3 Alternatives to Shopify Collabs for Influencer Gifting

How do you like using Shopify Collabs so far?

We’ve heard that Shopify Collabs has a lot of issues. Things like:

☹️ Lots of influencers who are there just to get free stuff and never make content.

☹️ App glitches. So many.

☹️ Pricey processing fees you have to pay on top of the commission if you find an influencer who does manage to promote your brand effectively.

You don't have to put up with these problems! There are tons of great options for collaborating with influencers that don’t involve getting swindled out of products or paying an arm and a leg.

Ready to learn what they are? Then keep reading!

What is influencer gifting?

Before we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the platforms available, let’s discuss something that’s a crucial part of the Shopify Collabs conversation: influencer gifting.

Influencer gifting is when an influencer agrees to review your product in exchange for receiving it for free.

Influencer gifting is a great option for small and medium-sized brands because it allows you to collaborate with influencers without a huge budget. Even if you’re a bigger brand and you have the budget, influencer gifting is a great way to gather feedback on a product pre-launch! That’s why it’s a pretty common practice on Instagram and TikTok.

Advantages and disadvantages of Shopify Collabs

So, what is Shopify Collabs? And how does influencer gifting relate to it

The Shopify Collabs app is Shopify’s native solution for influencer gifting and affiliate marketing. In theory, Shopify Collabs should make it easy for brands and influencers to collaborate on Shopify.

Let’s see if that holds up. 🧐

Advantages

There are a few advantages to using Shopify Collabs for creators and brands. Mainly, they are:

• It integrates directly with Shopify. And, the less software you need, the better your integrations should work.
• It’s easy to use. Shopify has designed Shopify Collabs to be intuitive.
• There’s no monthly fee. Instead, Shopify charges you an extra processing fee when you pay out commissions to creators.

These are all GREAT reasons to use Shopify Collabs. Now, let’s look at some of the less-than-great things about it:

Disadvantages

Most disadvantages of using Shopify Collabs come from the tech involved or their influencer management process. For example:

• The app has performance issues. Many users report slow load times and occasional crashes while using Shopify Collabs, which can be disconcerting.
• They don’t hold influencers accountable. Many brands have had influencers accept free products but never promote them–so you’re giving them away for nothing.
• There’s no vetting process. Because Shopify doesn’t vet the influencers on Shopify Collabs, you must research to ensure they have good engagement rates, don’t have fake followers, and can make great content.

Top Alternatives for Shopify Collabs

If the disadvantages of coordinating collabs on Shopify are enough to make you want to look elsewhere–good news! We have alternatives for you to consider:

Social Cat

Social Cat helps you collaborate with nano and micro influencers to increase your sales and brand awareness and create a consistent pipeline of UGC. You can choose to work with over 35K+ influencers from Instagram and TikTok on gifted, affiliate, or paid collaborations.

The advantages of using our platform include:

• Flexible, low pricing. We have low rates (plans start at $99/month), licensing is included, and you can collaborate with influencers on gifted, paid, or affiliate campaigns–your price is as flexible as you need it to be! Plus, you can cancel at any time.
• All of our influencers are vetted manually by our team.
• We have accountability tools, like public reviews and banning protocols, to protect your brand.
• Our interface is intuitive. It’s easy to navigate our site, message influencers, search, and find the information you need.
• Built-in tools. Whether you need ad copy or a contract for an upcoming influencer collaboration, we have tools to help!
• You can try before you buy–we offer a free one-week trial!

The disadvantages are:

• We only have TikTok and Instagram-based influencers. So, if you’re hoping to connect with YouTubers or influencers on other platforms, you won’t be able to do that here.
• Likewise, we only have influencers in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada. We may not be a great fit if you’re looking to break into markets outside of those countries.

We’ve worked to make Social Cat the best and least expensive option for e-commerce brands. So, if you’re trying to grow your Shopify sales, give us a try!

Insense

Insense offers self-service and agency options for brands hoping to connect with influencers. Let’s check out the pros and cons of choosing them below:

Advantages:

• Like other platforms we’ve considered in this article (Shopify Collabs and Social Cat), influencers opt-in to Insense. This means they’re more likely to respond when you reach out to collab on the platform.
• They have a large talent pool of creators.
• You can get licensed content for gifted collaborations with some influencers on their platform.
• They cover multiple social media platforms–although their main ones are Meta and TikTok.

Disadvantages:

• They are SUPER expensive. Plans start at $500 per month.
• Insense doesn’t offer free trials. You can sign up for a paid trial before signing a contract–but it costs $550 for the month, and you can only launch one campaign without upgrading. It’s not a deal.
• There are hidden fees (like a 20% marketplace fee, for example), which drive the costs even higher.

Bottom line: Insense is a great option; just ensure you have money for fees.

Grin

Grin helps you search for and find influencers from ANYWHERE on the internet. The catch? You have to reach out to them yourself.

Here are the advantages of working with Grin:

• They have an extremely large collection of influencer profiles in their database.
• They have tons of resources and features to help you run influencer campaigns.
• Reporting and analytics are included in all of their plans.

And here are the disadvantages:

• There’s no vetting process, so you must research yourself to see if the influencer is worth collaborating with. (A lot like Shopify Collabs)
• Grin is very expensive, and you have to pay in advance.
• They don’t offer free trials.
• Their main focus is paid collaborations, so if you’re hoping to run a gifted or affiliate campaign, you’re out of luck.

For small to medium-sized brands, Grin is usually not worth the money and extra administrative load. But if you’re okay with devoting a significant amount of time and resources to influencer outreach, it could be a good fit!

Considering the alternatives, is Shopify Collabs worth it?

Shopify Collabs has some significant advantages–like the fact that you don’t have to pay anything upfront to use the platform. However, that doesn’t mean it’s the best option for your brand. We’d argue that the lack of accountability for influencers (plus the fact that literally anyone can join the platform if they have over 1,000 followers) is a significant concern for brands.

After all, you don’t want to keep sending out free products and getting nothing in return, right?

On platforms like Social Cat, you’ll start with a monthly fee to use the platform. But the influencers you’ll find here are kept accountable for their actions, so you won’t lose products and get nothing for them in return. With Shopify Collabs, you might lose more money in products than you would if you paid for a month’s subscription to Social Cat.

When you put it that way, Social Cat seems like a smarter business decision, doesn’t it?

At the end of the day, the decision is yours. Which platform will you choose for your next influencer collaboration?