Which UGC platforms let creators come to you?
Most UGC platforms are inbound: you post a brief, a campaign or a job listing, and creators apply. SideShift, Billo, Insense, Influee, JoinBrands, Collabstr and Cohley all publish that model. The real difference is who screens the applicants afterward. Scouty also brings creators to you, and does the screening before they reach you.
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How inbound sourcing works
On an inbound platform you do not go looking for creators. You publish what you need, with the pay and the deliverables, and creators who are already on the platform and looking for work respond. The shapes differ: a job listing on SideShift, a brief on Billo or Cohley, a campaign on Insense, Influee, JoinBrands or a paid Collabstr plan.
What you get back is a list of applicants. Everything after that, reading portfolios, choosing, agreeing terms, is still to be done by someone.
How each platform brings you creators
Each vendor's published sourcing model and its own count of creators, with sources.
| Option | How creators are sourced |
|---|---|
| Scouty | Two ways: vetted creators from the Creators Club matched to your brief, and a search of TikTok and Instagram with outreach, so the right creators apply. |
| SideShift | Job listings that creators apply to, plus a set number of invites by plan. The Starter plan includes 1 job listing and 200 invites.Source: sideshift.app/plans/brands |
| Billo | Creators from Billo's own vetted pool apply to your brief and you choose among them. Billo states 5,000+ creators in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.Source: Billo help center: how does Billo work, billo.app/find-ugc-creators |
| Insense | A marketplace with filters and briefs that creators apply to, plus email outreach to Instagram and TikTok creators beyond the marketplace from what Insense calls a 7+ million creator database. Brands can also bring their own creators.Source: Insense creator marketplace, Insense influencer outreach |
| Influee | You launch a campaign, creators apply and you review them. There is also a creator directory by country and niche. Influee states 170,000+ UGC creators in 30+ countries.Source: influee.co |
| JoinBrands | You browse creator profiles and hire directly, or launch a campaign, set your targeting, and invite creators or let them apply. JoinBrands states 4M+ creators and affiliates. Paid plans add what it calls TikTok Shop Outreach Agents.Source: joinbrands.com, joinbrands.com/pricing |
| Collabstr | You browse profiles and hire directly, or on the Pro and Premium plans you post a campaign and creators apply with their pricing. Collabstr states 1.2m+ vetted creators.Source: collabstr.com/pricing, collabstr.com |
| Cohley | Creators in Cohley's own network apply to a brief, and its AI agent Finn vets applicants against the brand's criteria for the brand to review. Cohley states 200,000+ vetted creators, and describes the model as involving no cold outreach.Source: cohley.com, Cohley: Finn Agent |
| Twirl | You launch a brief and Twirl returns a curated list of creators from its own vetted network for you to pick from. Twirl states 8,000+ creators across the United Kingdom, the United States and Europe.Source: usetwirl.com |
Vendor facts as published on each vendor's own site on . A linked name opens the full comparison with Scouty.
A pool size is a claim, not a result
Vendors publish very different creator counts, from a few thousand to several million, and count different things: vetted creators, registered accounts, creators and affiliates together. The numbers in the table are each vendor's own statement and are not comparable with each other.
What decides your campaign is narrower: how many creators in your niche and your country see the brief, and how many of those are a fit. A smaller vetted network can return more usable applicants than a larger open one, and the reverse can also be true. Ask a vendor how many creators match your brief, not how many it has.
The cost of inbound is screening
Applicants are not hires. Our guide to vetting suggests screening roughly four creators seriously for every one you expect to sign, so a three creator campaign starts from a pool of around forty candidates. On an inbound platform that screening is yours unless the product does it.
Some products do part of it. Cohley describes its agent vetting applicants against your criteria before you review them. Scouty goes further in the same direction: it matches creators from a vetted Creators Club to your brief and brings you a set to say yes or no to.
Inbound, outbound, or both
Inbound reaches only the creators already on a platform. A few vendors add outbound. Insense publishes email outreach to Instagram and TikTok creators beyond its marketplace, and JoinBrands publishes outreach agents for TikTok Shop creators on paid plans.
Scouty does both without your team running either: it searches TikTok and Instagram and reaches out, so creators who fit your brief apply even if they had never heard of it. If you would rather do the outbound yourself, it can be done by hand.
What makes good creators apply
- A stated rate. Creators skip briefs that hide the pay. The rate is yours to set, so set it and show it.
- Clear deliverables: how many videos, how long, by when.
- Usage terms up front, especially whether the content will run as paid ads.
- A product they can see themselves using, described in a sentence.
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