Last Updated: June 11th, 2024
What Is IZEA?
As one of the first influencer marketing platforms on the internet, IZEA calls itself a powerhouse for influencer marketing. This platform connects brands with influencers and creators in different niches for social media marketing efforts.
They claim that IZEA has more than 650,000 influencers and creators for brand collaborations. You can find a range of content creators on social media platforms including Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, Pinterest, etc. on IZEA.
Moreover, the platform tries to provide its users with blog writers who can help brands with their blog marketing.
Although IZEA has its pros such as a large pool of creators across major social media platforms, it also has its cons. So, in this IZEA review, we’ll be examining all aspects of this influencer marketplace including IZEA features, pros, cons, pricing, and customer reviews.
Plus, we’ll introduce the best IZEA alternatives in case you find them not suitable for your brand. One of the best free alternatives you can try is Ainfluencer, which has a database of more than 500,000 on Instagram and TikTok, as well as advanced search filters for better finding the right influencers.
IZEA Review in 2024: Pricing & Features + Best Alternatives
In 2006, IZEA started its work as one of the first steps in influencer marketing under a different name ‘PayPerPost’. This platform connected bloggers to brands that want their names to appear on search results.
Today, with the rise of social media platforms, IZEA’s main focus is on major social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, Snapchat, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. It helps brands and content creators find and negotiate the terms for influencer marketing collaborations.
Other than that, you can set up and launch influencer-based campaigns in the app. So, why not explore the IZEA influencer tool and see how it works for you? In this review, we are going to check IZEA’s features and pricing together, read customers’ reviews, and introduce you to a better alternative.
IZEA Features
Let’s start with IZEA features and check what it offers.
1. Influencer Marketplace
As we previously mentioned, IZEA’s main purpose and feature is to be a middleman between the brands and creators. On the platform’s dashboard, you can search and find influencers based on different criteria.
After finding your desired influencers, you can read a description of the influencer’s background, social media platforms, expertise, and the kind of content they can provide.
You can also find some general information about the influencer’s social media accounts such as their followers, engagement rate, and average engagement per post. Moreover, you can see how much the influencer charges for marketing collaboration and how long it would take for them to deliver your wishes.
Moreover, you can message the influencer and ask them your questions or negotiate the terms before starting the collaboration.
2. Search Filters
Before finding an influencer you need to use IZEA’s search tool to find them. On their search tool, you can filter influencers based on:
- Follower count,
- Engagement rate
- Location,
- Age,
- Language,
- Demographics,
- Tags and categories,
- Ethnicity,
One of the best features of IZEA is its advanced search filters that can help you find the right influencers. However, you should know that influencers in this marketplace are categorized in only six different niches which are too broad.
For a precise and more efficient search, the categories need to be broken down into smaller subcategories so businesses can find the right influencers for collaboration. However, there are only six categories available which include: lifestyle, fashion, beauty, entertainment, family, and travel.
3. Managed Services
If you don’t have much time to manage your social media accounts and run campaigns, IZEA managed service is what can help you. This plan connects you to a dedicated account manager who will help you with running your campaigns, planning a winning growth strategy, and everything that can help your business grow.
4. IZEA Flex
If you want all the creator marketplace features plus some advanced tools to monitor the latest trends in your niche and check how your competitors are performing, IZEA Flex is what you need. This feature provides all the tools to find and collaborate with influencers as well as:
- Link tracking tools to measure the success of your campaigns,
- Trend discover tools,
- ContentMine with the help of AI helps content creation much easier,
- And many other tools for signing contracts, scheduling your social media content, analyzing your performance, etc.
IZEA Pricing
Based on your needs, you can try IZEA Flex or IZEA Managed Services. If you only like finding creators in your niche and collaboration match, the IZEA Flex plan is better for you, and here is how much they cost.
IZEA Flex Pricing
For those needing campaign management tools, automation, AI content creation, and analytic tools, IZEA flex plans suit you more. After signing up you have a 10-day free trial and after that prices start at $130 per month. Here is how much IZEA Flex costs:
- Starter Plan: $165/month
- 1 user seat, 1 integration (Shopify or Google Analytics), 50 tracking links/month, 250 content pieces/month, 3 active share monitors, and Up to 1,000 Contacts.
- Power Plan: $600/month
- 3+ user seats, unlimited integrations, campaigns, tracking links, content pieces, active share monitors, and contacts.
IZEA Managed Services Plan
Since Managed Service is an all-in-one package, the pricing is too expensive for most businesses. IZEA doesn’t clearly state how much it’s going to cost, but the plan starts at $100K.
You need to schedule a meeting with IZEA team If you like to know how much it’s going to cost. However, you better know that it’s not going to be cost-effective for most businesses.
But don’t worry because at the beginning we mentioned that there are IZEA alternatives that are both free and easy to use. Ainfluencer is a DIY influencer marketing platform that helps you find, negotiate, and collaborate with influencers in your niche with a few clicks.
