, the niche, and the tier in one click.
Defined deliverables in writing
Format, duration, placement timestamp, usage rights, exclusivity window, revision rounds. Each one on a separate line.
Payment terms agreed up front
Net 30 or net 60 invoicing, milestone payments for dedicated videos, kill fee defined.
Reporting access negotiated
Ask for raw analytics screenshots (impressions, retention, click-through if applicable) within 7 days of publish.
Questions media buyers and brand managers ask
Direct answers, no fluff. If yours isn't here, the methodology page has the underlying math.
If you're vetting 20+ creators per quarter
We're building agency tooling. Branded PDF reports, bulk creator scoring, API access for your internal stack. Tell us what you need and we'll build for the demand.
Don't negotiate blind. Vet first.
Free for every creator in your shortlist. No quota, no signup.
Want to see the underlying math? Read the formula.