Compared on public facts

GRIN vs JoinBrands

Updated Nov 7, 2026

HourlyUGC is our product. Every fact links to its source. Methodology.

GRIN and JoinBrands both list pay per video, commission on sales and product seeding. JoinBrands lists hourly sessions, retainers, bonuses and ads launched from the platform, which GRIN does not list publicly.

9 facts known on both sides. "Not listed publicly" means we did not find it on their public pages on Nov 7, 2026; it does not mean they lack it.

Why brands pick HourlyUGC over GRIN and JoinBrands

HourlyUGC lists 7 ways to pay creators on its public pages: hourly sessions, pay per video, commission on sales, flat amount per order, share of ad spend, pay per 1,000 views and product seeding. A brand can combine them in one campaign. 1 2 3
GRIN lists pay per video, commission on sales and product seeding publicly. HourlyUGC also lists hourly sessions, flat amount per order, share of ad spend and pay per 1,000 views, which GRIN does not list publicly (checked Nov 7, 2026; not listing is not the same as not offering). 1 2 3
JoinBrands lists hourly sessions, pay per video, commission on sales, retainers, bonuses and product seeding publicly. HourlyUGC also lists flat amount per order, share of ad spend and pay per 1,000 views, which JoinBrands does not list publicly (checked Nov 7, 2026; not listing is not the same as not offering). JoinBrands lists retainers and bonuses, which HourlyUGC does not list publicly. 1 2 3
Meta Partnership Ads with the creators' videos, launched from inside HourlyUGC: the ad goes out from the creator's handle with the brand's budget. GRIN does not list this publicly. 1 2
Who counts the sale: Counted either by the ad platform (Meta) or by HourlyUGC: a connected Shopify store or the Hourly Pixel, last touch within 7 days, with creator links and codes. 1 2 3

Start a campaign on HourlyUGCFacts checked Nov 7, 2026. HourlyUGC is held to the same sourcing rule as every other platform here.

