“We use one tool for UGC, another for affiliates and a third for ads.”
UGC platforms charge in four shapes: a subscription with creator payments on top, a percent of each creator payment, a percent of money moved with no subscription, or a per-video bundle with everything inside the price. Which is cheapest depends on how much you pay creators each month, and the fee is only half the comparison. The other half is what the platform does with the money: whether it holds funds, pays out in the creator’s country, counts commission from your store or ad account, and keeps the rights with the video. Every figure below is from the platform’s own page, with the date it was checked.
Why the fee is hard to compare
Three tools means three fees in three shapes. The UGC marketplace charges a subscription plus a percent on each hire. The affiliate tool charges a percent of sales. The ad account charges nothing for creators because it does not pay them. Nobody adds them up, and when a brand does, the number is usually higher than any single platform’s fee. Comparing one platform’s fee to another’s is only meaningful once each covers the same work.
The four pricing models
| Model | How it works | Cheapest when |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription, creator pay separate | A monthly price for the software; you pay creators on top | Creator payments are large relative to the subscription |
| Marketplace fee | A percent added to each creator payment, usually on top of a subscription | Rarely the cheapest; the simplest to understand |
| Percent of money moved | No subscription; a percent of each payout, sometimes a different percent by pay model | Creator payments are small or irregular |
| Per-video bundle | One price per video that includes the creator fee and the platform’s cut | You want a fixed cost per video and no roster to manage |
What the platforms publish
Checked 7 November 2026 unless dated otherwise. “They say” figures are the platform’s own.
| Platform | Model | Published fees |
|---|---|---|
| Trybe | Percent of money moved | 1.5 % of attributed sales; 1.25 % of ad spend; 1.5 % of flat creator payments; never stacked; no subscription |
| Sideshift | Subscription | $299, $499 and $999 a month, or $210, $349 and $699 billed annually; 600, 2,000 and unlimited tracked videos; creator payments billed separately; 14-day trial |
| Collabstr | Marketplace fee plus optional subscription | 10 % brand fee on each hire on the no-subscription tier and Pro, 5 % on Premium; Pro $249 a month billed annually, Premium $333, Enterprise $1,000; creators pay 15 % on payouts |
| Influee | Subscription plus marketplace fee | $229, $529 and $999 a month for 10, 25 and 50 collaborations; 10 % marketplace fee on every creator payment ($100 to the creator is billed as $110); no trial; subscription refunded if no collaboration starts |
| Insense | Subscription plus marketplace fee | Trial $650 for one month at 20 %; Brand from $500 a month ($400 billed yearly) at 10 %; Agency from $800 ($640 yearly) at 7 %; the trial converts to Brand unless cancelled 48 hours before |
| GRIN | Subscription plus a fee on deposits | $0, $200, $500 and $1,500 a month; a management fee of 20, 10, 7 and 5 % added when you fund the wallet; creator fees held in escrow and paid through Stripe |
| viral.app | Subscription plus percent of payouts | 3 % payout management fee; software at $99, $299 and $499 a month; full service from $20,000 a month |
| Content Rewards (Whop) | Percent of approved work | 10 % brand fee on work you approve, 8 % for verified brands; $1,000 campaign minimum; no subscription. A third-party guide reports a 10 % fee on the creator side for CPM payouts (Clipspeed, 13 September 2026); Whop’s brand docs are behind a login |
| Billo | Per-video bundle | Videos from $99 including the creator fee, basic editing and platform fees; prepaid packs of $1,000, $2,500 and $5,000 with 12-month validity; optional subscriptions at $149 and $2,000 a month |
| Socialync, as published in its own article | Percent of money moved | 5 % on organic deals; 1.5 % of sales and 1.25 % of ad spend on performance deals (Socialync, 29 October 2026) |
| Shopify Collabs | Percent of commission paid | 2.9 % processing fee on each automatic commission payment; sales commissions only |
HourlyUGC‘s pricing is on https://hourlyugc.com/pricing; no figure is copied here so this page does not go stale against it.
Example: the same month on five fee shapes
Example. A brand pays creators $5,000 in a month: $3,000 in per-video fees and $2,000 in commission on sales. Platform cost only, creator payments excluded, using the published figures above.
| Platform and shape | Working | Platform cost |
|---|---|---|
| Trybe, percent of money moved | 1.5 % of $3,000 flat + 1.5 % of $2,000 sales | $75 |
| viral.app, 3 % plus the $99 plan | $150 + $99 | $249 |
| Sideshift, $299 subscription | Creator payments separate; the model is per view rather than per video, so the $5,000 would be shaped differently | $299 |
| Collabstr, 10 % hiring fee, no subscription | 10 % of $5,000 (the sales commission would run outside Collabstr) | $500 |
| Influee, $229 plan plus 10 % | $229 + $500 | $729 |
| Insense, Brand at $500 plus 10 % | $500 + $500 | $1,000 |
At $5,000 a month the percent-of-money-moved shape wins by a wide margin. At $50,000 a month the same working gives Trybe $750 and Sideshift still $299, and the subscription wins. The crossover is the only number that matters for your budget, and you can compute it from the table in a minute.
The table also shows what each fee buys. Collabstr’s 10 % pays for a marketplace of creators and escrow until approval, but not for counting sales commission. Trybe’s 1.5 % pays for attribution and payouts on performance deals. Sideshift’s subscription pays for view tracking on creator posts. The right question is which of those jobs you need done.
What to check before comparing fees
- Which pay models the fee covers. Per video, hourly, commission on sales, commission on ad spend, per view, samples. A platform that covers two of the six leaves you with the other tools.
- Who pays the fee. Brand side, creator side, or both. A creator-side fee lowers what creators net and raises what they ask.
- When the fee is charged. On deposit (GRIN), on hire (Collabstr), on approval (Content Rewards), on payout (Trybe, viral.app).
- What is held and when it is released. Escrow until approval is standard on marketplaces; funds held at the offer and released on completion is the hourly equivalent.
- Payout countries and methods for your roster.
- Trial terms. Insense’s trial converts to a paid plan unless cancelled 48 hours before; Influee has no trial but refunds the subscription if no collaboration starts.
How HourlyUGC does it
On HourlyUGC you can pay the creator by the hour, the video, the order, the ad dollar or the thousand views, and one campaign can carry all of them, so the fee comparison is against three tools, not one:
- Hourly, per video, commission on sales, commission on ad spend, CPM and samples, in any mix, with the terms frozen per video at upload.
- Funds held where the model needs it: at the offer for hourly, in a funded pool for per video, released on approval or when the session is marked done.
- Commission counted inside the campaign: sales by Meta or by HourlyUGC through a connected Shopify store or the Hourly Pixel, last touch within 7 days, with creator links and codes; ad spend read per ad on ads built through Build Ads.
- One statement per creator across every model, with upcoming charges shown by video and by creator before they are taken.
- Rights with the video in the Library.
Pricing is on https://hourlyugc.com/pricing.
Proof
ALLSALE, Head of Growth, on replacing the three tools with HourlyUGC: “The rights are ours the moment payment clears. Everything sits in one place, so the team stopped chasing invoices and files.”
Next step
Add up what you pay today across the UGC marketplace, the affiliate tool and the transfers, then start a campaign on HourlyUGC with the same creators and one statement. Pricing is on https://hourlyugc.com/pricing.