Take Control: 6 of the Best Influencer Marketing Platforms for Startups

Navigating the digital landscape as a startup can be an overwhelming and daunting task. As a relatively new business, getting your brand name out there should be priority number one.

If no one knows who you are, how will you ever make money? That’s where influencer marketing platforms come in. The age of social media has brought us influencers; popular media personalities with loads of followers, and now they’re here to stay. 

Today, influencer marketing has emerged as a powerful and effective campaign strategy. All over the world brands are partnering with influencers to boost visibility and find new audiences. From macro and mega influencers to micro and nano influencers, each has a major role to play. 

For startups, this is the perfect opportunity. Partnering with influencers is a great way to introduce yourself to the world. Whether you use creators to help generate UGC from community members or to boost brand awareness, the end goal is the same: higher revenue. 

So let’s dive into the realm of influencer marketing. We’ve gathered some of the best influencer marketing platforms tailored for startups ready to make themselves known. 

The Top Influencer Marketing Platforms for 2024

Klear 

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Channels: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube

Klear is an all–in–one influencer marketing platform focused on connecting brands to suitable influencers. The first part of any influencer marketing campaign is to find influencers to work with, and Klear provides the tools to make that easy. 

Klear helps you identify influencers with a similar audience to your own. The influencer finder tool comes with advanced filter features and smart AI integration to help you find creators that match your brand identity. 

The platform has a simple design and is incredibly user-friendly while still offering meaningful insights for startups. The search tool lets you navigate through the full creator economy across multiple channels with access to over 30M influencers. 

Since most startups won’t have the budget to work with mega or macro influencers, using the search tool to find niche nano-micro influencers presents more affordable partnership opportunities. Don’t worry, the advantages of working with nano influencers can be just as beneficial as working with bigger ones. 

Klear doesn’t just help you find influencers though. The platform also has robust influencer analytical tools, as well as influencer management and campaign management features. 

All in all the platform lets you effectively take control of your influencer marketing campaigns with relative ease.

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Key features

• Influencer search: Explore influencers across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube to match with relevant influencers with engaged audiences that resonate with your product or service. 
• Influencer analytics: Get real-time influencer analytics to monitor reach, engagement and audience demographics. You can also check influencer scores to identify creators with high levels of influence. 
• Relationship management: Confidently manage your influencer relationships throughout every step of your campaign. The integrated messaging tool lets you invite influencers, share briefs, and exchange messages all within the app. 
• Campaign management:
• ‍ Effortlessly track and attribute sales, revenue and costs to find your true ROI from influencer marketing campaigns. Instant reports with detailed metrics can help you optimise future campaigns. 

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Pricing 

Klear has three available plans to choose from, but no information on pricing is available. For details on pricing, you’ll have to request a demo and quote. The plans are divided as such: 

Professional: Limited to one user, the plan includes unlimited influencer discovery, influencer and campaign management, and campaign tracking and reporting. 

‍eCommerce: Limited to five users, the plan includes unlimited influencer discovery, email integration and mass outreach, eCommerce platform integrations, in-app influencer payments, and branded application forms. 

‍Enterprise: Limited to ten users, the plan includes collaborative workspaces for teams, custom reports with segmented performance metrics, aggregated cross-campaign reporting, BI integration, and customisation and add-ons. 

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Why startups should use it

The quality of identifying influencers through the Klear database is highly effective. You can filter by numerous options including location, platform, contact details, age, brand mentions and more, making it easier to find micro and nano influencers who may be willing to work with your brand. Mega influencers are unlikely to work with startups, so using the search tool is the perfect way to find smaller influencers with engaged audiences. 

The reports also cover detailed performance metrics while the campaign management features make it much easier to communicate with and manage influencers you plan on partnering with. 

In summary, Klear makes it easy for startups to find suitable creators and manage multiple influencer marketing campaigns. 

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Aspire

Channels: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, Facebook/Meta  

Aspire is an influencer marketing company that provides DIY influencer marketing software as well as full and comprehensive influencer marketing services. 

A standout feature of the platform is the inbound and outbound discovery tools for finding creators, affiliates, customers and ambassadors. They also provide flexible workflow options to help automate business processes for any campaign strategy. 

You can also view data-rich reports to analyse creators before deciding on your next partnership. Check engagement rates, audience demographics, reach, and more before inviting influencers to join a campaign. From Instagram engagement analytics to TikTok views, there is plenty of data to assess. 

You can seamlessly connect with thousands of creators at once through the email outreach feature too. The user-friendly interface lets you manage and track influencer marketing campaigns.

