During your search for an influencer marketing platform, you'll inevitably come across Grin.co, a well established tool with $100M+ in funding, and an advertising budget to match.

You may also find, however, that it's not quite perfect for you. Whether that be due to price, features, customer support, or any other reason.

If you're considering switching from Grin, or simply shopping around to see what's out there, you're in the right place.

Here are the 12 best Grin alternatives:

1. Modash
2. Mavrck
3. BuzzSumo
4. Impact
5. CreatorIQ
6. Hypeauditor
7. Klear
8. Influence.co
9. Traackr
10. Tagger
11. Shoutcart
12. Upfluence

Grin drawbacks: 5 reasons to look for an alternative

Grin certainly has some advantages. It's built for large e-commerce teams, and has lots of great features & integrations for speeding up common workflows like product seeding.

That said, it has some drawbacks too -- which is why you're here.

Lacking creator discovery

Grin recently dropped creator discovery altogether, and replaced it with Curated Lists -- which means Grin can send you a small number of prospects to work with, at a limited frequency.

Being unable to run your own searches sucks anyway, but even if the creators were perfect, the scale is still hugely limiting. You'll need a separate influencer search tools for running higher volumes of influencer searches with varied criteria.

Also in Grin, you can't analyze Instagram influencers, unless the creator has logged into the platform & authenticated -- a huge time sink and friction point.

Authentication is painful for everyone involved

As well as having to authenticate influencers to analyze their profiles, it's also required for monitoring.

You can't keep track of partner content without authentication.

That adds an extra task onto every partnership, and it's just annoying for the creator's experience.

A broad feature set isn't always a good thing

A washer dryer combo sounds amazing. Two machines in one. When you buy it though, you realize it's slightly worse at washing than a washing machine, and slightly worse at drying than a dryer. It's kinda the same thing here. Grin has a ton of features, but frankly, not all of them are very good. If you comb through some of their G2 reviews, you'll get an idea.

For example, the affiliate management tool isn't as good as dedicated affiliate software. Affiliates can't see their sales numbers, or where they come from. Grin’s payment feature is also slow and cumbersome, and users complain about having to click into each campaign to pay each influencer one by one. There’s also no way to make a recurring payment.

Sometimes it's better to do fewer things really well.

Pricing is high

Grins large feature set comes with a large price tag to match. Pricing is not transparent, but various sources including Capterra suggest prices starts from around $25,000 per year. If you're working with more than 100 influencers, that price will quickly climb too.

Perhaps worthwhile for some who use all the features comprehensively, but the price immediately rules out Grin for small & medium teams on a budget of <$2k/month for software.

No free trial, no monthly options

This one is pretty straight forward. Not only is it expensive, but you have to commit straight away to long contracts. There's no way to grab a free trial, and you can't even pay to pilot for a couple of months either.

12 Alternatives to Grin for influencer marketing

1. Modash

Best for: B2C e-commerce stores & apps who want to find, analyze, and monitor influencers at any scale

Free trial: 14 days. Try for free.

Starting price: $99/month (paid annually), or $120/month (paid monthly).

Features/reasons to use Modash

Modash’s influencer marketing platform helps you discover, analyze, and monitor influencers. Its enormous database of over 250M+ influencers lets you search Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube by filtering creators. There are filters for things like:

• Influencer follower range
• Influencer or audience languages
• Average engagement rate
• Fake followers
• Hashtags used & bio keywords
• Audience location & demographics

If you already have some successful partnerships, Modash has a lookalike tool to help you find more similar creators too.

Once you’ve got a shortlist, Modash can help you vet your creators based on quantitative metrics (e.g. engagement rate, fake followers, growth rate) or qualitative factors, such as checking their recent posts for quality & relevance. You can also get a detailed breakdown of their audience's locations & demographics to make sure that creator is reaching your target market.

Modash can do influencer monitoring / content collection automatically, without authentication! It automates the process, meaning you don’t need to manually check and screenshot influencer content.

You can specify the creators you want to track, and a method to determine which posts you want to collect (e.g. tags, hashtags, keywords in posts). The creator doesn't have to do anything.