IZEA Creator Marketplace
The marketplace is also available for content creators so they can find and collaborate with brands. However, their free plan is the most basic and if you are serious about being a content creator IZEA is not going to be free for you. Here is how much IZEA costs for influencers and creators:
- Free Plan: Gives creators, brands, and marketers the basics for transacting in the marketplace.
- Creator Pro: $9 per month
- Creator AI: $23 per month.
- Creator AI+: $47 per month.
- Marketer Pro: $129 per month.
What Real Users Say About IZEA
One of the best ways to find out if IZEA is legit and how it claims is by reading customers’ reviews. Let’s see what people say about IZEA on their online reviews:
According to customer reviews, working with the campaign management tool takes work, especially if you want to run multiple campaigns.
Another problem with IZEA is that there are many spam accounts signed up as influencers. So you might get scammed after paying them. For example, look at this review which also mentions the influencers’ profiles are mostly spammy.
Ainfluncer: Best Alternative for IZEA
One of the main problems with IZEA is that there are only six categories of creators. So if you are looking for fitness influencers, art influencers, etc, you can’t find anything. That’s why we want to introduce you to a better alternative that is completely free.
Ainfluencer is a 100% free end-to-end influencer marketing platform focused on Instagram and TikTok. In the marketplace, brands can discover influencers by niche, country, gender, audience language, hashtags, and many other criteria to invite for collaborations. No matter what niche and industry you are in, you can find the right creators on Ainfluencer for your marketing campaigns.
As we are writing this article, Ainfluencer has a list of over 500,000 influencers on TikTok and Instagram. Influencers with followers ranging from 5000 to 10 million are collaborating with brands in different niches on the platform. So if you are looking for influencers across various niches, sign up on Ainfluencer for free now.
Ainfluencer Features
- Smart Filters: Brands can narrow down their search for influencers using a great set of filters such as the size of influencers, their platform, gender, country, and more than 20 criteria.
- Influencer Invits: Brands can send invitations to all influencers for free. You have no limit in terms of discovering and evaluating the influencers in your niche and sending invites.
- Chat: Both brands and Influencers sides can use the built-in chat Inbox within the marketplace to receive offers, negotiate them, make payments, and discuss any matters around their collaborations.
- Campaigns: Brands can create a campaign in a few simple steps and launch their presence and quest for influencers and their criteria in the Ainfluencer marketplace.
Other IZEA Alternatives
Although we believe Ainfluencer is the best alternative for IZEA, it’s not the only alternative. You can also consider Geen, Influence.co, and Upfluencer as your other choices for influencer marketing. Let’s discuss each one of them briefly:
1. Grin
Since 2014 Grin has started its platform for influencer marketing. They try to provide their user with features for content management, creator search, and relationship management.
One thing that users find frustrating about Grin is that the platform is not transparent about the prices of their packages. You need to book a meeting with their sales team and provide them with your marketing plans to know how much it’s going to cost.
So, if you are a small- to mid-size business or at the trial-and-error stage, Grin may not be the best option for you.
2. Influence.co
Another alternative for IZEA with similar features is Influence.co. The platform also tries to connect brands with verified influencers and provide its users with influencer discovery tools as well as campaign management features.
Although Influence.co also has a free plan we can’t consider it a free influencer marketplace like Ainfluencer because the free plan is so limited that you can’t get anything useful out of it which leaves you with no choice but to subscribe to their premium plans that start at $600.
3. Upfluence
Upfluence is also a great alternative for IZEA if you are a large company with no budget limit. They offer you customizable packages based on your requirements for the campaign.
They also have advanced search filters which makes finding the influencers much simpler. And there is an AI mailing assistant on Upfluence that can make hiring influencers easier.
However, the bad news is they don’t offer any free trial so you can analyze the return on investment. And their contracts are not as transparent as they might claim so you may need to pay for their services more than you intended.
According to customers’ reviews of Upfluence, this has happened several times before.
Conclusion
Finding influencers to collaborate with is not difficult anymore; Influencer marketing platforms such as IZEA made it easy to find creators in your niche using targeting filters. However, it comes with some cons such as high pricing, spam accounts, etc.
In this article, we took a look at IZEA features, pricing, and reviews. After that, we introduced you to a better alternative, Influencer. With Ainfluencer you can find your best influencer match for free and run multiple campaigns.
FAQs
IZEA is a marketing technology company that provides professional services and tools to help brands and businesses find and collaborate with influencers and run social media campaigns. Also, you can automate your social media accounts, monitor your competitors, and access deep analytics.
This platform provides two different services, IZEA and IZEA Flex. The IZEA service costs from $9 to $129 per month while the Flext services are priced at $150 to $600 per month. There is also a free tool that allows you to search for creators and view their profiles.
Ted Murphy is a serial entrepreneur who has founded six companies since 1994 and is the Founder, CEO, and Chairman of IZEA.
If you want to use the IZEA marketplace to connect with your niche influencers, the app itself is completely safe and secure. However, you need to be careful about spammers and check creators’ profiles before any payments.