From the lightning-fast influencer finder tool to the effortless communication features, Aspire is set up to help you take control of your influencer marketing campaigns. 

For businesses with no interest in managing their own influencer marketing needs, Aspire offers agency services with professional in-house teams who can take full control of influencer marketing campaigns, regardless of size. 

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Key features 

• Influencer discovery: You can quickly search for influencers across multiple platforms, review key metrics, and find the right partners for your brand. Browse by location, industry, engagement metrics, audience demographics, hashtags, keywords and more.

• Creator marketplace: The creator marketplace is essentially the other end of the influencer search tool. Creators can make themselves available to work with your brand, and you can review the metrics to see if it’s a good fit. 

• Campaign management: Effectively manage workflows by automating processes and communication, sending and tracking products, and implementing content approval processes before going live. 

• Relationship management: Comfortably scale influencer programs while prioritising influencer relationships. The influencer CRM streamlines all your influencer and ambassador relationships and puts all your contacts and messages in one place for ease of use.  

• Content management: Effortlessly manage, review, approve and promote high-quality content. You can boost high-performing content, organise influencer-related content in one central library, and measure the value of influencer content over time. 

• Measurement and reporting: Confidently measure full-funnel ROI and sales with robust tracking and reporting features. You can use the metrics to reward top-performing influencers, monitor your brand awareness, and tie your relationships to revenue. 

• Integrations: Integrate the platform with Gmail, Outlook, Shopify, and Woocommerce to merge all your processes in one place and improve efficiency.

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Pricing 

The pricing for Aspire is flexible, but you’ll need to request a quote from the sales team for exact numbers as it’s decided on a case-by-case basis. The plans are divided as follows:

‍Essentials: For up-and-coming brands looking to improve influencer marketing. Features include 100 total active collaborators, core integrations, limited access to branded creator content, and access to customer support.

‍Pro: For bigger brands looking to efficiently manage large-scale influencer campaigns. Features include 500 total active collaborators, core integrations, unlimited access to branded content, and access to customer success and support. 

‍Enterprise: For companies looking to collaborate with influencers across multiple teams. Features include 500 total active collaborators, core integrations, unlimited access to branded creator content, and access to customer success and support. 

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Why startups should use it 

As a startup, you can easily narrow down searches and target influencers who fit your brand and campaign requirements with detailed filtering options (location, industry, engagement metrics, audience demographics, hashtags, keywords, etc.). This makes it a perfect micro-influencer marketing platform. 

The creator marketplace is also a great feature that may drastically reduce the amount of time it takes you to find the right influencers. If a creator advertises themself as open to work, it’ll be much easier to approach them. 

Aspire also offers comprehensive marketing agency services where they take full control of your influencer marketing campaigns, from discovery to campaign management and tracking. This can be hugely beneficial for startups who feel they don’t have the time or resources to take charge of their campaigns. 

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TRIBE

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Channels: Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, Facebook/Meta

Tribe is a popular influencer marketing platform created to streamline how you discover creators, run campaigns and measure your ROI. The end-to-end platform matches talented and diverse creators with your brand, audience and objectives.

The platform has over 80K+ opt-in creators who are ready and willing to partner with brands. You can also import creators you’re already working with into the database. Tribe has an integrated AI feature that instantly identifies which creators would best suit your brand. 

The beauty of Tribe is that it's set up for creators to come to you. All you have to do is launch a campaign in the Creators App detailing your expectations, and influencers then pitch concepts with a fee attached. 

You can seamlessly manage hundreds of creators in one place. The platform has features for communication, content approval, legalities, product samples, and payments. 

As with most influencer marketing platforms, you have access to first-party, real-time creator metrics to help you make data-driven decisions that improve campaign performances. Tribe has also integrated brand safety technology; creators have to pass the proprietary AVS system to guarantee authenticity. 

Another powerful feature is the ability to license branded content whenever you need it. As your content library grows, you can license the content you love most for your website and social media channels. 

Key features

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• Influencer discovery: Filter through over 80K+ opt-in and engaged creators who are ready and willing to work with brands. All influencers within the database have passed an authenticity test that guarantees a real and engaged audience. 

• Campaign management: You can effortlessly connect with creators, send briefs, advertise campaigns, pre-approve content, send payments, track performance metrics, and more in one consolidated place. 

• Content licensing: Licence your best-performing branded content and distribute it across multiple channels with ease. You can also access the TRIBE content library and find influencer-generated content that can be licensed for use by your brand. 

• ROI measurement: Discover your top-performing influencers with first-party and in-depth performance metrics and audience breakdowns. The platform is also set up to help you combine the power of user-generated content with the highly developed ad-targeting tools of TikTok, Meta and Pinterest.

