As social media becomes a bigger part of everyday life, more and more businesses are using influencers to make their marketing feel more personal and relatable. This trend of using real people to tell brand stories has changed how products and services are promoted. With this change comes a need for easy and clear ways on how to pay these influencers. Platforms like Influencity are now key because they help companies figure out how to pay influencers, follow international rules, and keep good relationships with them.

In today’s article, we are going to explain how to pay influencers using Influencity’s platform, helping you launch campaigns that enhance your brand’s presence in any market. So, get ready to:

• Different methods of paying influencers
• Challenges agencies face when paying influencers
• How to pay influencers with Influencity
• Learn the benefits of using Influencity’s platform                                                                                                                         

How to Pay Influencers: What Are My Options?

The first thing to consider is what payment method you are going to offer to collaborating social media content creators. There are a few options for this, regardless of the type of collaboration that you opt for. The right choice for your business will depend on the goals of your campaign, your marketing budget, and the preferences of the influencer that you are hoping to recruit.

With this in mind, here are the three most common influencer payment methods:

• Direct payments. This is where you negotiate a fixed fee for each post, video, or campaign period. This is a straightforward influencer marketing payment method that’s preferred by many influencers.
• Performance-based payments. This involves compensating influencers based on the engagement or sales that they generate. It's a good way to align the influencer's goals with your campaign's success.
• Influencer gifting. Finally, instead of money, you could offer products or services as payment. This method can work well when the product aligns closely with the influencer's lifestyle and audience interests.

The Challenges Agencies Face When Paying Influencers (And How to Fix Them!)

Working with influencers sounds fun, right? You find the perfect creator, strike a deal, and boom—your brand gets exposure to their loyal followers. But behind the scenes, agencies deal with a serious headache: paying influencers correctly and on time.

From confusing tax laws to payment delays that can turn influencers into your worst enemies, let's break down the biggest challenges agencies face—and how to tackle them like a pro.

1. Tax and Legal Nightmares: Every Country Has Its Own Rules

If you’re working with influencers from multiple countries, congratulations—you’ve just entered the Twilight Zone of international tax laws. Each country has different regulations, forms, and compliance requirements. Messing up could mean hefty fines, legal trouble, or your influencer ghosting you forever.

Pro Tip: Consider using a payment platform that automatically calculates taxes and generates the right documents based on the influencer’s location. (Trust me, your accounting team will thank you!)

2. Payment Delays = Angry Influencers

Nothing kills a good business relationship faster than late payments. Influencers rely on their brand deals to pay rent, buy content equipment, and, of course, afford their daily iced lattes. If they have to chase down their payments, they might refuse to work with you again—or worse, rant about it on social media.

Fun Fact: According to surveys, over 50% of influencers have experienced delayed payments from brands and agencies. Don’t be part of that statistic!

3. Too Much Time Spent on Admin Work

Manually verifying invoices, generating reports, and making payments one by one is a time-draining nightmare. Agencies end up wasting hours on admin work when they could be focusing on more important things—like finding the next viral influencer or crafting the perfect campaign strategy.

Solution: Automate your payment system! There are tools (yes, you guess right! Like Influencity!) that handle everything—from invoice verification to bulk payments—so your team can focus on actual marketing instead of playing accountant.

4. Confusion About Influencer Tax Status & Paperwork

Do you know if your influencer is a freelancer, a registered business, or just making money on the side? If not, you might be making serious tax mistakes. Many agencies struggle to figure out what documents they need to collect from influencers, leading to compliance issues and possible fines.

Pro Tip: Work with a legal or tax expert (or a smart payment platform) to ensure you're collecting the right paperwork before making a payment.

5. Payment Management is a Mess

Late payments, missing invoices, wrong amounts—handling influencer payments can feel like the last level of Super Mario, almost impossible to defeat!  Agencies often face confusion and delays, which frustrates everyone involved.

Alternative to manual payment processes: Use a centralized system to track payments, set clear deadlines, and ensure smooth transactions.

6. Cutting Costs Without Cutting Efficiency

Agencies want to keep costs low but still ensure smooth payment processes. The challenge? Hiring a full finance team for influencer payments isn’t exactly budget-friendly. That’s why outsourcing or automating the process is becoming a game-changer for many agencies.

