Influencer Database: Comparison and Buyer's Guide

TL;DR

• You are renting lookups rather than buying a database, since every plan meters how much of the index you may actually examine.
• The metering uses two incompatible units, with Heepsy counting search results and Modash counting profile opens.
• Heepsy Free returns 500 results a month, Starter 5,000 and Plus 25,000, against 300 and 800 profile opens at Modash.
• A detailed profile costs 30 to 69 cents across the published plans, a far tighter band than the outreach side of this market.
• Price therefore decides very little, so filters, audience data and export rights are the real comparison.
• Sellers report filters being ignored, with open collaborations approving weak creators despite follower and GMV criteria being set.
• We take the opposite view at Cruva, our operating system for TikTok Shop affiliate growth, where the creators worth keeping are the ones who already sold for you rather than the ones in a rented index.

An influencer database is a searchable index of creator profiles, filtered by audience, location, engagement and category.

Buyers believe they are purchasing access to millions of creators, and the thing they actually purchase is a monthly quota of lookups against that index.

That distinction decides which plan you need, and almost every comparison skips past it, so this guide reads the allowances straight off each vendor's pricing page.

Every figure was checked on 26 October 2026, with ratings read on G2 itself rather than borrowed from a competitor's post.

Sellers are blunt about what a paid index delivers, and a skincare brand on r/TikTokshop described open collaborations auto-approving creators with poor videos and low views despite follower and average GMV preferences being set.

A women's probiotic seller on r/TikTokshop reported that of roughly 50 samples sent, only 5% to 10% of creators made good content, and TikTok's own official account told a brand on r/TikTokshop to start with the free Find Creators hub inside the Affiliate Center.

A seller on r/TikTokshop doing $30,000 a month with 15 active affiliates could see total commissions while struggling to work out ROI per creator, and a brand on r/TikTokshop with 500 sales exhausted its starter pack invite allowance and found creators volunteering in the comments instead.

Hold those five beside any subscription price before you pay for an index.

Which influencer database is best in 2026?

Cost per detailed profile across the published plans, and review volume beside review average.

1. Modash

Modash is a discovery product built on a very large creator index, with audience demographics, authenticity signals, verified email reveals and tracking for every creator you decide to follow, plus inbox and Shopify integrations so a shortlist turns into contact inside the tool, and the whole commercial model is organised around one unit you can actually count, since each plan states the exact number of detailed profiles it will let you open in a month, which makes it the rare product in this category where a buyer can forecast the cost of a research project before paying for it, and the sending half of that job is priced in influencer outreach tools.

• Access: 300 profile opens a month on Essentials, 800 on Performance.
• Cost each: 66 cents on Essentials, 62 cents on Performance.
• Depth: Audience data, verified email reveals, inbox and Shopify integrations.
• Watch: $199 goes before you open a single profile.

2. Cruva, ours

We build Cruva as a creator record system for TikTok Shop sellers, which means the people inside it are the ones you have already sampled, briefed, paid and sold through, and the index question looks different once your best creators are people you have a history with, because the filter that matters then is what somebody actually sold rather than how large their audience looks, so discovery runs on commercial output through creator search on past sales, and the records you build stay yours rather than expiring the month a subscription lapses, which is the argument set out in owning your creator list.

• Access: AI creator search filtered on commercial output rather than audience size.
• Cost each: Published and flat, with zero per-profile metering.
• Depth: Deep on what a creator sold, sampled and posted for you.
• Watch: Specialist indexes go further on cold discovery.

3. Heepsy

Heepsy is the search tool with the most generous published allowances in this comparison and a free tier that genuinely works for evaluation rather than acting as a demo, carrying more than 30 filters, audience authenticity and quality scoring on the upper plans, contact detail export, a content gallery and Shopify plus WooCommerce integrations included even on the free plan, which makes it the natural first stop for anybody who wants to test whether an index actually holds the creators in their category before committing a budget to a year of it, and smaller accounts behave differently from what follower filters imply, as set out in nano influencers.

• Access: 500 results free, 5,000 on Starter, 25,000 on Plus.
• Cost each: 30 cents per detailed profile on Plus, 69 cents on Starter.
• Depth: 30 plus filters, authenticity scoring, contact export, Shopify and WooCommerce.
• Watch: Starter tracks only 5 creators.

