10 KOLSquare Alternatives for Scaling Influencer Marketing

KOLSquare is an excellent influencer marketing tool – especially for brands based in Europe. But its cost, smaller influencer database, and lack of global creators make it insufficient for many influencer marketing teams.

In this article, I’ll share the top ten KOLSquare alternatives for different use cases.

Why consider KOLSquare alternatives?

KOLSquare is a good choice for Europe-based enterprise organizations looking to manage their influencer marketing strategy. But it might not be the right fit for other brands because of these drawbacks:

Limited nano-influencer database: KOLSquare contains influencers with over 5k+ followers across 180 countries. In their Discovery plan, there are over 5M creators. This database isn’t enough for global brands – especially those that are looking to collaborate with many nano-influencers.
KOLSquare is expensive: KOLSquare doesn’t publicly list its pricing, but an article on their blog lists its Discovery plan at €500/month and Listening at €420/month. This alone would be too costly for rapidly growing medium-sized businesses.
Integrations are limited to the Enterprise plan: the Discovery and Listening plan don’t just lack features, they also lack many important integrations – like Gmail (to communicate with creators) and Shopify (for gifting, tracking influencer sales, etc.)
KOLSquare is Europe-centric: KOLSquare primarily caters to and markets itself as a solution for European brands. All its content, webinars, etc., are also about serving European companies. If you're a global brand or outside of Europe, this is a significant limitation.
KOLSquare has only basic Shopify integrations: KOLSquare integrates with Shopify, but it’s not deeply embedded in the tool. Yes, you can create influencer promo codes, but it seems that’s about it. It’s unclear how affiliate marketing orders are marked in your Shopify store, whether you can practice influencer gifting using this integration, and how much performance fee is charged.
No self-serve options: you can’t get a feel for KOLSquare unless you book a demo and speak to a sales rep. There’s no free trial (or if there is, it’s only after the demo) to take the tool for a test drive before you commit to a demo call.

If any of these factors are dealbreakers for you, continue reading to find alternatives that will be a better fit.

1. Modash‍

Best for: Shopify brands looking for an end-to-end influencer marketing solution

What is it: Modash is a complete influencer marketing solution for Shopify brands – helping companies with influencer search, vetting, outreach, creator content collection, tracking performance, payments, and more. By connecting your Shopify store, you can create discount codes/UTM links for influencers and practice gifting, affiliate marketing, and track revenue.

Modash vs. KOLSquare:

Modash has a much larger and more diverse influencer database: Modash has every creator across the globe with 1k+ followers across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube in its database. That’s over 350M+ creator profiles – much more than KOLSquare’s 5M. It doesn’t matter what the size of your brand is, you’ll never run out of potential influencer partners with Modash.

Modash has visual AI search: beyond the large database, Modash also offers visual AI search – which means you can upload an image and find creators who post the same kind of content. You can also layer filters on top of this AI search to narrow down your results even further. KOLSquare has AI semantic search, but not AI visual search.

Modash has a deeper Shopify integration: Modash, like KOLSquare, integrates with your Shopify store. But it’s not a simple integration that’d only look good in theory. It’s built from the ground up for DTC brands with deep integrations for gifting, affiliate automation, and automatic sales attribution.

(And nearly all integrations – including Shopify – are available on all plans! It doesn’t matter if you’re on the lower-tier or higher-tier plan. The only thing that scales your price is the usage.)

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Modash only has creators on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube: KOLSquare’s database (albeit quite limited) also has influencers from Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and Snapchat.

Price: Modash offers a 14-day free trial. Paid plans start at $199/month (paid annually) or $299/month (paid monthly)

2. CreatorIQ

Best for: global, household brand names

What is it: CreatorIQ is an enterprise-grade influencer management platform that’s perfect for large brands. Its integrations and brand-safety features make it ideal for global companies that can’t afford to take any chances when it comes to their reputation.

CreatorIQ vs. KOLSquare:

CreatorIQ offers more integrations: in addition to Shopify, Meta, YouTube, Snapchat, X, and TikTok, CreatorIQ also integrates with Amazon, Rakuten, Google Analytics, and Impact. If you’re running a global influencer marketing strategy, these integrations can be very useful.
CreatorIQ offers more brand safety: CreatorIQ launched SafeIQ so brands can analyze creator content across channels and languages to ensure it meets brand guidelines. It’s specially designed for enterprise brands that want to catch issues before they escalate.
CreatorIQ is one of the most expensive tools out there: CreatorIQ doesn’t disclose its pricing publicly, but Capterra puts its cost at a whopping $36,000 a year. This makes it one of the most expensive influencer marketing tools in the market.

