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What should you actually use?

There are five realistic ways to run creator marketing, and the right one depends almost entirely on your team size and whether you want to own the work. Here is what each is genuinely best at, and where each one breaks.

At a glance

Creator marketing options compared across cost, setup time, and ownership
	Spreadsheet	Enterprise	Marketplace	Agency	Distinct
Cost	Free	$$$$	Commission	Retainer + %	Free in beta
Time to set up	Minutes	Weeks	Days	Weeks	Minutes
Built for teams of 1 to 5
Live budget tracking
You own the creator relationship
Roster carries between campaigns
Someone else does the work

The five options in full

Spreadsheets and DMs

Free

Best for: One person running a handful of creator deals a quarter, where the whole operation genuinely fits in one head.

Strengths

Free, instant, and infinitely flexible.
No procurement, no onboarding, no vendor.
Everyone already knows how to use one.

Where it breaks

Budget arithmetic drifts the moment two people edit, and nobody notices until a creator is paid twice.
Deadlines live in your memory rather than the system, so follow-ups slip.
Results have to be rebuilt by hand from screenshots for every report.
Nothing carries over between campaigns, so each one starts from zero.

Enterprise influencer platforms

$$$$, usually annual contracts

Best for: Large teams running hundreds of creators across markets, where procurement, compliance, and a dedicated account manager are requirements rather than overhead.

Strengths

Deep creator databases with audience data at scale.
Workflow, approvals, and permissions built for large teams.
Contracted support and service levels.

Where it breaks

Pricing and annual commitments put them out of reach for small teams.
Onboarding is measured in weeks, and someone has to own the tool.
Most of the surface area goes unused by a team of one to five.

Creator marketplaces

Free to join, commission per deal

Best for: Filling a specific brief quickly with creators who have already opted in, particularly for UGC where reach is not what you are buying.

Strengths

Fast to a shortlist, because supply is already there and looking for work.
Payments and contracts are usually handled for you.
Little commitment: you can run one campaign and stop.

Where it breaks

You reach creators who joined that marketplace, not the ones you actually want.
Commission is charged on every deal, permanently.
The relationship belongs to the marketplace, so the roster you build is not yours.

Agencies

Retainer plus a percentage of spend

Best for: Brands with budget but no in-house time or expertise, or a one-off launch that needs to work without building a capability first.

Strengths

You buy experience and existing creator relationships immediately.
Someone else does the outreach, negotiation, and reporting.
Useful for entering a market you know nothing about.

Where it breaks

The most expensive option per campaign once you include the fee on spend.
The relationships and the institutional knowledge stay with the agency.
You are one client among many, which shows in response times.

A purpose-built workspace like Distinct

Free during the private beta

Best for: An in-house team of roughly one to five people who want to own the work and the roster, and have outgrown a spreadsheet.

Strengths

Roster, campaigns, budgets, deliverables, and reporting in one place, so the numbers agree with each other.
The roster is yours and compounds: what each creator was paid and how they performed carries into the next campaign.
Set up in minutes rather than weeks, with no procurement.

Where it breaks

Currently in private beta, so features are still moving and there is no service level agreement.
It does not run campaigns for you the way an agency does.
Beta platform coverage for automatic metrics is Instagram and X only.

When Distinct is the wrong choice

You run two or three creator deals a year. A spreadsheet is genuinely fine, and adding a tool will not make it better.
You need someone to run the campaigns for you. That is an agency, not software.
You are managing hundreds of creators across many markets with procurement and compliance requirements. An enterprise platform is built for that and we are not.
You need automatic metrics from YouTube, TikTok, or LinkedIn today. The beta covers Instagram and X only.
You need a contractual service level agreement. We are in private beta and do not offer one.

Common questions

What is the best influencer marketing tool for a small team?: For a team of one to five running campaigns in-house, a purpose-built workspace is usually the right fit: enterprise platforms are priced and scoped for far larger teams, and marketplaces take a commission on every deal while keeping the creator relationship. A spreadsheet remains a reasonable answer below roughly five campaigns a year.
Is an agency or an in-house tool better for creator marketing?: An agency buys you experience and relationships immediately, which is worth it if you have budget and no in-house time. Running it in-house with a tool costs less per campaign and builds a roster that stays yours, but only pays off if someone actually owns the work.
When should you stop using a spreadsheet for influencer marketing?: The usual signals are: budgets in two places that disagree, a follow-up missed because the reminder was in someone's head, and rebuilding the same report by hand every month. Any one of those means the spreadsheet is now costing more than it saves.
Do creator marketplaces cost more than a platform?: Over time, usually yes. A commission on every deal continues for as long as you use the marketplace, whereas a tool has a flat cost. The larger difference is that a marketplace keeps the creator relationship, so you are not building an asset.

If a workspace is the right answer

See Distinct for brands, or read the guide to running a first campaign before you pick anything.