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Pricing 

The pricing for TRIBE is divided into three tiers. There are two agreement types for the TRIBE platform, and one option for TRIBE plus.

‍Pay-Per-Use (TRIBE): The pay-per-use tier comes with an activation fee per campaign as well as a 30% margin on your brand’s overall campaign spend. For example, if you have a $ 20,000 campaign budget, TRIBE takes $6,000, and the balance goes to creators. The campaign activation fee is $299. All standard features are included.

‍Annual Agreement (TRIBE): The annual agreement tier is for brands who plan on using TRIBE on a long-term basis. There is no campaign activation fee, but users need to pay an annual fee as well as 30% of platform margins. The annual fee can be obtained by requesting a quote. This route ultimately reduces the costs for those running multiple campaigns per year.

‍Tailored (TRIBE Plus): TRIBE Plus is a fully managed and customised solution for your brand. A dedicated team takes full control of your content and influencer marketing strategies and campaigns. Pricing is tailored to your needs, so you’ll need to have a consultation to get an exact number.

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Why startups should use it 

The pay-per-use option for the TRIBE platform makes it a cost-effective solution for startups running a single campaign. You can also easily switch to the annual fee as your business grows and you take on more campaigns. 

There’s also no risk of working with an influencer with fake followers, as each creator is vetted to prove authenticity. The database only includes influencers who have made themselves available to partner with, and as such, it’s much easier to find creators to work with. 

The user interface is fairly simple and intuitive, making it easy to set up, manage and track influencer marketing campaigns. 

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Influencity

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Channels: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook/Meta 

Influencity is an influencer marketing hub set up to help you maximise your influencer relationship management strategy with real-time data and robust communication features. 

The platform is designed to improve each step of your influencer marketing campaign with features to help you organise and manage creators while optimising workflow and tracking performance metrics. 

The influencer finder tool gives you access to filter through over 200 million influencers across the world with ease. Filter by the metrics you prioritise and find creators that suit your brand’s identity and audience demographic. The platform is AI-powered to help you find the perfect creator, regardless of industry. 

One of the most notable features of the platform is the Influencer Relationship Management (IRM) tool that helps drive effective collaboration. You and your team can easily track negotiations, save price histories, send briefs, approve content, and more. 

Another powerful and useful feature is the ability to forecast potential campaign results. While nothing is guaranteed, by forecasting results you can get an approximate understanding of what you may expect, and effectively prepare for the future. 

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Key features

• Influencer discovery: With a database of over 200M creators, the AI-powered platform makes it easy to find influencers suited to your brand identity and audience demographics. 

• Fast and unbiased stats: Get fast, accurate, and up-to-date metrics instantly such as follower growth trends, influencer brand interactions, audience preferences and demographics, engagement rates, and more. 

• Influencer relationship management: The customisable influencer database hub lets you recruit talent, keep creator information up to date, save price histories, and build solid relationships with intuitive influencer outreach tools. 

• Campaign workflow management: Assign tasks, automate repetitive processes, monitor your ROI, and coordinate payments with ease. The campaign management tool is designed to assist marketing teams of all sizes. 

• Integrations: Shopify integration lets you sync your creator database with your e-commerce shop to help put your product into context, drive conversions, and propel growth. 

• Key insights: Influencity provides you with powerful tools to organise and showcase key insights for each campaign. Create reports and define what you need to measure with ease. There are plenty of available data points, widgets, graphs, and analytics to create customised reports for different products, campaigns, and influencers. 

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Pricing 

The pricing for Influencity is divided into three tiers, basic, professional, and business. 

‍Basic: The basic plan is priced at $168 per month and includes an unlimited amount of searches, 5K monthly results, 100 influencers on your database, 30 data assessments, 1 list, 5 customer properties and 4 users per month. This plan does not include reports or campaign management features. 

‍Professional: The professional plan is priced at $348 per month and includes an unlimited number of searches, 10K monthly results, 600 influencers on your database, 150 data assessments, 100 lists, 10 custom properties and 10 users per month. Additional features include reports and campaign management tools. 

‍Business: The business plan is priced at $698 per month and includes an unlimited number of searches, 25K monthly searches, 2000 influencers on your database, 500 data assessments, 100 lists, 30 custom properties and unlimited users. Campaign management and report features are included with additional storage space. 

Influencity also has a custom plan option where you can create your own bundle based on your needs. The price for the custom plan depends on what you include. 