Price: Not publicly available, but Capterra says $36,000/year (ouch!)

3. Upfluence

Best for: brands seeking agency support

What is it: Upfluence is an all-in-one influencer marketing solution that can help you find influencers, vet their profiles, do outreach, pay creators, and more. Its primary advantage is that it offers agency services in addition to its tool.

Upfluence vs. KOLSquare:

Upfluence offers agency support: for brands that are looking to outsource their influencer marketing efforts, Upfluence might be the right alternative. It offers to run your entire strategy and consult your team to get the most out of your creator collabs.
Upfluence has more ecommerce integrations: Upfluence goes beyond Shopify and supports WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, and more. KOLSquare is Shopify-only.
Upfluence only offers annual contracts: Upfluence ties you into a yearly contract, while KOLSquare offers monthly payment options. If you want to migrate to another tool mid-year, you can’t do that with Upfluence.

Price: Upfluence doesn’t share its price publicly. G2 estimates plans start at $478/month

4. Sprout Social

Best for: teams that want to manage social media and influencer marketing under one roof

What is it: Sprout Social was a social media management tool that acquired Tagger to add influencer marketing to its portfolio. You can purchase the two tools separately, but it’s an ideal choice if you want social media and influencer marketing under one tool.

Sprout Social vs. KOLSquare:

Sprout Social has amazing social media management tools: Sprout Social has excellent social media capabilities – from simple tasks like scheduling posts to measuring performance to running employee advocacy efforts. For brands that would prefer one tool to manage both social media and influencer marketing, Sprout Social is the perfect choice.
Sprout Social allows you to run paid ads within the tool: if you want to whitelist influencer content or repurpose it for advertisements, Sprout Social allows you to request usage rights and run influencer content as ads directly within the tool.
Sprout Social doesn’t offer ethical certification filters: KOLSquare offers filters like #InfluenceForGood and certifications that can help brands find creators who match those criteria. Some of these filters are specific to Europe only, though – like the ARPP Responsible Influence Certificate in France. Sprout Social doesn’t offer such a filter.

Price: Not publicly available

5. Traackr

Best for: global brands wanting unified creator performance data

What is it: Traackr is an influencer marketing tool that can help you discover creators, manage campaigns, and pay your influencer partners. Its strength lies in its support for combining data from across the globe into one tool – perfect for large brands spread across the world.

Traackr vs. KOLSquare:

Traackr can help coordinate your global team: Traackr centralizes data and creator performance across regions so your global team can work together in one dashboard. You can see top-performing creators on a local level and find what’s working in different regions.
Traackr allows you to manage paid campaigns: you can measure your influencer marketing and paid campaign efforts in Traackr. KOLSquare only allows measurement of your influencer marketing campaigns.
Traackr only has creators from 71 countries: KOLSquare has creators from over 180 countries. Traackr’s database is a bit limited in geographical diversity, with creators only from 71 countries present on the platform.

Price: Not publicly available, but according to the Wayback Machine, prices start at $32,500 per year

6. Captiv8

Best for: enterprise ecommerce brands on TikTok Shop

What is it: Captiv8 – like KOLSquare – is a complete influencer marketing solution that can help you find, vet, and pay creators. What sets it apart is its integration with TikTok Shop.

Captiv8 vs. KOLSquare:

Captiv8 integrates with TikTok Shop: you can use Captiv8 to manage your affiliate collabs on TikTok Shop. You can also run paid ads – like Spark ads – on TikTok using Captiv8. KOLSquare doesn’t integrate with TikTok Shop.
Captiv8 has more creators and ecommerce integrations: Captiv8 has 14 million influencers in its database – slightly more than KOLSquare. It also integrates with Adobe Commerce, WooCommerce, and Refersion in addition to Shopify.
Capitv8 doesn’t have social listening features: KOLSquare offers social listening features to help you benchmark your performance against competitors. Captiv8 doesn’t offer this feature.

Price: Not publicly available

7. GRIN

Best for: brands looking for AI copilot-assisted influencer marketing

What is it: Grin is an influencer marketing tool leaning hard on its agentic AI assistant, Gia – it can help you find affiliates, vet them, manage outreach, and everything else. Apart from the AI agent, Grin also checks all the other basic boxes of searching for influencers, tracking creator content, paying them, running product seeding campaigns, etc.