Which pay models each one lists

Side by side

Pay model	GRIN	JoinBrands
Hourly sessions	Not listed publicly	Time-based pay exists only for TikTok Shop Lives, priced at $1 per minute of livestream. Not hourly UGC sessions. 1
Pay per video	Paid and UGC programs with a flat creator fee set per program, marked fixed or negotiable; terms lock at acceptance. Per-video pricing is not itemised publicly. 1	Fixed per-content prices: UGC videos, TikTok, TikTok Shop, Amazon, Shorts and Reels videos from $25 each, images from $10, with unlimited usage rights. Creator side: $60+ per video, $100+ per social post, $15+ per image; content deals $25-600+ per video. 1 2
Commission on sales	Affiliate programs with links, codes and commissions; commissions are paid from the brand's funded wallet and tracked in a commissions ledger. 1 2	TikTok Shop affiliate commission of 15-30 % of sales from the creator's TikTok Shop content, paid monthly to the creator's wallet for as long as the video is live. 1
Flat amount per order	Not listed publicly	Not listed publicly
Share of ad spend	Not listed publicly	Not listed publicly
Pay per 1,000 views	Not listed publicly	Not listed publicly
Retainers	Not listed publicly	Monthly retainer campaigns: $100-500+ per month for a quota of 10-30 pieces (creator page); available to Level 2 creators and above. 1 2
Bonuses	Not listed publicly	Performance-based bonuses set inside campaigns, plus tips from brands; the 20 % creator fee applies to performance bonuses but not tips. 1 2
Product seeding	Gifting and seeding programs on every plan, with monthly gift limits by plan; a gift counts when its $0 order or shipment is created in GRIN. Gifting-only campaigns need no wallet deposit. 1 2	Product sampling, gifting and seeding campaigns; products are shipped by the brand or bought by the creator and reimbursed, and the creator keeps them. 1 2
Ads launched from the platform	Not listed publicly	TikTok Boost: brands boost any TikTok post their creators publish from the JoinBrands dashboard, content library or Ad Center through a built-in TikTok integration, minimum $20 per day plus a platform fee, maximum $1,000 per day. Spark Ads proper are launched in TikTok Ads Manager with the Spark code JoinBrands collects. Meta is covered only by an Instagram partnership ad code. 1 2
Money and tracking	GRIN	JoinBrands
How sales are attributed	Affiliate links and discount codes. Shopify connects in one click; custom or headless stores send signed order webhooks through the API naming the creator who drove each sale, on every plan including Free. No attribution window is published. 1	TikTok Shop GMV tracked per creator through the TikTok Shop integration and TikTok Shop analytics; Spark codes are generated for every video. No link or code attribution for other stores is published; the Shopify integration imports products for sampling. 1 2
Platform fee	A management fee is added on top of every wallet deposit: 20 % on Free, 10 % on Starter, 7 % on Growth, 5 % on Scale, custom on Enterprise. Charged at funding; not refunded if unspent funds are withdrawn. Card deposits may carry a processing fee; ACH is the lowest-cost option. GRIN says it takes nothing from what creators earn. 1	Brand side: a platform fee added to each creator payment, 15 % on Free, 12 % on Start-up, 10 % on Pro, 8 % on Max. Creator side: a 20 % platform fee on job earnings and performance bonuses (15 % with Creator PRO), none on express jobs, tips or product reimbursements. 1 2
Brand pricing	Free $0/month (2 live campaigns, 10 gifts in total, 20 % fee); Starter $200/month (10 % fee, 100 gifts/month, 30-day free trial); Growth $500/month (7 %, 300 gifts/month, multiple brands); Scale $1,500/month (5 %, 1,000 gifts/month); Enterprise custom with annual agreement. Prices monthly in USD. Paid and affiliate campaigns need at least $250 in the wallet before going live. 1	Free $0 pay-as-you-go (15 % fee, no trial); Start-up $99/month (12 %, $30 roll-over cash); Pro $299/month (10 %, $90); Max $499/month (8 %, $150, agency features); annual billing 10 % off. Content on every plan: UGC images $10+, videos $25+ (UGC, TikTok, TikTok Shop, Amazon, YouTube, Reels), TikTok Shop Lives $1/min, AI videos $5. Roll-over cash is lost on cancellation. 1
Creator payout	Creator fees are held in escrow in the brand's wallet until payout. The pricing page says payouts go through Stripe with tax handling; the help center article for non-U.S. creators (6 Aug 2026) says payments are sent as a bank transfer processed through Trolley after a W-8BEN is on file, with 24 % withholding without a verified foreign tax ID. Unclaimed payments expire after 30 days and return to the brand's creator fund. No payout schedule is published. 1 2	Brands fund jobs upfront in escrow; payment is released to the creator's JoinBrands wallet when the brand approves the content. PayPal is the only payout method; withdrawals once a week on standard accounts and up to 7 business days to process. TikTok Shop commissions are paid monthly to the wallet. 1 2
Regions	No country list is published. Prices are in USD; reporting and payouts are described as correct in any currency; non-U.S. creators are paid by bank transfer after a W-8BEN. 1 2	Creators: United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia and Canada, age 18+. Brand countries are not stated. 1 2
Scale they publish	They say: They say: $1.2B+ in creator-driven GMV, 5,000 brands since 2017, 700K+ creators supported, $215M+ earned by creators. 1	They say: They say, on the same home page, 'Trusted by 100,000+ brands' in the header and 'Trusted by 30K+ Brands' lower down, and '4 Million Creators'. The creator page says 20,000+ brands and agencies, 500K products sent and $10M paid out; the TikTok Shop affiliates page says $30M+ in flat fees, 3,000+ active brands and a 40K+ creator community. 1 2 3

What the facts say

Where they overlap

Pay per video
Commission on sales
Product seeding

GRIN lists, JoinBrands does not

Nothing in the models we track.