4. Upfluence

Upfluence is an established suite where search sits alongside campaign tooling, lookalike discovery and AI email personalisation, with a genuinely distinctive feature in its ability to surface creators who are already buying from you or promoting you, which turns an existing customer list into a discovery source, and the whole thing is sold as three named modules that a salesperson assembles rather than as a plan you pick off a page, so both the subscription and the lookup allowance stay out of reach until a conversation, leaving cost per profile impossible to calculate from outside.

• Access: Withheld, with three named modules and zero figures published.
• Cost each: Impossible to calculate from public information.
• Depth: Search across all major networks, lookalikes, creators already promoting you.
• Watch: 4.6 from 140 on G2 sits beside the weakest public evidence here.

5. CreatorIQ

CreatorIQ is an enterprise creator marketing platform whose index is one component inside a much larger programme management product, built for organisations with governance requirements, brand safety review, multiple brands and reporting lines rather than for a seller running a shortlist, and the evidence behind it is the deepest on this page at 591 G2 reviews averaging 4.6, which tells you a great many substantial teams have run real programmes on it and stayed, while the pricing link hands you a request form rather than a number.

• Access: Withheld, with the pricing link handing you a request form.
• Cost each: Enterprise terms, agreed inside the contract.
• Depth: The deepest review base here at 4.6 from 591 G2 reviews.
• Watch: Buying this for the database alone is an expensive search.

6. GRIN

GRIN is a creator management platform with discovery attached, rather than a database product with management bolted on afterwards, and that ordering explains almost everything about how it prices and who it suits, since the commercial model runs on wallet deposits with a management fee taken on money paid out to creators rather than on lookups performed, which means searching is free and hiring costs you a percentage, a structure that rewards a brand paying the same creators every month and penalises a team that wanted an index to research with.

• Access: Open use rather than a metered allowance.
• Cost each: 20% free, $200 at 10%, $500 at 7%, $1,500 at 5%.
• Depth: Relationship history, payments and campaign tracking.
• Watch: You pay for moving money, so pure searching wastes the model.

7. Collabstr

Collabstr is a marketplace you browse rather than an index you query, with roughly 1.3 million creators listed, rates published directly on each profile, samples of previous work attached and escrow holding payment until the deliverable arrives, so the research you can do is commercial rather than demographic, telling you what somebody charges and what their work looks like instead of who follows them, a split examined further in TikTok influencer search tools compared, and it appears on this page because buyers routinely shortlist it against the databases even though it answers a buying question rather than a research one.

• Access: Browsing profiles is free at every tier.
• Cost each: 10% on hiring free, Pro $249, Premium $333 at 5%.
• Depth: Rates and sample work rather than third-party audience analysis.
• Watch: It answers a buying question rather than a research one.

Conclusion

Count the profiles you will realistically open each month, since that is precisely what the plans ration.

Expect to pay 30 to 69 cents per detailed profile, which makes price a weak tiebreaker between these products.

Compare filter precision and audience data instead, and test the free native Find Creators hub before paying for an index.

Then check what you may export, because the shortlist should outlive the subscription.

FAQs

What is an influencer database?

A searchable index of creator profiles with filters for audience, location, engagement and category. What you buy is a monthly allowance of lookups against that index rather than the index itself.

How much does an influencer database cost?

Published plans here run from free to $499 a month, with enterprise tiers from $14,700 a year. Per detailed profile the cost lands between 30 and 69 cents.

Is there a free influencer database?

Heepsy publishes a free tier with 500 search results and 10 advanced profiles a month. TikTok's own Find Creators hub inside the Affiliate Center is also free, and an official TikTok account recommends it to sellers.

What is the difference between search results and profile opens?

Two ways of metering the same product. Heepsy counts results returned by a search while Modash counts opening a detailed profile, so the units resist direct comparison.

Which influencer database has the best reviews?

CreatorIQ has the deepest evidence at 4.6 from 591 G2 reviews. Modash rates highest at 4.9 but on only 20 reviews, which is a far weaker signal despite the higher number.

Why do my filters return poor creators?

Sellers report filters being applied loosely on open collaborations, with low-quality creators approved despite follower and GMV criteria being set, so targeted invitations tend to outperform.

Can I export creators from these tools?

Heepsy lists contact export on its paid tiers. Check this before buying, since a lapsed subscription otherwise takes your shortlist with it.

What should a TikTok Shop seller prioritise?

Evidence of past selling over audience size, plus a record that lives outside the tool, since discovery is the cheap half and keeping the relationship is the expensive one.