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Modash vs Grin

• Modash has data on every creator on Earth with 1k+ followers (including Instagram).
• Your creators don't need to authenticate for you to analyze & monitor them in Modash.
• Modash lets you test out all of its features in a 14-day trial. There is no free trial with Grin.
• Pricing for Modash is publicly available and clear. It’s based on usage, which means that teams of any size can benefit and scale up as they grow. Modash also offers monthly plans, which Grin does not.
• Modash’s is influencer database is nearly 6x larger, so you won’t keep running into the same creators over and over again when running niche searches.
• Grin offers more features e.g. creator payments, and integrations, e.g. Shopify & WooCommerce.

See more: Modash vs Grin

Pricing

Modash pricing is based on monthly usage. Plans start from $99/month (paid annually), or $120/month (paid monthly). View pricing here, or sign up for a free trial (no credit card needed).

2. Mavrck

Best for: Large e-commerce brands wanting to leverage automation as much as possible

Free trial: Demo available

Starting price: On request

Features

Mavrck is a little different from the other platforms. Instead of influencer discovery, you can find influencers among your existing customers. Mavrck has almost managed to automate the entire process, all you have to do is fill in the blanks of your campaign. Influencer recruitment works in two ways, they can either sign up using their Facebook profile or sign up as an ambassador; either way, the platform gains access to their social data and measures metrics based on this, so you can see how influential they may be. Other features include automated Relationship Management, Incentive Management, Content Syndication, and Measurement and Performance Optimization.

Mavrck vs Grin

• Mavrck’s database is much smaller: 2.5M influencers vs Grin’s 38M.
• Mavrck’s almost fully automated platform does most of the work for you.
• Filtering and sorting of influencers is limited.

Pricing

Mavrck is sold as a subscription and pricing is customized based on your needs.

3. BuzzSumo

Best for: Brands of all sizes looking for a powerful analytics tool for content marketing.

Free trial: Yes, 30 days

Starting price: From $129/month

Features

BuzzSumo puts more emphasis on content marketing over influencer marketing, meaning you won’t find all of the advanced features like fake follower checks that other platforms offer. It does help you with strong research and analytics tools. You start by searching for content that is relevant to your brand, or that of your competitors. Once you’ve got a list of relevant content, the platform begins its analysis to let you know what works and what doesn’t. BuzzSumo shows you average engagements to compare with your content, as well as over time to help you identify trends. It shows which channels performed the best and so much more. You can also set up a keyword alert to not miss out on potential inspiration.

BuzzSumo vs Grin

• A free trial is available. No free trial with Grin.
• Full transparency on pricing and much more affordable than Grin.
• Lacks integrations for e-commerce that Grin offers.
• BuzzSumo lacks some features including campaign management, influencer relationship management, payment tracking and ROI tracking.

Pricing

Subscriptions start from $129/month, with a slight discount for paying annually.

4. Impact

Best for: Creating an affiliate program

Free trial: Demo available

Starting price: On request

Features

Impact is all about partnerships. They help you build and manage your influencer relationships, from contracts to payments. You can search for influencers by category, location, competitor, and content, and Impact’s AI will make recommendations based on your search as well. Payout flexibility lets you commission influencers based on how they place on the conversion path or other parameters you can set. Their Cross-device tracking feature lets you see a detailed picture of the customer’s journey and true conversion rates. 

Impact vs Grin

• Limited database of 7M+ influencers. Influencers must sign up to use the platform.
• Lacking some features when compared to Grin.
• Impact is better for running an affiliate program.
• No transparency on pricing.

Pricing

Pricing is available on request.

5. CreatorIQ

Best for: Large agencies and brands looking for an all-in-one solution.

Free trial: No

Starting price: On request

Features

CreatorIQ’s AI-powered discovery tool takes a deep dive into less visible parts of content, like the image itself, mentions, location, and even emojis. It also verifies the authenticity and assigns each influencer an “Integrity Quotient” which lets you know how real their audience is. Once you’ve narrowed down your search, you can invite influencers to join your network. From there, CreatorIQ takes over to get all of the contractual stuff out of the way. And as you build your private marketplace, influencers log onto your platform to see what’s on offer. There’s no competition here, influencers are ready to work with you. And you can imagine that the reporting tool is just as useful, allowing you to filter and sort the data as you like.

