Stop pitching creators who can't actually sell.
We audit the commercial viability, taste, and real buying intent of your shortlist — before it ever hits a client deck.
your brief
Built on my own experience — the influencer campaigns I've been running since 2014 — and current market research.
Creator Validator is an independent creator due-diligence and influencer-vetting service for brands and agencies, used before creators enter a client deck, campaign or paid partnership.
Send the handles. Get a clear creator read your team can stand behind before a creator goes into a client deck, gifting list, ambassador program, or paid test.
We run live-data audits on audience quality, brand safety, tone, real-time momentum, and commercial intent—then deliver a decisive call: approve for shortlist, caution — conditions apply, or cut or hold.
Influencer report (PDF) + agent-ready .md · TikTok, Instagram, YouTube · 24–48h
20 years growth marketing · WPP · Publicis · Dentsu · since 2014
Clean metrics don't mean the creator is right.
A creator can have real followers, decent engagement and polished content — and still be wrong for the audience, wrong for the brand, or weak as a recommendation. Creator Validator is the independent, real-time read before a creator becomes your recommendation — defensible in front of the client, the founder, or the budget owner.
Most brands can screen for bought followers. Almost none get a defensible read on whether the creator is actually right — which is the call that comes back on you.
estimated monthly searches worldwide to buy fake followers and engagement (Google Keyword Planner, Aug 2026)
searches to buy TikTok followers vs to check them — 60,500 vs 390, worldwide
A $10,000 creator campaign can sell three books.
a $10,000 TikTok creator campaign tracked three sales — "$3,333 per book" in her own words.
Source: amychan.substack.com2.6M followers, and she couldn't pre-sell 36 T-shirts.
Source: buzzfeed.comone campaign turned $2,500 into more than $65,000. The next turned $10,000 into less than $5,000 — same brand, same channel.
Source: shopify.comNone of them had a check between "this creator has reach" and "this creator's audience buys this thing."
Trust is the channel now.
You don't just buy reach. You borrow the trust a creator built with their audience — a real recommendation from someone they believe.
That's what multiplies a campaign: attention, brand value, the activation itself. And it only works when the creator genuinely fits — the right relationship with the right audience.
Back the wrong one and the campaign still runs — it just doesn't work. The content goes out, the spend clears, and a quarter later you're explaining a flat line you can't take back. The budget you can replace; the quarter you can't.
First, the fakes get ruled out.
This is the creator check most tools stop at. We run it first, then keep going.
We check the basics first — bought views, fake reach, comment farms, purchased growth — and rule them out. Then the part that matters: what this creator is really like, how commercial their audience is, and what kind of brand they can carry.
Views that were never watched
Views are the easiest number to buy — cheap, and they look great on a media kit. We read whether real people actually watched and reacted, or whether the count was inflated to land the deal. Bought views convert to nothing.
Reach that's real
Inflated reach is the easiest thing to fake in a screenshot. The report tells you how far this creator's content genuinely travels.
A community, or a comment farm
Real audiences engage meaningfully. You get a read on whether the conversation under the posts is an actual community or paid noise.
Growth that was purchased
Organic growth and bought spikes can look identical from outside. The report tells you which one you're looking at — before you sign.
Beyond the follower count: who they are, who's listening, and whether they can sell.
The numbers are the floor. The call that decides a recommendation is qualitative — who's really listening, what the creator is actually like, and whether they can move them. The reads behind one verdict, judged by a senior operator.
Creator personality
What the creator signals through taste, tone, behaviour and content choices — the human read a tool can't do.
Momentum
Alive, peaking, flat, or inflated — the real trajectory across the recent run, so you can tell momentum from a one-post spike.
Authenticity risk (the fake check)
Fake followers, bought engagement, comment quality, suspicious growth — ruled out before anything else.
Audience read + creator comment audit
Who's actually paying attention, whether the comments read like a real community, and whether that audience looks commercially useful for the brand you have in mind.
Recommendation risk
What could make this creator hard to defend internally or to a client: the conditions to set first, and the flags your team should raise before paying.
