GRIN vs Upfluence: Which is the better influencer marketing platform in 2024?

Who has time to dig through websites and reviews and talk to users to understand the differences between GRIN and Upfluence? We do. Both of these well-known influencer marketing platforms seem to do it all. But are there important differences? You bet. Quickly scan our side-by-side comparison to see which is better for you. If that doesn’t surface a clear winner, we’ll take you through more details. And even introduce you to a third option worth considering, MightyScout.

GRIN vs. Upfluence Overview

GRIN

What is GRIN?

GRIN is a feature-rich software platform designed to help influencer marketers promote e-commerce brands. Its suite of tools cover all stages of influencer marketing from discovering influencers to campaign management to final reporting.

Who is GRIN best for?

GRIN is best for medium to large e-commerce brands who are interested in scaling up their influencer efforts.

GRIN strengths

Ease of use: GRIN is generally considered easy to use, with a UI that’s intuitive and doesn’t have a steep learning curve. This makes it a good choice for those transitioning from more basic systems or for teams without dedicated technical support.

Integration with ecommerce platforms: GRIN integrates directly with e-commerce platforms, allowing brands to seamlessly connect influencer campaigns and track sales performance. Users especially love the Shopify integration. GRIN also integrates with WooCommerce, Magento, and Salesforce Commerce.

Campaign management workflows: Communicating with large numbers of influencers, setting up contracts, creating trackable links and codes, fulfilling orders, tracking shipments, tracking each influencer’s status, and paying them can be overwhelming – but not with GRIN. Powerful workflows help automate repetitive processes. Users report GRIN has allowed them to scale up the number of influencers they can manage.

GRIN weaknesses

Content tracking limitations: : Some users report challenges with accurate tracking of content produced via affiliates and product seeding campaigns.

Limited creator search: GRIN’s influencer discovery search tool is limited to Instagram only. For other social platforms, GRIN offers curated lists of up to 50.

Lack of pricing transparency: GRIN does not share pricing publicly. You need to schedule a demo to get pricing.

Manual campaign management processes: Some users have reported GRIN requires manual involvement and intervention in some processes, like influencer payments.

Upfluence

What is Upfluence?

Upfluence is an established influencer marketing platform beloved by its users for strong searching and filtering of influencers by criteria. Upfluence offers a range of features to support influencer marketing through all its stages from discovering influencers to activating them through reporting. Discovering influencers is Upfluence’s strength.

Who is Upfluence best for?

Upfluence is best for brands that work with a small number of influencers due to its small database. Its agency services can be helpful for brands with limited expertise or limited manpower.

Upfluence strengths

Robust Search Capabilities: Upfluence excels in its advanced search functionality, allowing brands to find influencers using precise criteria across multiple social platforms.

Comprehensive Analytics: Upfluence provides detailed analytics that help brands track the performance of influencers and campaigns.

Agency services: If your team needs extra help to run campaigns, Upfluence offers this as a service.

Affiliate marketing features: Influencer has strong capabilities for finding, managing, creating affiliate links, tracking statuses, paying, and reporting on affiliates. Users report it’s easy to show the ROI of affiliate campaigns. Upfluence integrates with Shopify, WooCommerce, Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce and Amazon Attribution.

Outreach from your email: Upfluence enables you to outreach from your own email (e.g., Outlook, Gmail)

Blogger discovery: If blog content or reviews are an important part of your influencer marketing strategy, Upfluence has a search feature to help you find bloggers.

Upfluence weaknesses

Content tracking limitations: : Some users report challenges with accurate tracking of content produced via affiliates and product seeding campaigns.

Learning Curve: Some users find Upfluence's platform complex and challenging to use, particularly for those new to influencer marketing.

Cost: While providing extensive features, Upfluence can be expensive, particularly for small businesses or startups. The pricing might not be as transparent or accessible for smaller or midsize companies looking to start or grow influencer marketing without a significant budget.

Limited database: Upfluence’s influencer database is relatively small and may not be a fit for brands that need niche influencers or who plan to scale up to large numbers of influencers.

GRIN vs Upfluence

Features

Discovery

Upfluence users rave about the influencer search features, especially the ability to drill down using criteria. GRIN users are often disappointed with its discovery options.

winner: Upfluence

Influencer outreach

GRIN users benefit from integrating their company emails (e.g., Gmail, Outlook) and automating emails to influencers. Upfluence email outreach requires more manual work.

winner: GRIN

Content tracking

GRIN and Upfluence both have the same limitation with content tracking causing friction, time loss, and potential loss of content and data that is not trackable.

winner: tie

Campaign reporting

GRIN and Upfluence users are highly satisfied with the reporting capabilities.

winner: tie

Ease-of-use

While both tools require some help getting up to speed, GRIN users are more positive about the ease of use. This is an area where GRIN has a clear advantage.

winner: GRIN

Pricing

Both GRIN and Upfluence do not share pricing publicly. But to get you in the very large ballpark, Capterra states GRIN’s price is $999 per month. A GRIN user reported $25,000 annually. For Upfluence, one user reported a start-up rate for Upfluence’s basic package at $500 per month, another reported $3,000+ per month, and a third reported Upfluence at $12,000 annually.

winner: not enough information

Customer support

Users of both platforms are satisfied with the customer support.

winner: tie

Customer reviews

Both platforms have room for improvement. Both platforms have glowing and glaring customer reviews. GRIN reviews are trending downward in 2023 and 2024 versus prior to that.

winner: Upfluence

Which platform is right for you?