Smart Move: Instead of hiring extra staff to handle payments, look into third-party platforms that can automate everything for you—faster, cheaper, and with fewer headaches.

7. Nobody Likes Boring Admin Tasks

Let’s be real—no one joins an agency because they love paperwork. Marketers want to build campaigns, grow brands, and go viral—not spend their time processing invoices.

Final Tip: Free up your team’s time by outsourcing non-strategic admin tasks. Your creatives will be happier, and your agency will run smoother.

The Bottom Line?

Influencer payments don’t have to be a nightmare. Automating processes, staying compliant with tax laws, and improving payment efficiency, help agencies keep influencers happy, avoid legal trouble, and spend more time on what really matters—creating killer campaigns.

How Automation Transforms Influencer Payment Management (And Saves Agencies a Ton of Time & Money)

Managing influencer payments might not be the sexiest part of marketing, but let’s face it—it’s key. Messing it up can lead to frustrated influencers, accounting nightmares, and wasted resources. The good news? Automation can make all these headaches disappear.

Let’s break down how specialized payment solutions can save time, cut costs, and make agencies run smoother than ever.

1. Big Savings: More Money for Strategy, Less for Admin Work

Imagine this: for every 100 invoices, an agency can save up to €1,080 and eliminate 15 manual payment tasks. That’s not just loose change—it’s a serious financial boost!

Agencies using automated payment solutions can free up to 160 hours per month—that’s four full workweeks! Instead of drowning in paperwork, teams can focus on scaling campaigns and building relationships.

2. 80% Less Time Spent on Payment Processing

Nobody enjoys chasing invoices, matching payments, and fixing tax issues manually. Automation reduces the time spent on payments by a whopping 80% by:

• Consolidating all influencer payments into one invoice (way easier for accounting).
• Automatically handling banking certificates and tax breakdowns to keep everything compliant.
• Simplifying reporting, so finance teams don’t lose their minds trying to track expenses.

If you’re still manually processing influencer payments, you’re working way harder than you need to.

3. No More Tax & Compliance Nightmares

Handling payments across multiple countries? Welcome to a world of different tax laws, VAT requirements, and KYC (Know Your Customer) regulations. Thankfully, solutions like Influencity do the heavy lifting. They:

• Ensure tax compliance in 30+ countries (so you don’t have to Google tax laws at 2 AM).
• Automatically apply the right tax deductions and withholdings based on the influencer’s location.
• Manage multi-currency payments without surprise fees or exchange rate drama.

Trying to handle international tax compliance manually is like assembling IKEA furniture without instructions—it’s frustrating, time-consuming, and probably won’t end well.

4. Better Experience for Agencies, Clients & Influencers

Happy influencers = successful campaigns. When agencies automate payments, they ensure:

• Influencers get paid accurately and on time (goodbye, payment disputes!).
• Clients receive a single, organized invoice instead of a chaotic mess of separate payments.
• Finance teams spend less time troubleshooting and more time optimizing budgets.

Outsourcing influencer payments allows agencies to cut costs, eliminate manual work, and ensure compliance across global campaigns.

So, why waste time on payments when automation can do it better, faster, and cheaper?

How To Pay Influencers with Influencity

So, how does the platform work, exactly? Is it really that easy to process payments? In fact, Influencity streamlines the entire process, offering a robust and comprehensive solution that allows you to manage all your payments, national and international,  from a simple and intuitive dashboard. 

Here’s a detailed look at each step in the process.

Step 1: Create an Invoice 

You’ll start the process by creating and invoice. You just need to click on the  "Create invoice" button. Enter a name for your invoice and select the currency. Ensure the selected currency matches the one you will use to pay your influencers. 

Optionally, add a description and a purchase order number to your invoice. The currency of your invoice can only be changed while the invoice is in draft status.

Step 2: Add Influencers to the Invoice

Once you’ve searched for influencers and found a good match, the next step is to add them to your list of payees. Open your newly created invoice, which will initially be blank. Click on "Add influencers" 

Add influencers individually by ticking the box next to their name, or select all influencers by clicking the box in the top left corner. You can also search for influencers by name or filter them by social network, email, or date added. 