The verdict
Approve for shortlist, caution — conditions apply, or cut or hold — with the move to make and the reasoning behind the call.
One verdict you can act on: approve, caution, or cut.
@example.creator
Your shortlist, from five creators up. You get the read, the reasoning, and a clear verdict — delivered as a PDF report plus an agent-ready .md summary, in 24–48 hours.
If a profile can't be read fairly, you swap in another creator — you always get the full count you paid for.
A summary of the key reads — the full report goes deeper, with the reasoning behind every call, in plain language.
The evidence behind the recommendation.
Every validation includes a human-readable PDF, a clear verdict per creator, key risks, next action, and an agent-ready .md summary your team can move into Sheets, Notion, Airtable, Slack, or an internal agent workflow.
Human-readable report
The full read per creator in plain language — the reasoning behind every verdict, nothing to decode.
One call per creator
Approve for shortlist, caution — conditions apply, or cut or hold. Plus the evidence to request before the creator moves forward.
Key risks + next action
What could make the creator hard to defend to a client or founder, with the move to make before anyone commits budget.
A .md your agent can read
A structured summary your team drops into Sheets, Notion, Airtable, Slack, or an internal agent — verdict, momentum, personality and conditions, per creator.
Built for the moment before someone recommends a creator.
Agencies don't need another dashboard full of scores. They need a repeatable QA step before creators enter a deck, gifting list, or paid plan. Creator Validator gives the strategist, account lead, or founder a clean artifact behind the recommendation.
Before an ambassador deal
A year of budget on one creator. Know they're real, rising, and a fit before you sign.
Vetting a shortlist
Ten creators on the list, budget for three. Validate the shortlist, back the right ones.
Recommending to clients
Put a creator in front of your client with a verdict behind it — not a guess.
Re-checking a partner
The creator you already work with — still rising, or quietly fading?
Avoiding fakes is the floor. The campaign that quietly costs you isn't the obvious scam — it's the creator who looks real, posts fine, and moves nothing. The views land, the sales line stays flat, and you only find out after the budget's gone.
Send the handles. A human judges. 24–48h.
Send the list
TikTok, Instagram or YouTube. Your shortlist — we start at five creators.
The system analyses
Our proprietary system reads the content and audience in depth, at scale — no generic AI scoring.
A human reviews & decides
A senior practitioner reviews every read and makes the call. System for scale, human judgment for the verdict — in 24–48h.
Four reads. One verdict.
Judged against your brief.
Creator Validator is a proprietary system that runs on the Brief-Conditioned Creator Fit Framework — and a human verifies every verdict before it reaches you.
Brief A — furniture launch, awareness, three organic posts. Audience real and in category. High recent paid frequency doesn't matter for awareness, and the downside is low.
Brief B — same creator, home-insurance leads, paid partnership over one quarter. The audience follows for aesthetics rather than to buy, and the quarter-long commitment raises the downside.
Every verdict is read against your brief by the system and checked by a senior practitioner before you see it.
Human-judged, for real partnerships.
Evolves with the algorithms
Feeds change how reach happens — constantly. The way you evaluate creators should evolve just as fast. This system does: every verdict runs on live data, pulled the moment you order — not a database snapshot — and reflects how distribution actually works today.
No AI slop. Judged by a human.
This isn't an automated score. A proprietary system does the analysis at scale on deterministic models — built to keep AI hallucination and generic slop out of your report — and a senior practitioner reviews every read and makes the final call.
Built for real deals
We rule out the basics — fake followers, bought views, the usual fakes — then go where the budget is really won or lost: who this creator really is, how commercial their audience is, and whether they're worth backing.
Enterprise-level vetting, on demand
Access the depth of an enterprise vetting stack exactly when you need it — one-time, per creator or per shortlist. Start every campaign more secure, and put the budget behind creators with a verdict behind them.
Recommend a creator with a verdict behind it, not a guess — a call your client can see the reasoning for. A vetted QA step behind every pitch protects the account and the retainer. Complement your current discovery, or replace it.
Know before you commit.
One-time per project — no subscription.
