Exclusive: Hashtag Pay Me, a calculator that helps influencers determine rates, rolls out

When Cynthia Ruff started coordinating her own influencer deals, she developed a system. If a brand reached out asking her to do work for free, she’d respond with her rates. Often, it worked. Recounting these experiences to her husband, she joked to Marketing Brew that he’d often respond with, “That’s right, baby, you tell those brands #PayMe!”

That’s how the name for Ruff’s new business Hashtag Pay Me, a rate calculator for influencers, came about. The free “base” calculator, which puts a price on what a creator’s content is worth at minimum, rolls out today. Ruff—who previously worked in a role involving pricing executive compensation—shared the debut exclusively with us.

• Backed with 18 months of data from brands, agencies, and influencers, Hashtag Pay Me’s base-rate calculator uses factors such as an influencer’s reach, technical skill, content-creation ability level, and years of experience to determine what similar influencers are paid at minimum per sponsored post (such as a 30-second TikTok, for instance) in the US.
• Hashtag Pay Me plans to not only build out more specialized products that would be available to influencers for a nominal fee, but also license its data to marketers.

How it happened: Although Ruff built the company in Georgia Tech’s startup accelerator Create-X, she declined the $25,000 it offered her to fund Hashtag Pay Me. Ruff said the company was entirely funded from her own influencer brand deals, which she hopes will drive trust between herself and the influencers using the product.

Why marketers should care: As influencer rates go up, Ruff told us that Hashtag Pay Me can provide relevant data points on how the market has historically paid them, as well as predict future payment rates.—PB