Choose Upfluence if:

• Strong discovery database search capabilities are important to you

• Agency assistance could be helpful to you

• Bloggers are an important part of your strategy

• Affiliate marketing is a priority

Choose GRIN if:

• Automation and workflows to streamline campaigns are important

• E-commerce campaigns and using content in your e-commerce site are important

• Scaling your influencer marketing programs is your goal

MightyScout: a cost-effective and easy-to-use alternative

Still not feeling convinced? Check out another option. MightyScout is a cost-effective influencer marketing platform best known for its tracking, analytics, and reporting. MightyScout can track the content most other platforms cannot which makes it a perfect fit for product seeding campaigns.

MightyScout offers a risk-free with its 30-days money back guarantee. Even if you want to try it for a longer period, you pay monthly. No long-term contract to make you feel stuck!

Tiered pricing is based on the number of active influencers. Affordable pricing makes MightyScout attractive, even as an add-on to platforms that do not have robust tracking, analytics or reporting capabilities.

What is MightyScout?

MightyScout has a successful track record dating back to 2016 for brands and agencies globally.

Who is MightyScout for?

MightyScout helps two types:

1. Small and mid size agencies and brands benefit from automated processes and workflows to scale up their efforts.
2. Enterprise brands and agencies use MightyScout as a specialized tool to track content from product seeding and gifting campaigns, and/or influencer events.

MightyScout enables influencer marketing teams to do more without adding staff. It transforms manual work processes and spreadsheets with automation.

MightyScout’s key features

24/7 influencer tracking of posts and Stories: Easily identify who is on time or late. Always capture Stories before they expire and be able to download them.

Product shipping and tracking: Get products to influencers without worrying about inventory and going to a shipper. With tracking links and automatic updates, you’ll always know when an influencer has received their product.

E-commerce integrations: Shopify and WooCommerce platforms.

Collect influencer data: Spreadsheets don’t tell you the full story. Live sales data integrations and unique visual grid give insights into which posts succeeded and why.

Discover more influencers: The lookalike discovery feature helps you automate the search for more influencers like your best performers.

Vet influencers with analytics: Influencer performance and audience analytics support the influencer selection process.

Streamline agency workflows: Unique, agency-friendly features and pricing make working with multiple brands easier.

24/7 support on workdays: Users love MightyScout’s fast and helpful customer support.

MightyScout’s strengths

Reliable Stories and posts tracking: Especially from “unpaid” collabs like product seeding and gifting, and influencer events.

Easy to learn and use: Intuitive interface helps you make an impact fast and reduces time to value.

Customer-friendly pricing: Flexible pricing. No long-term contracts required.

Excellent customer support: 24 hour workday support.

What do customers say?

• Esther K., CEO & Co-founder of a marketing and advertising company gave a 5-star rating on October 31, 2023 calling MightyScout a game-changer in influencer marketing and praising their responsiveness and customer support.

• Zhanna K., a small-business user, rated MightyScout 4.5 out of 5 on April 4, 2023, praising its ease of use and impact on business. She found it super intuitive and helpful for collecting insights about influencer campaigns.

• Madison W., an Associate Brand Manager, also rated it 5 stars on September 26 2022, and described the product as a lifesaver that eliminated hours of manual work, highlighting the tracking campaign feature and excellent customer service.

Case studies: Learn how customers have benefited from MightyScout here and here.

Why MightyScout might be your best option?

Although GRIN and Upfluence are two of the more well-known influencer marketing platforms, both require a long term contract and neither allows you to try before buy.

That might be okay if users were generally satisfied, but they’re not.

Upfluence is loved for the searchability of its database of an estimated 4 million influencers. And while Upfluence offers a full range of additional functions, users find the platform difficult to use.

GRIN is stronger at automating after the influencers are selected. If you’re looking for campaign management features, GRIN is the clear winner, but users are not satisfied with its discovery features.

With the complexity of both platforms, and the risk of being locked into a contract for a software you cannot try, the option to consider another platform is appealing.

If you need a tool that streamlines the work processes and allows you to get more done without more staff, MightyScout is a low-risk tool to try. If your influencer marketing strategy includes product gifting or seeding, or influencer events, MightyScout is the best tool. It's month-to-monthand comes with a 30-day money back guarantee. This way you can try it and if you don’t love it for any reason… you won’t have lost any of your valuable marketing budget.

Signup today –– or request a call to learn more.