€60 per creator · you send the handles
- ✓ 5 creators you already have in mind
- ✓ Authenticity risk + audience fit + a clear verdict on each
- ✓ Reviewed by a human before delivery
- ✓ PDF report in 24–48h
€50 per creator · double the list for €200 more
- ✓ 10 creators, validated and ranked by fit
- ✓ A recommendation memo with the reasoning behind each call
- ✓ Approve for shortlist · caution · cut or hold, per creator
- ✓ Human-judged · priority 24h delivery
No shortlist yet? We build one.
- ✓ Tell us the brand, product, audience and platform
- ✓ We source 10 creators worth backing
- ✓ Each validated + ranked, top 3 called out
- ✓ Risk, commercial read, best use (gifting / sponsorship / paid) + outreach angle
Or email hello@soniaia.com
After payment: a submission page opens right away — add your creator handles and any notes there, and you're done. The PDF report plus agent-ready .md verdict lands in 24–48h. For Find + Vet (booked by email), we start from your brand, product, audience and platform, and the clock starts once the sourced list is confirmed.
If a profile in your list can't be read fairly — not enough public history — we tell you and you swap in another creator. You always get the full count you paid for.
Get it right the first time.
A media kit is just numbers — it doesn't tell the whole story.
Our proprietary qualitative system reads what actually makes a creator worth your money, your time and the client account — built on the influencer campaigns I've been running since 2014.
Doing this by hand takes days, and you still end up guessing. One run tells you who is worth your budget.
Commit once, commit right, and keep the money, time and energy a wrong pick burns.
Public accounts, that's it
The one requirement is a public account with enough posting history — and that's clear before you order. Every verdict is human-reviewed, with the reasoning in plain language, in 24–48h.
A senior practitioner makes the call
Two decades of growth-marketing judgment behind every verdict — reviewed by a senior practitioner rather than scored by a tool. A human call, with the reasoning, you can stand behind in front of a client.
No black-box scores
You get the final verdict plus the reads that made the decision, in plain language. Never a bare number to interpret on your own.
Secure checkout
Payments processed securely via Stripe. Your data is never shared or sold.
Good to know.
What do I actually get?
A clear verdict per creator — approve for shortlist, caution — conditions apply, or cut or hold — with the reasoning behind it, in plain language. Delivered as a PDF report plus an agent-ready .md summary, in 24–48 hours.
What's included in the influencer audit report?
Per creator: the basics first — fake followers, bought engagement — then the deeper read: who the creator really is, who's actually paying attention, how commercial that audience is, and whether they're safe for your brand. One verdict, plus the condition to clear before you approve. Human-readable PDF for the team, agent-ready .md for your workflow.
How do you verify influencer authenticity before a sponsorship?
Fraud detection comes first — fake followers and bought engagement leave traces, and we check for them on real-time data. But clean numbers are just the start, and where most tools stop. The report goes on to what actually decides the recommendation: who the creator really is, who's actually paying attention, and whether that audience is worth your budget. Two decades of growth-marketing judgment behind every call.
Which platforms?
TikTok, Instagram and YouTube — the platforms where creator partnerships move the most money, and where fake engagement runs highest.
How long does the analysis take?
The analysis runs on real-time data, and every verdict is human-reviewed. It lands within 24–48 hours. We analyse public accounts only.
What if the account can't be analysed?
We analyse public accounts with enough posting history — that's clear before you order. If a profile in your list can't be read fairly, we tell you and you swap in another creator — you always get the full count you paid for.
How do I vet an influencer before a campaign?
Start with the basics: check for fake followers, bought engagement and suspicious growth spikes. Then the harder part — who the creator really is, who's actually paying attention, and whether that audience buys. Done properly, that second part takes days by hand — which is why most teams skip it. We do the full read for you and send back a verdict per creator in 24–48h.
How much does influencer vetting cost?
€300 for a 5-creator shortlist (€60 per creator), €500 for 10 creators validated and ranked (€50 per creator), and from €1,000 if we also source the shortlist for you. One-time per project — no subscription, no annual platform contract.
Why not use a free influencer checker?
A free score gives you the basics. We start there, then go where it actually decides the deal: a senior practitioner reads who the creator really is, how commercial their audience is, and whether they're worth your budget — the qualitative read a number can't give you.
