Creator Account Setup
Sign up, link your social account, get verified, and activate your Ainfluencer profile so you can start applying to paid campaigns from brands.
Creators sign up on the Ainfluencer mobile app, download it from the App Store (iOS) or Google Play (Android), then:
- Tap Sign Up and enter your first name, last name, email, and a password.
- Open your inbox and enter the 5-digit verification code we send to confirm your email.
- On the Welcome screen, tap Get Started for Free.
- Pick your platform: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or any combination.
- Enter your exact public social handle (no “@”) and link it for verification.
That gets you in the door. The rest of activation is proving you own the account and your media-kit profile build, both covered in the next questions.
It depends on the platform, and only Instagram uses a code. Nothing goes in your bio. If you have read that somewhere, it describes a method we no longer use, and a code sitting in your bio will never be detected.
- Enter your username in the app. You are shown a code like ain-123456.
- Tap Open Instagram & Follow + DM, which copies the code and opens a message to @ainfluencer.official.
- Follow the account, then send the code as a message on its own, from the account you are connecting.
- Return to the app and tap Confirm you did it.
TikTok and YouTube
- Choose the platform and sign in with it: TikTok in the TikTok app, YouTube through Google in a browser window.
- Approve access. For YouTube, pick the channel if your Google account has more than one.
- That is the whole verification. There is no code to send.
If Instagram says the code could not be found, the cause is nearly always one of two things: the message went from a different profile than the one you typed, or you re-entered your username at some point, which generates a fresh code and kills the old one. Copy the code showing right now and send that.
Four gates, and creators usually only know about the first two:
| Step | What it means | Who decides |
|---|---|---|
| Verify your email | The code we email you at sign-up | Automatic |
| Connect a social account | DM for Instagram, sign-in for TikTok and YouTube | Automatic, or a reviewer if the check fails |
| Finish your media kit | The guided questions about your audience. Until this is done the account shows Draft | You |
| Pass quality review | The account shows Pending Admin Approval while it waits | A person on our team |
Only when the account reads Active can you make offers, and only then do brands see you.
If brands are not seeing you, check which of the four you are stuck on before assuming anything is broken. The status is on the account card on your Profile, and it is the quickest diagnosis there is.
Draft means the account is connected but your media kit is not finished. It is not a verification problem and nobody is reviewing you yet.
- Open Profile and find the account card.
- Tap Complete Profile.
- Answer the questions about your audience, your niche and your content.
- The account then moves to Pending Admin Approval, which is the queue for quality review.
Draft accounts cannot make offers and are not shown to brands, so an account left in Draft is invisible however good it is. This is the most common reason a creator says nothing is happening.
No, and there is nothing to keep. The code is sent once, as a direct message to @ainfluencer.official, and it does nothing after that. It never appears on your profile, brands never see it, and it has no effect on your account afterwards.
You may still see an old pop-up asking you not to remove the code from your Instagram bio. That text is left over from the retired method. Ignore it: there is no code in your bio to remove.
The figure that decides at review is 5,000. Accounts below it are usually rejected with the reason The account doesn’t meet the minimum required followers (5K).
This is by far the most common rejection on the platform: over the last three months it accounted for roughly four in ten of all verification rejections.
| Requirement | TikTok | YouTube | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Followers at review | About 5,000 | About 5,000 | About 5,000 |
| Account must be public | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Authentic audience | Yes. Bought followers are a separate and worse problem | Yes | Yes |
If you are close to 5,000, wait rather than apply. Rejections accumulate: after five rejected requests you cannot submit again for seven days, so a few hopeful attempts can lock you out for a week.
It is at a reviewer’s discretion rather than a rule you can rely on. The account is judged by a person, so a genuinely strong smaller account can pass, but the 5K line is what most rejections cite and you should plan around it.
What helps, if you are submitting under it:
- A public account with real, recent posting activity.
- Engagement that is visibly genuine, with comments from real people.
- A finished media kit. An incomplete profile gives a reviewer nothing to weigh against the follower count.
- A clear, single niche. A reviewer can place you, and brands can too.
What does not help is buying followers to cross the line. It is visible at review, it is rejected under Violating guidelines, and that is much harder to recover from than being told to come back larger.
The system didn’t match the exact handle you entered to a public public account. Common causes and quick fixes:
- You typed “@” in front of your handle, remove it.
- A typo, extra character, or trailing space, re-enter your exact handle.
- Your profile is private. Switch it to public in your Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube settings.
- The username actually doesn’t exist or was renamed since you linked it.
Correct the issue, then tap Add Account again. Most “incorrect username” errors clear up in seconds once the right exact handle is entered against a public profile.
Each message points at a different fix:
| What you see | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| This Instagram account has already been added by another Ainfluencer user | The handle is connected to a different login, often an older one of yours | Email support with both email addresses and the username. Accounts are never moved without a check |
| The account must be public | Exactly that | Switch it to public and try again |
| We couldn’t find your verification code | The DM did not arrive, came from another profile, or used an old code | Send the current code, as its own message, from the right account |
| You currently have a pending request | A review is already in progress | Wait. A second request is refused and does not speed anything up |
| Five verification requests have previously been submitted | You are locked out for seven days | Fix the reasons given before the lockout ends, then submit once |
Type the username without the @, with no trailing space. A surprising share of invalid username or account rejections, the single most common rejection reason of all, are nothing more than that.
No. Everything on the creator side happens in the mobile app. Signing in to the website as a creator sends you to a page asking you to download it, and there is no way around that.
The split is deliberate: brands work on the web, creators work in the app.
This is the most common reason a new creator thinks the platform is broken. If you are seeing brand screens, campaign creation, or a download prompt you did not expect, you are signed in on the wrong side rather than hitting a fault.
Probably not, but it is worth knowing that nothing is counting down. The app says to expect up to 24 hours, and that is a commitment from our team rather than a timer in the system. Nothing escalates automatically if it is missed.
- Keep the account public the whole time. An account set to private at the moment a reviewer opens it is rejected.
- Do not re-enter your username. That generates a new code and can confuse the check.
- Do not submit again. While a request is pending, a second one is refused.
- After 48 hours, contact support with your username and the date you submitted.
Instagram accounts land in manual review more often than they should, because of a fault on our side rather than anything you did. So a Pending status on Instagram is usually not a judgement about your account.
Yes to both. One Ainfluencer login can hold several Instagram, TikTok and YouTube accounts, each verified separately and each with its own status, niche and audience profile. Earnings from all of them land in one wallet.
For YouTube, each channel becomes its own Ainfluencer account. If your Google account owns several, the app shows a channel picker. Channels that are already claimed by someone else, or that break a rule, are skipped.
If your YouTube channel is a Brand Account, or you are only a manager of it rather than its owner, connecting can fail. Sign in with the Google account that actually owns the channel. If that is not possible, send support a screenshot of the error, because this case has needed app-side work before.
Your account stops matching and is eventually moved to the Archived tab, with a note saying the username was changed or is no longer available.
Tapping Sync does not fix it. An archived account answers Sync by asking you to email support, because only an admin can restore it.
Tell support before you rename if you can. A handle change is one of the few things that can take a working, approved account off the marketplace with no way for you to put it back yourself.
Download the app and start earning
The Ainfluencer creator app is free on iOS and Android. Sign up, link your handle, and brands can start finding you in minutes.
