The Truth About Payrate Disparities in Influencer Marketing

There is a lot of talk about payrates in the influencer marketing world. For a long time, how much brands spend on influencers was a taboo topic. However, influencers are starting to provide more visibility into their pay, which is causing. So, what is the truth? In this blog post, we will take a look at some of the latest research on the topic.

A report titled “Time to Face the Influencer Pay Gap” looked at issues of annual income, the size of the influencer's following, and the amount influencers were offered for partnership deals. It was published by the public relations firm MSL U.S. in partnership with The Influencer League, an influencer education organization.

The research looked into more than 400 US-based influencers on a wide range of platforms, where participants were asked to share their follower counts, race, and income from brands. According to the report, the racial pay gap between white and BIPOC influencers (Black, Indigenous & People of Color) is 29%, and the gap widens to 35%when looking at the difference between white and Black influencers.

The key findings include:

• 77% of Black influencers fall into the nano and micro-influencer tiers (under 50K followers) where compensation from brands averaged $27,000 annually (versus 59% of white influencers). Conversely, only 23% of Black influencers (versus 41% of white influencers) made it into the macro influencer tier (50K+ followers), where earnings averaged upward of $100,000.

• Nearly half (49%) of Black influencers report that their race contributed to an offer below market value. Widen out to include BIPOC influencers, and 36% reported the same.

• The majority (59%) of Black influencers (and 49% of BIPOC influencers) reported that they felt negatively impacted financially when they posted on issues of race versus 14% of white influencers.

One huge factor is that there hasn't been transparency in influencer pay. 60% of those surveyed said they didn't know what their peers were being paid for similar work. This lack of knowledge and standards puts the BIPOC community at a disadvantage.

As marketers continue to invest in influencer marketing and put more money into the ecosystem, it is important to be aware that your decisions impact influencers. Making decisions about pay based on influencer content performance is one way to help reduce payrate discrepancies. Another way is to ensure there is more transparency in the influencer marketing industry. This can be done by sharing payrates with influencers and having conversations about what is fair compensation.

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