Do I need a subscription platform too?
Those are built for always-on search and scoring at scale — great for finding creators. We do something different: on the specific names you're about to back, we cover the basics, then go deep on the qualitative — who they really are, how commercial their audience is, whether they're worth your budget — per project, from €300. Source at scale with your discovery suite; bring us the shortlist for the verdict. It sits inside SoniaIA's full growth marketing system, for when you need more than a read.
How long does proper creator vetting usually take?
Done by hand, the qualitative read — who's really listening, who's actually buying — takes days. Creator Validator delivers a verdict in 24–48 hours, and it's still human-reviewed: a senior practitioner with 20 years in growth marketing, running creator campaigns since 2014, makes the final call on every creator.
What does proper creator vetting cost, versus the risk of skipping it?
Per-creator pricing starts at €60 (from €300 for 5 creators, €500 for 10 validated and ranked) — a one-time cost, no subscription. Compare that to backing the wrong creator: a wasted budget, a campaign that underperforms, and a client relationship you have to repair. The vetting costs less than one bad brief.
Which agencies are known for rigorous creator vetting?
Rigorous creator vetting is a process, and a repeatable one: check the basics — fake followers, bought engagement, suspicious growth — then the harder part, who the audience actually is and whether they buy. Few agencies build that in-house. Creator Validator gives you that process per project, white-label, so it looks like yours.
What's the cheapest reliable way to vet creators at scale?
Free checkers only catch the basics — fake followers, bought engagement. The reliable read needs the qualitative layer: who the audience is, how commercial it is, whether it's brand safe. Creator Validator prices per creator, from €50–60 each, so a shortlist of 10 costs €500. Bring the list, we do the read.
How thorough is agency creator vetting really?
Most vetting stops at the basics — followers, engagement rate, obvious bot activity. That catches fraud but misses fit. Thorough vetting goes further: who the audience really is, whether they're paying attention, whether they buy. Creator Validator does both, with a senior practitioner standing behind every verdict.
Do you work with agencies?
Yes — on a managed basis. I run rolling shortlist audits for your roster and you get the reports, white-labelled if you want. Let's talk.
What is the influencer screening process?
Five checks, run in cost order: audience match against your brief first, then the fake check — bought followers, bought engagement — then engagement quality, content fit, and the commercial read last, since it's the one that actually decides the call. A human judges the mix against your brief.
How do you test an influencer before a campaign?
You don't test the whole roster — you make one small commitment first: a read on the names you're closest to backing. That read tells you what a call with the creator wouldn't: is the audience real, does the content fit, and what the downside looks like before any money moves.
Is this an influencer verification guide or a service?
It's a service — you send the names, we run the read, you get a verdict in 24–48 hours. The guide lives separately, on the blog: the influencer campaign checklist walks through planning a campaign before you pick anyone. Read that first if you haven't picked creators yet.
What is a fake check, and is it enough?
A fake check rules out bought followers, bought engagement and paid growth spikes on real-time data — it's the cheapest signal to detect and where most free tools stop. A clean fake check doesn't mean the creator will sell. See our fake-follower market study for why that layer alone rarely decides a campaign.
Is there a free trial or a free influencer checker?
No free trial — pricing starts from five creators per project, one-time, no subscription. If a profile can't be read fairly, we swap it for another so you get the full count you paid for. Free checkers exist, but they only read the fake-check layer: bought followers, bought engagement, nothing on fit.
Does creator vetting cover brand safety?
Yes. Content history, past brand partnerships, disclosure practices, and any claims in regulated categories all get checked up front. A human reviews the account directly rather than trusting a score, and flags anything that would put your brand at risk before you sign the creator.
Back the right creators.
The budget is already spoken for. The only open question is whether it lands on a creator who moves your product — or one who just looked the part. Validate before the money moves — while there's still a call to make.
Validate a creator →Need more than a verdict?
Creator Validator is one tool inside SoniaIA's full growth marketing system — strategy, creator partnerships, performance, and the real return. Validation is where it starts.
Talk to me