Why startups use it 

The influencer marketing campaign management and analytical tools are incredibly powerful and fast. The performance forecaster is also supremely valuable for brands to get an idea of what to expect from each campaign. 

The influencer finder tool is another strong feature of the platform. With access to over 200M+ influencers and impressive search engine features, you can reliably identify influencers who meet your requirements and are willing to work with you. 

The ability to create your own bundle is perfect for startups as you’ll only be paying for what you need. As such, Influencity is a cost-effective influencer marketing solution for startups who do not yet have the funds to spend on multiple campaigns a year. 

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IZEA

Channels: Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, Facebook/Meta 

IZEA is one of the leading influencer marketing platforms available for both brands and creators. As an influencer marketing platform that existed before the term “influencer marketing” was even coined, they’ve been in the game for a long time. 

The feature-rich interface can be a little complex and does have a bit of a learning curve, so you’ll need to take some time to learn about the platform before you dive into its different tools. 

IZEA is set up to help brands quickly find and hire influencers while also giving influencers the tools to put out casting calls. The IZEA Flex feature lets you identify creators, manage contracts, negotiate terms, send payments, track performances and more without any creator markup. A huge benefit. 

When searching for influencers you can filter by audience size, demographics, psychographics, topics of interest, keywords, social channels, and more. Another standout feature is the VizSearch tool, similar to the influencer finder tool, but the results are actual pieces of content that match the query. 

The search engine is powered by image recognition and artificial intelligence. If you type a brand’s name into the tool, you’ll get results with all posts featuring the brand's products. It even goes as far as including products from subsidiary companies. 

The performance data available is comprehensive and relevant. Brands have access to everything from creator profiles to campaign metrics such as ROI and conversions. 

One of the more unique features of IZEA Flex is the ShareMonitor which assists with multiplatform social monitoring. You can navigate through posts from several social media platforms based on what you search for without difficulty. 

 Other features include tracking links, managing contacts, campaigns and transactions, integrations, AI tools, and contract analysis and management. 

Key features

• Influencer discovery: The search tool includes a wide range of filters and refinements to help your brand access the best influencers for your campaign. The filters include audience size, demographics, psychographics, topics of interest, keywords, social channels, and more

• Campaign management: Create campaigns from multiple social platforms and e-commerce sites, build and track creator offers and negotiations, and get insights into campaign performances. The tool also lets you control scheduling, publishing, and verification of content to guarantee it meets your specifications

• Data-rich analytics: All sorts of metrics and statistics are accessible, and you can easily customise and export data reports for analysis purposes. The data includes audience growth or decline over time, in-depth engagement analysis, post activity, insight into the portfolio, and a ranking score that showcases where each creator sits relative to others.

• Influencer management: You can seamlessly maintain a private network of creators, create lists for campaign or influencer tracking, review proposals, approve content, review older or current conversations, set budgets, and more.

• Payments and transactions: Compensate influencers, search, sort and export payment data, and view KPIs such as cost per click and return on ad spend. All you have to do is choose content, schedule a payment date and add line items for each transaction. 

• Integrations: You can also integrate with Shopify, Google, Analytics and Gmail to get the most out of your data. 

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Pricing 

The IZEA platform’s pricing can be divided into three tiers, Starter Plan, Power Plan, and custom build. 

‍Starter Plan (IZEA Flex): The starter plan is priced at $149 per month, and includes 1 user seat, influencer discovery, document management, generative AI tools, 1 integration, unlimited campaigns, 50 tracking links, 250 content pieces a month, 3 active ShareMonitors and up to 1000 contacts. 

‍Power Plan (IZEA Flex): The power plan 3 user seats, influencer discovery, flexible DirectPay options, document management, generative AI tools, 200 contacts per month, unlimited integrations, unlimited campaigns, unlimited tracking links, unlimited content pieces, unlimited active ShareMonitors and unlimited contacts. 

‍Custom Build: The custom build option lets you create a plan that suits your exact needs. Pricing will depend on what’s included in the plan. 

Open Influence

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Channels: YouTube, Instagram, TikTok 

Open Influence is a global influencer marketing platform that offers a self-service platform as well as full-service creator marketing campaign management. The full-service option is a little pricey, but the platform itself serves as a great option for startups. 

The platform has a robust AI-powered image recognition tool that lets you easily describe and find content. While many other platforms have basic image search engine tools to find specific content, Open Influence’s AI uses image recognition to label images with descriptors to make them searchable. So if you’re looking for influencers posting about football, all you need to do is type in “football”. 

A unique and innovative feature of the app is the look-alike search tool that lets you find similar influencers to one you’ve identified as a good fit. The tool then identifies similar influencers in terms of content, demographics and psychographics of the audience.

