Alternatives to an influencer marketplace.

What does an influencer marketplace do, and what does it leave to you?

An influencer marketplace is a self-serve site where a brand finds creators, sends them an offer and pays for the collaboration. Depending on the provider, you can accept the creator's rate or send your own offer with the platform, format and price you choose, and some marketplaces also track posts, so nothing stops you from negotiating on CPM inside a marketplace if someone on your team estimates each creator's views and runs the numbers by hand. What stays with you is that creator-by-creator negotiation and the work of measuring what each one brings in, which is manageable with a handful of creators and gets hard to keep up once the campaign grows and someone has to decide who gets re-booked.

When does a SaaS discovery platform make sense?

A SaaS discovery platform gives you a searchable creator database with filters by country, vertical and audience data and, depending on the provider, tools to contact creators and track the campaign, in exchange for a license fee. It makes sense when your team already knows how to negotiate and measure, because the platform helps you find profiles while negotiation and results stay with your team, so each creator's price depends on what that team manages to agree with them.

What changes with a traditional agency paid by fee?

A traditional agency picks the creators, negotiates, produces and reports the campaign for you, and charges a campaign fee or a monthly retainer. It takes the day-to-day work off your team, although in many cases each creator's price is based on their quote and reports cover reach, impressions and engagement rather than customer acquisition cost by creator. Before hiring one, ask in writing where each creator's price comes from, for the agency fee separated from creator payments and for a past campaign report with CPA by creator, which are the same questions in our guide to choosing an influencer marketing agency.

How does an agency that negotiates on views and CPM work?

This kind of agency does what a traditional one does but prices differently: it asks each creator for the stats of their latest videos, estimates the views they will get, divides that by 1,000 and multiplies by the campaign's target CPM to set a ceiling, then makes an offer below that ceiling, regardless of the rate card. The difference from negotiating on CPM in a marketplace is not the math but who does the work and with what data, since here the agency does it with stats requested from each creator and with what it has measured in past campaigns. Once the creator accepts, the agency manages the contract, reviews the content before it goes live and gives each creator their own UTM link (plus a promo code if the brand wants one), so the report shows CPA by creator, and the creators who converted get re-booked while the rest are dropped.

When is an in-house team worth building?

An in-house team is worth it once influencer marketing is a large, steady channel for the brand, since it gives full control and keeps the learning inside, but it means hiring people who can negotiate with creators, building and maintaining your own creator database and tracking every post with its own link. While the channel is still being tested, that fixed cost tends to outweigh what you save on fees, which is why it is common to start with an agency and bring part of the work in-house later.

How do you choose between the five options?

Start with two questions: how much of the work you want to do yourself, and which number you need to see at the end of each month. If you have a team to negotiate and measure and want to test with a few creators, a marketplace or a SaaS platform is enough; if you need someone to run the operation and a reach report is enough, a traditional agency works, and if you need customer acquisition cost by creator without doing the negotiating yourself, the option is an agency that takes over the negotiation and gives you attribution by creator, with a separate link for each one (at Ramped that negotiation runs on views and a target CPM), or an in-house team once the channel has volume.

Where Ramped fits

Ramped is the leading influencer marketing agency in Latin America and works the way the fourth option in this guide describes. Founded in 2021, it has offices in Buenos Aires, the United States and Spain, runs campaigns in 17 markets across 4 continents, and won two Bronze awards at the Global Influencer Marketing Awards 2025 and the Social & Influencer Campaign award at the App Growth Awards 2024.

For every creator we set a ceiling from their expected views, estimated from their latest videos, divided by 1,000 and multiplied by the campaign's target CPM, and we never offer more than 80% of that ceiling. We work from our own database of 44,757 creators, manage the contracts, give every creator their own UTM link and report CPA by creator in Ramped Studio, the platform where the brand approves content and follows the campaign. Programs start at US$20,000 a month.

Two cases show why it matters who sets the price: at LearnWorlds a creator asked for US$100,000 when their measured views justified an offer of roughly US$1,000, and at Flo Health the cost per trial fell from US$79.53 (cumulative, March to July 2024) to US$28.51 (July to August 2024) within a single campaign. To compare agencies that operate in the region, see our comparison of influencer marketing agencies in Latin America, which cites a source for every data point.

FAQ

What are the alternatives to an influencer marketplace?

There are four: a SaaS discovery platform, a traditional agency paid by fee, an agency that negotiates every creator on expected views and a target CPM, and an in-house team. They differ in who negotiates each creator's price and with what data, which tools they include, how results are attributed to each creator and who manages contracts and payments.

What is the difference between an influencer marketplace and an agency?

On a marketplace the brand gets access to profiles and, depending on the provider, tools to contract and pay, but negotiates and measures on its own, while an agency takes those jobs on. Agencies differ too: some price each creator on what they quote, and others, like Ramped, set a ceiling from the creator's expected views divided by 1,000 and multiplied by a target CPM, and report CPA by creator.

When is a self-serve influencer marketplace the right choice?

It fits when you are testing the channel with a few creators and have a team with time to pick them, negotiate, review content and measure every post. Once the campaign grows and re-booking decisions depend on what each creator converted, that work gets heavier and it usually makes sense to hand it to an agency or an in-house team.

How much does an agency cost compared to a marketplace?

It depends on the agency and how it charges its fee. Ramped programs start at US$20,000 a month, with negotiation, contracts and creator-level measurement included, and the useful comparison between options is the CPM you end up paying on the views each creator delivered and the customer acquisition cost by creator, not the price per post.

How do you measure each creator's results?

With a separate UTM link for every creator, plus a promo code if the brand wants one, so every install, sign-up or sale can be attributed to the creator who drove it. Some marketplaces and platforms track posts, and whatever option you choose, the thing to check is whether the report shows CPA by creator or only reach and impressions.