Foundations
Part of Creator discovery platforms foundations for an England market study
Comparing creator discovery business models on one buyer task and full costs
Compare creator discovery business models on one England buyer task, common evidence fields, full costs, data permissions and practical exit routes.
What to take away
- For one England brief needing 25 permissioned creators, the manual register totals £2,745 before VAT, a Modash-class discovery seat totals £2,895, and a TikTok One marketplace route totals £3,645.
- The recommended route is conditional. Keep the manual register if your own permissioned England list already covers the brief. Otherwise buy one discovery seat, and only if the export, correction and deletion test passes.
- Supplier record counts are global marketing claims, not England eligible-creator counts.
- Reject any route that fails a privacy, PECR, advertising or IP gate before comparing cost.
- Every money figure below is the buyer's illustrative working assumption in pounds sterling, not a quoted supplier price.
The one England brief being priced
The buyer is an England advertiser running one campaign. It needs a permissioned shortlist of 25 named creators and a deletable evidence record. Creator fees, paid amplification and media sit outside these totals.
A lawful basis must be documented before creator personal data is processed, as the ICO lawful basis guide sets out. Contracting for platform access does not make every field usable.
A buyer spreadsheet, a Modash seat and a TikTok One campaign buy different things, so the route-by-route baseline test is worth reading before you price any of them.
Example: full cost of the brief on three routes
Full cost of the brief
Manual register
- Platform or licence, two months
- £0
- Buyer labour at £45 an hour
- 45 hours, £2,025
- Specialist review at £120 an hour
- 6 hours, £720
- Eligibility sample and exit test
- £0
- Full cost before VAT
- £2,745
Discovery seat (Modash)
- Platform or licence, two months
- £600
- Buyer labour at £45 an hour
- 30 hours, £1,350
- Specialist review at £120 an hour
- 6 hours, £720
- Eligibility sample and exit test
- 5 hours, £225
- Full cost before VAT
- £2,895
Marketplace (TikTok One)
- Platform or licence, two months
- £0
- Buyer labour at £45 an hour
- 55 hours, £2,475
- Specialist review at £120 an hour
- 6 hours, £720
- Eligibility sample and exit test
- 10 hours, £450
- Full cost before VAT
- £3,645
The hourly rates are buyer assumptions. Benchmark the labour rate against ONS earnings and working hours data before fixing it, then add VAT at the standard rate.
This brief sets its eligible England pool at 25 creators drawn from the buyer's own 140 permissioned contacts. That is an illustrative working figure. A route that cannot show a permissioned England pool larger than 25 adds no discovery value here.
The blank budget template turns these five lines into an editable total, which is quicker than retyping the table for a second supplier quote.
What a supplier count does not measure
Modash advertises an index of hundreds of millions of creator profiles. HypeAuditor sells audience quality scores beside profile search. Neither figure says how many creators in England will accept this brief.
Supplier Claims vs Buyer Needs
Supplier claim
- Index size
- Hundreds of millions of profiles
- Audience quality
- Modelled score
- Marketplace listing
- Opted-in creator
- Affiliate attribution
- Tracked sales
- Location
- Unclear provenance
What it actually means
- Index size
- Not eligible creators
- Audience quality
- Not independent verification
- Marketplace listing
- Not eligible for brief
- Affiliate attribution
- Not causal impact
- Location
- Mark unknown
A location field may mean a creator's statement, an account setting, an audience report or a modelled estimate. Mark it unknown when provenance is absent. TikTok Creator Marketplace listings show who opted in, not who is eligible. Affiliate attribution does not establish causal sales impact.
Sample 50 returned profiles per route. Check documented England residence, current activity and field provenance, then record the pass rate. That converts a claimed count into an eligible count.
A completed exit test on the discovery seat
Completed exit test
- Export the 25 shortlisted records plus the field provenance sheet from the Modash seat in CSV, and confirm no field is dropped.
- Correct two known-bad entries in the exported filean outdated representation and a stale contact address.
- Request deletion of the 50 screened sample records and note the confirmation date and scope.
- Match the contract exit clause against what the test showed, using the contract questions for suppliers.
Record the completion date in the buyer's file. A route that loses a field on export, or never confirms deletion, fails the gate regardless of price.
The route this brief should take
If the buyer already holds 25 eligible, active and permissioned England creators, the manual register is the cheapest passing route at £2,745. If it holds fewer, buy one discovery seat at £2,895.
Do not buy the marketplace route for this brief. Applications arrived without documented England residence, so screening labour pushed the total to £3,645 for the same 25-name shortlist.
Conditional Route Selection
Does the route pass all privacy, PECR, advertising, IP, safeguarding, accessibility, security, tax, contract and exit gates?
apply buyer-set weights and blank thresholds to the common grid
reject the option
Reject any option that fails a non-compensating privacy, PECR, advertising or IP gate, because no saving compensates for it. The government guidance on social media endorsements treats money and gifts as relevant to transparency, so name whoever approves disclosures before selection.
Common questions
Does a lower platform fee make a route cheaper overall?
No. The manual register and the marketplace route both carry a £0 platform line, yet their full costs differ by £900 before VAT. Labour, specialist review and exit testing drive the gap.
Which route suits an England advertiser needing a permissioned shortlist?
Use the manual register if your own permissioned list already covers 25 eligible England creators. Otherwise buy one discovery seat, provided the export, correction and deletion test passes.
How large should the eligibility sample be?
This brief uses 50 returned profiles per route. Record the England-residence pass rate, activity and provenance for each route, then compare claimed and eligible pools.
