Gift when you want content and have little fee budget, pay a flat fee when you need specific posts on a date, and use affiliate commission when you can track sales and have margin. Answer six questions below to see which fits a particular creator.
Answer for one creator at a time. The result updates as you choose, and the address updates too so you can share it. Starting answers are pre-selected so you see a result straight away; change them to match your situation.
Six questions, no right answers.
Recalculates as you choose. Nothing here is sent anywhere.
Best fit for this creator
Want to run this without a spreadsheet? Seed sends each creator one branded link, they pick a product and type their address, and a $0 draft order lands in your Shopify admin. Install Seed on Shopify. The calculator above stays free and needs no email.
| Gifting | Flat fee | Affiliate | |
|---|---|---|---|
| You pay | Product and postage | A fixed fee per agreed deliverable | A percentage of orders the creator drives |
| Best when | You want content and have little fee budget | You need specific posts on a date | You can track sales and have margin |
| Main upside | Lowest cash cost per creator | You control what is posted and when | Cost only rises when sales happen |
| Main risk | The creator may not post at all | You pay whether or not it sells | Creators may skip it if the payout is small |
| What you need in place | An address collection step | A written agreement and brief | Codes or links to attribute orders |
The deal types also combine: gift the product, then add a commission code. For each creator you do pay, price the fee with the influencer rate calculator, and check whether a commission rate works with the commission break-even calculator. Put deliverables, usage and disclosure in writing with the contract generator.
Each answer adds points to each deal type. Whichever has the most points is the recommendation, and if the top two are within one point the result names both. The points are a rule of thumb from the Seed team. They are not fitted to data and you should treat the result as a starting point for a conversation with the creator.
| Question and answer | Gift | Flat fee | Affiliate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. No, it is new to them | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| 1. Yes, they already use it | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 2. Content and awareness | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 2. Tracked sales | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| 2. Specific posts on a date | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| 3. None | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| 3. Some | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 3. A healthy amount | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| 4. Under 10k | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| 4. 10k to 50k | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 4. 50k to 250k | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| 4. 250k or more | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| 5. Yes | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 5. Not yet | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 6. Thin | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 6. Healthy | 0 | 0 | 2 |
It depends on what you need. Gifting suits finding creators and collecting content when you have little fee budget. A flat fee suits guaranteed posts on a date. Commission suits creators who already like the product and sales you can track. Many brands start with gifting and pay the creators who perform.
Yes, and it is common. Send the product, then give the creator a code or link that pays commission on orders. The creator gets the item plus upside, and you only pay more when sales happen. Set the commission rate and tracking before you ship so expectations are clear.
There is no universal threshold. Larger creators more often expect a fee, but plenty of small creators also want payment and some larger ones accept product. Ask what they need, check their rate with the influencer rate calculator, and decide whether the post is worth the price to you.
A flat fee is a fixed payment for agreed deliverables, regardless of sales. Affiliate pays a commission on orders the creator drives, so the creator carries more of the risk. Flat fee gives you control over what is posted and when, while affiliate ties your cost to results.
Usually yes. The FTC says free product can be a material connection that should be disclosed even if nothing is paid and the creator is not required to post. Ask creators to disclose clearly, and put expectations in writing with a simple agreement.
This is a decision aid, not a prediction. Six questions each add points to gifting, flat fee and affiliate commission using the table above, which is the full model. There is no hidden weighting and no data behind the points, so change your answers to see how the result moves. Audience bands are rough conventions; definitions of nano, micro and mid-tier vary, so use the band closest to how you define them. The only external source is the FTC's Endorsement Guides: What People Are Asking, which says free product can create a connection worth disclosing even when the creator is not paid and is not required to post. This is general information, not legal advice. Disclosure rules differ by country, so check the rules where you advertise.
Last updated: October 29, 2026. Written and maintained by the Seed team. Seed is a Shopify app that lets brands gift products to creators through one branded link. The tool runs entirely in your browser; the numbers you type are not sent anywhere.
Build a gifting agreement in under a minute — deliverables, posting window, usage rights, and FTC disclosure. Copy it or save as PDF. Free, no email.
The same contract generator, pre-set for an Instagram deliverable: in-feed post plus story.
The same contract generator, pre-set for a TikTok deliverable.
A content-licensing agreement for UGC, not a posting agreement. Usage rights and deliverables only.
For unpaid product-gifting sends specifically: the gift, deliverables, and usage rights.
Send personalized bulk Instagram DMs to creators without copy-pasting one message at a time. Built for outreach at volume.
The Chrome extension behind the DM assistant above. Install it, connect your Seed account, send from your own session.
Put in your product cost, shipping, and creator count, and get your real cost per piece of content, including your own hours. Ungated.
