Marketplace vs managed

A marketplace sells you videos.You needed the posts to go live.

Both models work — at different volumes, for different amounts of your time. Start with the number that actually decides it.

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One video did most of the work. We could not have told you which one.

This is the number most agencies leave out of the case study, and it's the one that should decide how you buy creator content.

89%

of a 5.8M-view campaign came from one video, out of 199.

5.2M · 89.4%@janienourished — one video
429K · 7.3%@avaswellnesss — one video
190K · 3.3%The other 197 videos, combined

Telehealth campaign: 199 videos from 95 creators. Views pulled from the campaign dashboard on 31 July 2026. Client unnamed by agreement.

Work out the rest and it stings: the other 197 videos averaged under a thousand views each. We are showing you that on purpose, because the alternative is letting you believe creator content behaves like a vending machine.

It doesn't. Nobody picks the breakout in advance — not us, not you, not the creator who shot it. The two things you can actually control are how many honest attempts you make and how fast you cut what isn't working. Everything in the managed model exists to raise those two numbers.

Which is the real problem with buying five videos and calling it a strategy. Five attempts against odds like these is a raffle ticket. The 197 that underperformed weren't waste — they were the price of finding the one, and every one of them fed what we knew before the next brief went out.

A UGC marketplace

You subscribe, post a brief, and creators apply. You pick them, manage them, review the work, and take delivery of the files. The platform's job finishes when the video is approved. Cheap per video, and every hour of coordination is yours.

Managed UGC

Someone else runs the operation: sourcing, screening, briefing, revisions, posting, and replacing whoever drops out. Costs more than a subscription. Takes about 45 minutes of your week instead of most of it.

Eight jobs. The only question is whose desk they land on.

Which party is responsible for each job under a UGC marketplace versus managed UGC
The job	Marketplace	Quizzy
Finding creators	You browse, filter, and pick	We source at scale against your niche
Screening them	You read profiles and hope	Paid test video before anyone joins your roster
Writing the brief	You, from a blank page	Starts from a video that already won in your niche
Revisions	You review and write the notes	We run the loop until it's approved
Posting	You — the file just lands in your inbox	Posted and verified live, with proof
A creator drops out	You find someone new this week	Bench replacement, same day
Knowing what to make next	Your instinct, every month	Post-level data decides — kill or scale
What they're graded on	Videos delivered	Planned vs Posted

How a roster actually gets built

The 95 creators on that campaign weren't picked off a list. Sourcing at the volume the maths demands is most of the work, and it's the part a subscription hands back to you.

Thousands of applicants per campaign
Not a shortlist. Reach at this scale is the only way the next two steps have anything to work with.
Screened on a paid test video, not a profile
A portfolio shows you what somebody shot once with good lighting and unlimited time. A paid test video shows you whether they can hit a brief on a deadline — which is the only thing that matters once a schedule exists.
Contracts to the few who deliver
Most applicants don't make it. 95 did, across 199 posts — roughly two posts each, because a roster is wide on purpose.
A bench behind the roster
Someone will go quiet the week you need them. With a bench that's a same-day swap instead of a fortnight of your evenings.

Ten to twelve videos, then the data decides

The 89% is exactly why nobody gets judged on one video — including us. Every creator gets a real run before anything is concluded.

A breakout past 10K views gets scaled

More briefs, more budget, more of whatever they did. Winners are found, not forecast, so the moment one appears the job is to feed it.

Strugglers get coached before they get cut

With the hooks, audio, and edits that already worked for someone else on your roster — a specific fix from a real result, not a note saying make it punchier.

Pay is wired to the same outcome

A base fee for approved videos, then CPM bonuses that climb with views. Nobody on the roster is indifferent to whether a post performs.

Every note becomes permanent

Feedback goes into a running list the next brief is written against, so a correction is made once. Month three is sharper than month one without you doing anything.

What it costs, and when we're the wrong answer

We start at $2,000/month, scoped to volume. That is several times a marketplace subscription and we're not going to pretend otherwise.

We won't quote their prices here either — they change, and a stale number on our page would be worth less to you than their own pricing page. Compare the subscription plus per-video cost yourself. The line that usually gets left out of that sum is your own hours, so put a real number on an hour of your time and add it in.

Below roughly ten posts a month, we cost more than we save. Use a marketplace, keep the difference, and come back when the coordination stops fitting in your week.

Under 10 posts/mo

Use a marketplace

The coordination genuinely fits in your week, and at this volume you're unlikely to catch a breakout either way. Paying someone to manage it is waste.

10–20 posts/mo

It depends on your week

Workable alone if creator ops is somebody's actual job. Painful if it's the fourth thing on a founder's list.

20–500 posts/mo

Managed, or hire a team

Past this line the coordination is a full-time role, and you're finally making enough attempts for the maths to work. Your options are a headcount or an operator.

Real posts, real handles, including the quiet ones

A sample across two campaigns. We've left the 25K posts in alongside the 5.2M one, because a page showing only winners tells you nothing about the shape of the thing.

Sample of individual creator posts across two campaigns, with view and like counts
Creator	Campaign	Views	Likes
@janienourished	Telehealth app	5.2M	752K
@avaswellnesss	Telehealth app	429K	77.3K
@carystudiessat	Pursu	230K	24.3K
@carystudiessat	Pursu	78.1K	5.8K
@aanisatcorner	Pursu	43.4K	4.9K
@carystudiessat	Pursu	32K	2.7K
@carystudiessat	Pursu	29.7K	2.7K
@addystudiessat	Pursu	25.1K	968

Telehealth figures pulled 31 July 2026; Pursu figures 10 July 2026. Full case study, including what went wrong.

Every option, including the ones that aren't us

Six of these seven are the same category as each other — self-serve, you do the coordinating. Switching between them changes your invoice, not your workload. That's the distinction worth understanding before you pick anything.

The main UGC platforms and creator marketplaces, how each one works, and what each is best suited to
Option	How it works	Best for
Insense	Self-serve platform — brief in, creators apply, rights handed over	Raw files for paid social, with a deep roster to filter yourself
Billo	Productized ordering — you write the spec, they deliver the edit	A few polished creatives fast, when you know the ad you want
JoinBrands	Creator marketplace — list a job, creators apply per job	Breadth of creators and one-off product seeding
Trend	Creator network — a curated roster rather than an open marketplace	Fewer, more considered collaborations
SideShift	App-first creator marketplace — creators browse and apply to brand gigs	Reaching a mobile-first creator base at self-serve prices
Influee	Self-serve UGC platform, positioned on roster size	Volume of creator options at self-serve prices
Cohley	Brand-side creator content platform	Larger brands wanting content and reviews through one system
Quizzy	Managed operation — sourcing, briefing, posting and replacements run for you	20–500 posts a month that you want off your desk entirely

Each description uses the platform's own public positioning as of August 2026 and covers how the model works, not how well anyone runs it. We've left prices out because they change; check their pricing pages. If we've described your product wrongly, tell us and we'll fix it.

Already on a platform?

What each one leaves you holding, step by step.

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