Pricing chaos in creator marketing: half of brands don't know what they're paying

According to a survey of 1,000 marketing and procurement leaders by agency Billion Dollar Boy, half of brands misjudge how much it costs to work with creators — social media influencers and video bloggers — and 40% admit they've overpaid. Daniel Wiley, head of influencer marketing agency Sway, says that in practice, brands overpay in 90% of cases.

The root of the problem is a lack of market transparency. James Nord, founder of the platform Fohr, describes it this way: "Imagine a real estate market where you could never find out what the house down the street actually sold for. It's the same here — prices never come down, there's no central clearing house, no transparency, and that creates an information asymmetry." Harley Bloch, head of brand strategy firm IF7, bluntly calls it a market that's "gotten out of control."

Jamie Gutfreund, founder of consulting firm Creator Vision, notes that this data fragmentation isn't accidental — it hands agencies more leverage: "Brands have no historical baseline to compare against, so they can't forecast anything." While the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) has introduced terminology and classifications for the creator economy, no official pricing guidance yet exists.

Efforts to close that gap are already underway: Thomas Walters, head of innovation at Billion Dollar Boy, says the company has rolled out a new pricing feature on its Companion platform. He notes there's anxiety on both sides of the negotiating table — creators' agents may lowball offers, while brands may simply lack experience negotiating in this market. That underscores why any brand planning to work with influencers increasingly needs to set a clear budget and benchmarks upfront.