How much should you pay an influencer? Enter views and a CPM to get a fair cash range, and see if your gifted product alone is a fair trade.
Work out a creator's engagement rate on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube, by followers and by views. Average up to 12 posts. Free, no email.
Build an influencer media kit with stats, audience, past collabs and rates. Live preview, three layouts, save as PDF. Free, no signup.
A UGC or influencer rate card with deliverables, usage rights, whitelisting and bundles. Preview it, then save as PDF. Free, no signup.
Three ready-to-send pitch emails (cold, warm, follow-up) for creators asking brands for PR packages or collabs. Free, no signup.
What can you actually earn on TikTok? Sponsored-post rate by tier, Creator Rewards eligibility, and a TikTok Shop affiliate estimate. Free, no signup.
Sponsored feed post, Reel and Story rate ranges by follower tier, plus an affiliate-earnings estimate. Free, no signup.
Score a creator's video against your brief in about two minutes. Free, no login.
Enter how many posts you want and get the number of creators to contact and gift, using your own acceptance and post rates.
Plan a gifting campaign budget: product, packaging and shipping cost by lane, total cost and cost per creator.
Compare the cost per 1,000 views and per content piece of influencer gifting against Meta and TikTok ads, with your own numbers.
Build a free influencer gifting application form with the exact fields to ask, then copy it or run it live on Shopify.
A free outreach CRM template with statuses, follow-up dates and notes. Download the CSV for Google Sheets or Excel.
Track sends, posts, discount codes, revenue and ROI with formulas built in. Download the CSV for Google Sheets.
Generate a one-page influencer brief: product, key messages, dos and don'ts, disclosure and deadlines. Free, no signup.
Generate a short outreach DM or email offering influencers a gifted product, in your own tone and language.
Score your influencer outreach subject lines against a transparent checklist, and get better variants.
Pick a niche and platform for a hand-written hashtag set, mixed broad to niche. No made-up volume numbers.
Get a recommended monthly influencer budget, split across gifting, paid posts and UGC, from your revenue and stage.
Estimate the real cost of a PR package: product, box, inserts, packing materials and shipping.
Calculate what the content from your gifting campaign would cost to buy from an agency or UGC creators instead.
Estimate fair UGC rates from experience level, deliverables and usage rights, for brands and creators, sources linked.
Estimate fair YouTube sponsorship rates from a channel's average views, format and usage rights, sources linked.
Estimate expected reach for a creator's post, Reel or Story from follower count, using published benchmarks.
Calculate follower growth rate over any period and flag suspicious spikes between two checkpoints.
Enter a follower count to see its influencer tier under three published definitions, with typical CPM ranges.
Create $0 influencer orders in Shopify, tag them, and calculate the real COGS and shipping cost of every gift.
Generate hundreds of unique influencer discount codes from a prefix and download a CSV, ready for a Shopify bulk-codes app or the API.
Per-creator code conversion plus an estimate of the halo sales promo codes miss, with every assumption editable.
Paste your landing page and a list of creators and get one tagged UTM link per creator in bulk, as a CSV.
Price usage rights for creator content in ads: duration, channels and exclusivity, with editable percentages. Free, no signup.
Add the creator fee to your media spend to get blended CPM and CPA for TikTok Spark Ads or Meta partnership ads.
Turn a creator's fee and post stats into CPM, cost per engagement and cost per view, and compare with your own benchmark.
Estimate EMV from views, likes, comments and shares using values you set, plus an honest look at why EMV isn't revenue.
Find the most you can pay to acquire a customer through influencers, from your margin, repeat orders and target LTV:CAC ratio.
Find the highest affiliate commission you can pay influencers from your order value, costs and the profit you want to keep.
Build a tiered ambassador commission ladder from your margin, a starting rate and sales thresholds. Copy it or download CSV.
Work out ROI, ROAS and break-even revenue for a paid or gifted influencer campaign from your costs, commission and margin.
Get a step-by-step gifting campaign plan with dates and creator counts, from your goal, product and budget.
Score how well a creator fits your brand on a transparent, weighted checklist before you reach out.
Pick a launch date or holiday and get backward-planned recruit, ship and posting-window dates for 2026 and 2027.
See whether import VAT and duty likely apply when gifting product abroad, for the EU, UK, Switzerland and Norway, with official sources.
The regulator, required label and gifted-product rule in 10 countries, each with an official source. Not legal advice.
What the IRS, HMRC, CRA, ATO and other tax authorities say about gifted product as creator income, with sources. Not tax advice.
Share one branded link. The creator picks a product and types their address, and a $0 draft order lands in your Shopify admin. Seed then follows up and tracks their posts.