Divide the posts you want by your post rate to get how many creators to ship to, then divide by your acceptance rate to get how many to contact. At the starting assumptions below (30% accept, 40% post), 10 posts means contacting about 84 creators and shipping to 25.
Change any number and the result updates instantly. The page address updates too, so you can share the exact result.
The acceptance rate, post rate and cost per package start as editable assumptions, not benchmarks. Replace them with your own numbers.
Pieces of creator content, not creators.
Share of creators you contact who say yes to receiving product.
Share of creators who accept and ship-to who then post.
Product cost plus packaging and shipping. Used only for the cash estimate.
Recalculates as you type. Nothing here is sent anywhere.
Creators to contact
Next: price the whole wave in the gifting budget planner, or check what each post costs in the gifting ROI calculator.
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.
We do not publish a post rate for each tier, because we have not found a public, verifiable source that splits it by niche and creator size, and a made-up number would be worse than none. What you can do is see how sensitive the answer is. The table shows creators to contact for 10 posts at different post and acceptance rates. Find the cell that matches what you see for your own nano, micro and mid-tier outreach.
| 20% accept | 30% accept | 40% accept | 50% accept | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20% post rate | 250 | 167 | 125 | 100 |
| 30% post rate | 170 | 114 | 85 | 68 |
| 40% post rate | 125 | 84 | 63 | 50 |
| 50% post rate | 100 | 67 | 50 | 40 |
| 60% post rate | 85 | 57 | 43 | 34 |
| 80% post rate | 65 | 44 | 33 | 26 |
Tier cut-offs are a convention rather than a standard, so check how your own data defines them before comparing. Our influencer tiers guide lays out the common definitions. To find your real rates, run a small first wave, then divide accepts by contacts and posts by units delivered for each tier separately.
Opt-in means you ask first and ship only to creators who say yes. A cold send ships to everyone on the list. This comparison is deliberately generous to cold sends: it assumes creators who would have declined would have posted at the same rate as those who accepted.
| Opt-in (ask first) | Cold send (ship to all) | |
|---|---|---|
| Units shipped | 25 | 84 |
| Estimated cash out | $300 | $1,008 |
| Units saved by opting in | 59 | — |
| Cash saved by opting in | $708 | — |
Opt-in also gets you a confirmed address, a creator who expects the parcel, and something to measure against. If you want the workflow handled for you, Seed's one-link gift form collects the opt-in and the address in a single step. See the full gifting budget planner to price the wave, and the contract generator when you want deliverables in writing.
There is no fixed number. It depends on how many posts you want. Divide your target posts by the share of gifted creators who post, then divide by the share who accept your offer. Start with a small first wave, then replace the assumptions with your real rates instead of guessing a round number like 50.
There is no reliable public figure. Rates change with niche, creator size, whether the creator opted in, and how you follow up, and brands that publish a number often measure it differently. Track your own first wave by dividing posts received by units delivered, then use that rate in this calculator.
Neither is automatically better. Smaller creators are commonly more open to product-only deals, while larger ones more often ask for a fee, but it varies by creator. Pick the tier by what you can afford to send and who you want to reach, then compare tiers using your own acceptance and post rates.
No. Ask first and ship only to creators who say yes. A cold send costs a unit and postage whether or not the creator ever posts. The comparison table on this page shows how many units opt-in saves at your rates, assuming people who decline would have posted at the same rate.
There is no fixed window. Shipping and content creation both take time, so wait until most parcels are delivered and you have followed up once or twice. Then divide posts received by units delivered and note the date range, so the next wave is compared fairly against the same measure.
The calculator uses three steps, rounding up at each one because you cannot contact part of a creator:
creators to ship to = ceil(target posts ÷ post rate)
creators to contact = ceil(creators to ship to ÷ acceptance rate)
cash out = creators to ship to × units per creator × cost per package
Every default (30% acceptance, 40% post rate, $12 per package, 10 posts) is an illustrative starting assumption chosen so the page shows a result before you type. None of them is a benchmark, a measured Seed statistic or an industry average. The cold-send comparison assumes non-accepters would post at the same rate as accepters, which favours cold sends; real cold sends usually do worse. This page uses no third-party data. For your own rates, see our blog and the gifting ROI calculator.
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.
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.
Answer six questions to find the right influencer deal type for a creator: gifting, a flat fee, or affiliate commission.
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.