GRIN vs. KOLSquare:

Grin has Gia, an agentic AI assistant: using Gia, you can run your affiliate campaigns on autopilot – the tool can help you find relevant influencers, draft emails, and suggest changes to your affiliate tiers based on creator performance. KOLSquare has AI-powered features, but there are no AI agents.
Grin has a larger influencer database: Grin has a database of 190M creators – which is much more than KOLSquare’s 5M. While Grin might be sufficient in the beginning, you might outgrow it as you try to find unconventional creators.
Grin only has influencers from Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube: Grin’s creator database is limited by channels compared to KOLSquare. In addition to Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, KOLSquare also has creators from Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and Snapchat.

Price: Grin has a free trial for 30 days. Paid plans begin at $399/month

8. Heepsy

Best for: small businesses looking to experiment with influencer marketing

What is it: Heepsy is the perfect choice for small businesses that are either looking to kickstart their influencer marketing efforts or upgrade from spreadsheets without committing too much money to an influencer marketing platform right away.

Heepsy vs. KOLSquare:

Heepsy has a larger influencer database: Heepsy, like KOLSquare, contains influencers with 5k+ followers. But it has a larger database of 11 million creators. Neither of these tools will suffice for your creator search in the long term, though. You’ll have to add an influencer search tool into your tech stack sooner or later.
Heepsy is much more affordable and has a self-serve option: Heepsy has a free plan and its paid plans are much more accessible financially for small businesses. KOLSquare doesn’t have a free trial and its pricing can be prohibitive for small businesses.
Heepsy only has creators from Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube: Heepsy limits its database to these three social channels, while KOLSquare also has creators from Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and Snapchat.

Price: free plan available. Paid plans begin at $89/month

9. Meltwater

Best for: enterprise brands looking to combine PR efforts with influencer marketing

What is it: Meltwater acquired Klear in 2021 to add a strong influencer marketing tool to its existing suite of PR, consumer intelligence, and social listening tools. The tool is a perfect fit for large brands looking to combine their public relations efforts with influencer marketing under one software.

Meltwater vs. KOLSquare:

Meltwater does much more than just influencer marketing: using Meltwater, you can see what people are saying about your brand on the web, monitor keywords across 15 social media channels, and even analyze how AI tools represent your brand. KOLSquare only offers influencer marketing features.
Meltwater has more creators in its database: Meltwater has 30 million creators in its database. While that is no way sufficient for small or large brands in the long-term, it’s more than what KOLSquare offers.
Meltwater (usually) only signs annual contracts: Meltwater has a minimum contract length of 12 months, while KOLSquare offers monthly payment options.

Price: Not publicly available

10. HypeAuditor

Best for: brands that need to partner with Twitch influencers

What is it: HypeAuditor is another all-in-one influencer marketing solution to discover creators, analyze their profiles, and manage campaigns. Its standout feature is that its influencer database also contains Twitch creators.

HypeAuditor vs. KOLSquare:

HypeAuditor has a much larger creator database, including Twitch influencers: HypeAuditor has over 219.1M+ creators in its database, which is much more than KOLSquare (and still much less than Modash 😉). You can also find Twitch influencers in HypeAuditor’s database.
HypeAuditor integrates with more ecommerce platforms: HypeAuditor also integrates with WooCommerce and Magento in addition to Shopify. KOLSquare is Shopify-only.
HypeAuditor doesn’t conduct a sentiment analysis: HypeAuditor has a social listening feature to keep track of customer sentiment, but KOLSquare takes it one step further: it analyzes the comments under your influencer’s post as positive/negative/neutral. Using this feature, you can track how customers felt about a creator’s post and your overall campaign.

Price: Not publicly available, but Capterra puts it at $399/month

Which is the best KOLSquare alternative for you?

All of the tools on this list make for excellent alternatives to KOLSquare. But which one is right for you? It depends (sorry). Evaluate your needs and budget today, and choose a tool that can meet those needs today and also scale with you as your influencer program grows.

If you’re looking for a tool that can help you manage social media and influencer marketing in one tab, go with Sprout Social
If you want a consumer intelligence and PR tool in addition to an influencer marketing software, choose Meltwater
If you require agency support along with an influencer marketing tool, Upfluence is the right choice

For Shopify brands, Modash is the best alternative. It has a much larger influencer database (so you never have to hunt for another influencer search tool), deeply integrates with your Shopify store, and helps you manage all your influencer campaigns from start to finish.

Don’t believe me? Take Modash for a spin at no cost for 14 days. No credit card required.

 
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