Open Influence places massive emphasis on visual content. By recognising that an influencer's aesthetic matters just as much as follower count, engagement rate, and reach, the platform offers a unique way to identify potential creator partners. Instead of just getting names, statistics, and profile pics, you’re given a few of the most relevant posts to your search. 

The user-friendly interface makes it simple to create and organise lists for influencers you’re working with while presenting key data about the group as a whole. Another distinct feature of the platform is the MoodBoard to help give you an idea of what your campaign might end up looking like. All you do is consolidate a few influencers into a list, and it lets you see five of their most relevant posts to give you an idea of how their styles work together. 

Key features 

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• Influencer discovery: The search tool makes it easy to find influencers whose style and audience match your brand. The AI-powered image recognition tool lets you seamlessly find specific content types. 

• Content management: Content can be submitted, accepted or rejected, and tracked after it's published all from one main location. 

• Influencer relationship management: Reach out to influencers, negotiate and decide on fees, review relevant posts, approve content, track performances, and more. 

• Campaign management: Optimise your workflows, create influencer mood boards, schedule posts, review campaign performances, and more. 

• Reporting and analytics: Generate visually appealing reports that cover campaign performances, deliverable targets, activity timelines, engagement rates, reach, audience demographics, and more relevant metrics. 

Pricing 

The pricing for Open Influence is divided into four different tiers, basic, pro, premium, and enterprise. 

‍Basic: The basic plan is priced at $50 per month and includes 50 searches per month, but only 20 results. You also only get four filters for influencer searches (location, gender, follower count, hashtags). Lists are also limited to 10 influencers, and you’re limited to one list. 

‍Pro: The pro plan is priced at $100 per month and includes 150 searches, but only 50 results. You get the same search filters as above and two lists limited to 25 influencers per list. 

‍Premium: The premium plan is priced at $500 per month and includes 500 searches, 1500 results, the above filter searches as well as by social channel, audience demographics, and image recognition labels. You can also create four lists, limited to 25 influencers per list. 

‍Enterprise: The enterprise plan includes every feature that Open Influence offers and is custom-priced. For more pricing information you’ll need to request a quote. 

Why startups should use it 

The AI-powered image recognition search tool offers an innovative way to find new creators to work with based on the type of content posted. You can also duplicate your success by using the look-alike search tool; providing you with lists of similar influencers. 

The software itself is easy to navigate and simple to use despite incorporating a range of useful features. The search filters available mean you can narrow down searches to extremely specific metrics and find exactly what you’re looking for. 

The lower-priced options give startups a cost-effective way of using the platform, but the premium options come with far more valuable features. Still, it’s nice to have a cheaper option for those who can’t yet afford the full package. 

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Features to Consider When Choosing An Influencer Marketing Platform 

Choosing the right influencer marketing platform is pivotal for startups hoping to use influencers to boost brand awareness and find new audiences. Consider the following key features when you’re making a choice. 

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• Influencer database: As a startup, you should target a platform with a powerful database of influencers and robust search filter options to help you narrow down and find creators perfectly suited to your brand. 

• Audience insights: You’ll need detailed audience insights such as demographics, geographic location, interests and engagement metrics to ensure the creator's audience aligns with yours. 

• Campaign management features: The campaign management tools should facilitate effective campaign management with features including automated scheduling, content approval workflows, performance tracking, collaboration tools, and communication options. 

• Analytics and reporting: A good influencer marketing platform generally offers comprehensive analytics covering key performance indicators such as reach, impressions, engagement, conversions and ROI. You should also be able to track your campaign in real-time to identify possible issues and opportunities that require adjustments. 

• APIs and Integration capabilities: Always check if the platform integrates with other tools and software you use such as Gmail, Shopify, CRM software, Google Analytics, etc. 

• Scalability features: You don’t want to be a startup forever, so make sure the platform can accommodate your projected growth. As your company gets bigger, you may need to take on multiple campaigns with an increased number of influencers. 

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Summing up 

For startups, marketing is everything, and influencer marketing has quickly become a staple of the industry. The influencer marketing platforms mentioned above are perfectly suited for startups who need a visibility boost. 

By harnessing the power of macro, micro and nano influencers on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, you can take great strides towards reaching your target audience and building genuine connections. 

As the landscape of digital marketing continues to evolve, the power of influencers seems to only be growing. You can no longer wait around, adapting influencer marketing strategies is key to the success of your startup. 

Choose a platform wisely, find suitable creators to partner with, and watch your brand's growth get an exponential boost

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