Checked Nov 7, 2026

JoinBrands lists, GRIN does not

Hourly sessions: Time-based pay exists only for TikTok Shop Lives, priced at $1 per minute of livestream. Not hourly UGC sessions.
Retainers: Monthly retainer campaigns: $100-500+ per month for a quota of 10-30 pieces (creator page); available to Level 2 creators and above.
Bonuses: Performance-based bonuses set inside campaigns, plus tips from brands; the 20 % creator fee applies to performance bonuses but not tips.
Ads launched from the platform: TikTok Boost: brands boost any TikTok post their creators publish from the JoinBrands dashboard, content library or Ad Center through a built-in TikTok integration, minimum $20 per day plus a platform fee, maximum $1,000 per day. Spark Ads proper are launched in TikTok Ads Manager with the Spark code JoinBrands collects. Meta is covered only by an Instagram partnership ad code.

Checked Nov 7, 2026

Which brand each one fits

From the models each lists, nothing else.

GRIN

brands that can attribute sales and want to pay on orders
brands that budget per approved video
brands that ship product to creators

JoinBrands

brands that can attribute sales and want to pay on orders
brands that want booked sessions ending in videos
brands that budget per approved video
brands that ship product to creators
brands running longer creator programs with retainers or bonuses

Questions people ask

What do GRIN and JoinBrands have in common?

Both list pay per video, commission on sales and product seeding on their public pages (checked Nov 7, 2026).

What does GRIN list that JoinBrands does not?

Nothing in the pay models we track. Every model GRIN lists, JoinBrands lists too.

What does JoinBrands list that GRIN does not?

JoinBrands lists hourly sessions, retainers, bonuses and ads launched from the platform. GRIN does not list them publicly.

Where do these facts come from?

From each platform's public pages, linked next to every fact with the date we checked. A fact without a public source is not shown.

Sources

Each fact above links to one of these. Checked Nov 7, 2026.

JoinBrands: JoinBrands pricing page · joinbrands.com, checked Nov 7, 2026 · “TikTok Shop Lives: $1/min”
GRIN: GRIN platform page · grin.co, checked Nov 7, 2026 · “When a program includes a paid fee, GRIN automatically requires the terms”
JoinBrands: JoinBrands creator page · joinbrands.com, checked Nov 7, 2026 · “Benefit from our fixed pricing policy.”
GRIN: GRIN home page · grin.co, checked Nov 7, 2026 · “Affiliate links, codes and commissions”
GRIN: GRIN pricing page · grin.co, checked Nov 7, 2026
JoinBrands: JoinBrands, TikTok Shop affiliates page · joinbrands.com, checked Nov 7, 2026 · “Earn a percentage of every sale your TikTok Shop content generates.”
JoinBrands: JoinBrands help center, retainer jobs · help.joinbrands.com, checked Nov 7, 2026
JoinBrands: JoinBrands home page · joinbrands.com, checked Nov 7, 2026 · “Set performance-based bonuses directly inside your campaigns.”
JoinBrands: JoinBrands help center, creator fees · help.joinbrands.com, checked Nov 7, 2026
JoinBrands: JoinBrands help center, TikTok Boost Ads · help.joinbrands.com, checked Nov 7, 2026 · “Boost any TikTok post your creators publish”
JoinBrands: JoinBrands help center, TikTok Spark Ads · help.joinbrands.com, checked Nov 7, 2026
JoinBrands: JoinBrands help center, TikTok and TikTok Shop analytics · help.joinbrands.com, checked Nov 7, 2026
GRIN: GRIN help center, setting up payouts as a non-U.S. resident · intercom.help, checked Aug 6, 2026 · “processed through Trolley”
JoinBrands: JoinBrands help center, when will I get paid · help.joinbrands.com, checked Nov 7, 2026 · “PayPal payouts can take up to 7 business days to process”
JoinBrands: JoinBrands help center, joining from a different country · help.joinbrands.com, checked Nov 7, 2026