CreatorIQ vs Grin

• Discovery happens with the help of AI to present relevant influencers and then analyzes over 1 billion public social accounts and their content, but CreatorIQ’s database has 15M+ indexed influencer accounts. Grin’s is larger.
• CreatorIQ does all the preparation for you, so when you contact your influencers you don’t have to deal with contracts, etc, they’re ready to create.
• Grin’s focus is on e-commerce, CreatorIQ’s scope is much broader.

Pricing

Pricing and packages are available on request.

6. Hypeauditor

Best for: Medium to large brands looking for an influencer marketing tool with trends data

Free trial: A free plan lets you use basic features, but data is limited.

Starting price: Unknown. Previously $399/month. Contact sales.

Features

Hypeauditor offers almost all of the tools you need for influencer marketing. Starting from discovery you’ll be able to search over 36 million influencer accounts over all of the main social platforms using more than 35 metrics. You can create and manage your partnerships, analyze potential influencer accounts, including fake follower checks, and get a clear view of your campaign success with reporting. While you can’t run your affiliate marketing through Hypeauditor, you can integrate your metrics. Other features include audience analysis, in particular Audience Reachability, which shows influencer followers who follow less than 1500 accounts. Brand Safety ensures that your content will never be placed beside inappropriate content.

See also: alternatives to Hypeauditor.

Hypeauditor vs Grin

• Hypeauditor lacks influencer payments and integration for product seeding.
• Better discovery vs. Grin
• Hypeauditor’s platform is intuitive, so you probably won’t be wasting time learning how to use it.

Pricing

Hypeauditor’s packages start from $399/month, but then you need to contact them for pricing for Pro add-ons.

7. Klear

Best for: Small brands looking for basic search and influencer campaign management + large brands looking for improved analytics.

Free trial: Klear can be used free of charge, but with limited features

Starting price: On request

Features

Klear offers an easy-on-the-eyes and responsive platform making it easy to jump right in and begin your influencer marketing. The monitoring tool is worth mentioning as it’s both a social listening and analytics tool. It monitors mentions and hashtags and teaches the AI to understand your brand. This in return gives you very relevant results during discovery. You can filter your searches by accounts that are actively talking about you, along with plenty of other useful data for gathering excellent insight into the type of content you should be creating.

Klear vs Grin

• Klear’s management features are fairly basic.
• Klear lacks integration for e-commerce platforms.
• Search and filtering is better than Grin.

Pricing

Klear's pricing is not publicly available.

8. Influence

Best for: Small businesses looking for more personalized influencer marketing

Free trial: No but a free plan is available

Starting price: $600/month 

Influence is a hybrid of a social networking platform and an influencer marketplace. Creators can sign up, edit their profiles, and showcase their previous collaborations.

Typical features like influencer discovery, relationship management, and analytics are available. Brands can also create profiles similar to a LinkedIn page, generate campaign briefs, and let influencers apply.

Influencers can interact with the brand page by liking and sharing posts. You can build long-term relationships with brand ambassadors and advocates with Creator Communities and quickly mobilize them when launching a new product or event. 

Influence vs Grin

• Influence has minimal monitoring and reporting.
• Creators can interact with brands directly on Influence, while Grin doesn't provide that option. 
• The quality of creators on Influence seems more personalized and authentic. With creator profiles, marketers can look at their past work before contacting them. 
• Influence offers a more hands-on approach to influencer marketing. With Grin, you can reach out and get started with the campaign. With Creator Communities, brands can interact with influencers, keep them updated on new products and build long-term relationships with them.

Pricing

Pricing starts from $600/month, and no free trial is available. There is a basic plan available that's free forever.

9. Traaackr

Best for: Large beauty brands looking for an all-in-one influencer marketing platform

Free trial: No

Starting price: On request

Features

This data-driven influencer marketing platform is all about influencer relationships. Their Influencer Market Benchmark lets you look at how your influencers are performing as well as your overall social media presence and compares it to your competitors. Traackr assigns a Brand Vitality Score to competitors, which is based on social KPIs and overall audience quality, in other words, the higher the score, the better the brand is doing. Other features include discovery and campaign management, which you can be sure are as thorough as everything else on the platform. The database isn’t opt-in for influencers, but there is an algorithm that gathers all relevant data. You can also manually add influencers who are not in the database and Traackr will find all their details for you.

