Monday: Why follower count is dying
Tuesday: What platforms are doing
Today: How influencer marketplaces are adapting (and why it's faster than you think)
The money is moving, let’s follow it.
Influencer Marketplaces Are Repricing Everything:
AspireIQ's Creator Marketplace has over 1 million influencers.
Their minimum requirements for campaigns:
Instagram: 200 engagements per post (not follower count)
TikTok: 2,000 views per video
YouTube: 500 views per video
Default minimum follower count: 1,000. But engagement thresholds matter more.
Translation: You can have 100K followers. If your engagement is below 200/post, you're invisible on the platform.
The shift is already here.
Marketplaces aren't pricing by reach anymore. They're pricing by engagement.
The new economics:
Aspire (formerly AspireIQ) pricing starts at $2,000-$2,500/month.
Brands use filters like:
Engagement rate (not follower count)
Audience demographics
Content style
Past collaboration performance
Influencer Hero pricing starts at $649/month. Their competitive advantage: AI-powered fraud detection that identifies fake followers and inflated engagement.
HypeAuditor built an entire business on influencer verification—filtering out fake engagement before brands waste money.
The pattern:
Every major marketplace is adding:
Engagement rate minimums
Fraud detection tools
Quality score algorithms
Authentic engagement verification
Follower count still exists. It's just not the price determinant anymore.
The 59-sec takeaway:
Influencer marketplaces are market signals.
When they repriced from "reach" to "engagement," they revealed:
What brands actually value (conversions over impressions)
What creators should optimize for (engagement over followers)
Where the money is moving (nano/micro over mega)
Aspire's marketplace allows brands to set eligibility requirements: follower count, engagement rate, location.
But the engagement rate filter is what matters most.
Remove it, and you get flooded with low-quality applications.
Keep it, and you get creators who actually drive sales.
How I'd use this:
If you're a creator/influencer:
Stop buying followers and start optimizing for engagement.
Marketplaces are filtering you by:
Reply rate (do people comment?)
Save rate (do people bookmark?)
Share rate (do people send to friends?)
Click rate (do people take action?)
AspireIQ's search tool prioritizes: audience demographics, engagement rate, and hashtags.
Follower count is a filter. Engagement rate is the ranking signal.
For Under 59: I don't pitch "13 subscribers."
I pitch:
82% open rate (3x industry average)
25% reply rate (12x industry average)
Quality metrics > vanity metrics.
Better Engagement means better monetization.
Why this matters for Monday's prediction:
Marketplaces are already doing it.
AspireIQ minimum: 200 engagements/post.
Influencer Hero: AI fraud detection.
HypeAuditor: Engagement verification.
Option B (marketplaces pivot to engagement-only pricing) is partially true already.
The question: Do they make it official and remove follower count entirely from pricing?
Or keep follower count as a minor filter while engagement drives all pricing?
Clue #3 collected.
Tomorrow: What mega-influencers are doing to survive (spoiler: buying fake engagement).
Talk soon,
Pavan
P.S. AspireIQ's minimum: 200 engagements per post, not 10K followers. The market already voted. Engagement won.