Traackr vs Grin

• Traackr focuses on beauty brands
• A steep learning curve may mean you’ll have to invest a considerable amount of time in learning how to use the platform.
• IMB metrics offer tons of data about how and what your competitors are doing.

Pricing

Pricing is available upon request, but subscriptions are sold on an annual or multiyear basis.

10. Tagger

Best for: Large businesses looking for an all-in-one platform with creator listening

Free trial: No

Starting price: On request

Features

Tagger offers many data-driven features. With a database of both influencer and brand profiles, Tagger’s social listening helps you gain valuable insights into audience authenticity, conversation and so on. You can compare influencer audiences with brand audiences to find overlap and ultimately find influencers that would suit your brand and reach your target audience. Learn about influencer audiences to find lookalikes. And Tagger also makes it easy to communicate with influencers through personalized emails from your own domain. 

Once your campaigns are up and running, you can track their status and progress. Every bit of content, including stories, is compiled to give you an overview and point for comparison of engagement, ROI, conversions, audience data, as well as influencer performance stats.

Tagger vs Grin

• A small database of 6M+ means you're missing out on a lot of untapped potential.
• The platform has a steep learning curve, which may deter some marketers.
• Given how much data is available, Tagger is certainly best for large brands.

Pricing

Pricing is available on request.

11. Shoutcart

Best for: Small businesses looking to increase word-of-mouth marketing

Free trial: No, but a free plan is available

Starting price: $49/month

Shoutcart is not a platform like Grin, but rather an influencer marketplace. Influencers advertise their services along with their pricing, and marketers can browse by category, price, and number of followers until they find a profile they like.

You can filter followers by language, country, age, and gender and select influencers that match your target audience. You can also track your campaign and see which influencer brings the most ROI.

While Shoutcart is simple, fast, and easy, it has some drawbacks. Buying a one-time shoutout from an influencer who simultaneously promotes several other brands isn't an effective marketing strategy.

While you can select influencers based on your budget, a marketplace-based model has a limited database of influencers who register on the platform themselves. So, Shoutcart houses influencers aggressively monetizing their audience — leading you to miss out on untapped creators with highly engaged audiences.

See also: alternatives to Shoutcart.

Shoutcart vs Grin

• Shoutcart has a pretty straightforward search engine and simple features, while Grin provides a broad feature set. 
• Shoutcart doesn't have any real tools for managing relationships, beyond finding the initial transaction.
• Grin provides integrations with eCommerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento. 

Pricing

Shoutcart offers a free plan with limited features, but you need at least $100 in your account before you try engaging influencers. Paid plans start from $49/month and go up to $99/month. 

12. Upfluence 

Best for: Large brands looking for an all-in-one influencer marketing solution with a hands-off approach.

Free trial:  No

Starting price: Based on your needs 

Upfluence runs on a hybrid agency/influencer marketing platform model, providing agency services and a built-in platform to run your influencer campaigns.

If you're looking for a more hands-off approach to your influencer marketing campaigns, Upfluence is the tool for you. A dedicated team of experts will run end-to-end campaigns for you, but this has a few cons:

• You won't be able to build relationships with any influencers directly 
• It would be harder for you to switch platforms in the future because you won't have prior connections to rely on

As an influencer marketing platform, Upfluence provides tools for discovery, relationship management, outreach, monitoring, and analytics. You can build custom workflows, generate individual affiliate links, issue custom coupon codes, and manage product seeding.

Upfluence also simplifies influencer payment by sending payment requests to collect invoices and tax documents. You can integrate with most tools like HubSpot, Shopify, Stripe, and Mailchimp.

One drawback of Upfluence is its limited database. Since the platform only shows "vetted" creators, its influencer database is quite limited — offering the same creator repeatedly in the search results.

See also: alternatives to Upfluence.

Upfluence vs Grin

See also: Grin vs. Upfluence

• Grin's payment feature is slow and cumbersome, as users have complained about having to click into each campaign to pay each influencer individually.
• Both platforms don't provide transparent pricing or a free trial. 
• Upfluence's affiliate marketing platform is much more comprehensive and provides more options than Grin. 
• Upfluence doesn't provide influencer audience analysis beyond basic demographics

Pricing

While there are three plans, Upfluence doesn't provide transparent pricing. You'll have to contact them for a quote based on your business needs.