You can also select influencers from your lists in your IRM. For example, if you have a list named “Spring Campaign 2024,” you can add it directly to the invoice and process all these payments together.

Influencity allows you to group multiple payments into what are known as "payment pools", which makes it easier to manage payments collectively rather than individually. This option is especially useful for campaigns involving several influencers. 

Step 3: Add Payment Details and Include Influencers in the Payment Pool

After adding influencers to your invoice, they will appear under the Payment tab. Next, add a description, country, and amount for each influencer. This dashboard provides an overview of all the payments, amounts, influencers and status.

For example, to add information for JC, you can enter details about the payment, such as “Samsung Spring Campaign.”, JC’s country of residence and the amount he will be paid for this activity. If JC has participated in multiple campaigns, you can add multiple lines for each payment (e.g., “Samsung Spring Campaign,” “Samsung Holiday Campaign,” “Brand Ambassador Fee,” etc.). 

You can also use mass actions to fill in multiple cells at once. For instance, if all your influencers are located in the UK, go to Actions, select Add country to all, and choose “United Kingdom.” This is also useful when an influencer is part of an always-on campaign and will be paid multiple times throughout the year. Using this method, you can add them to the payment pool each time you want to make a partial payment towards the final annual invoice.

Once you’ve entered the description, amount, and currencies, start adding influencers to the payment pool. Click Add to the payment pool individually or use mass actions to add multiple influencers at once.

Step 4: Making Payments

After generating your receipts and adding influencers to your payment pools, you can start making payments. 

Note: Payments from the payment pools are "receipts," not invoices. It's important to differentiate because an invoice is not generated when you make a payment from the payment pool. The invoice is an aggregation of payments from the pools and is only generated when the invoice is closed with all payments processed.

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Once the payment has been received, you will get an email confirming receipt. Influencity will then proceed to send the payments to each influencer as detailed.

Step 5: Track Status

To monitor your payments, you'll find several columns in the table providing detailed information about each payment pool:

• Number: Unique ID for the payment pool.
• Status:

• Pending: Influencity has received the payment and is sending it to the influencers.
• Paid: All influencers have received payment.
• Error: Influencity will contact you with further details.
• Currency: Currency of the transaction.
• Total to Pay: Total amount to be paid by the client, including the Influencity fee.
• Created By: The member of your team who initiated the payment.

Our  platform enables you to track these payments, providing details such as payment status and associated fees directly from your dashboard. 

The invoice is generated once all the payment pools have been paid, and you'll have a single bill for all the influencer payments.  In other words, you have a single invoice generated from multiple payment pools.

The Benefits of Using Influencity’s Platform to Pay Influencers

If your agency is overloaded with admin tasks, payment issues, and compliance headaches, you’re not alone. Many agencies hit a point where they feel like they’re barely keeping their head above water—stuck managing endless invoices, tax documents, and payment tracking instead of focusing on what really matters: running impactful campaigns.

Specialized platforms like Influencity can make all the difference. Let’s explore the biggest benefits using Influencity to automate your payments:

1. Save Time & Focus on Strategy

As we mentioned throughout the article several times, automating payments, frees up hours every week, allowing you to focus on strategy, creative planning, and scaling campaigns instead of fixing invoice errors.

2. User-Friendly & Hassle-Free

The last thing you need is another complicated tool. The right payment solution should be simple, intuitive, and quick to onboard. Whether your team is full of finance experts or marketing creatives, a streamlined system makes payment management a breeze.

3. Global Reach, No Compliance Nightmares

Running an international campaign? Each country has its own tax laws, invoicing requirements, and banking rules—and getting them wrong can lead to fines or payment delays.

4. Industry Expertise

We’ve helped countless agencies optimize their payment processes while staying 100% compliant with international tax laws.

5. Tailored Workflows 

No cookie-cutter solutions here! We customize payment processes based on the specific needs of each agency, campaign, and influencer location.

6. Direct Support for Influencers 

We offer personalized support to influencers, ensuring smooth payments, fewer questions, and zero frustration.

7. Easy Onboarding & Integration

Our platform is easy to use, and agencies can start processing payments in no time.

8. Minimized Accounting Risks

Say goodbye to audit errors and compliance nightmares. We provide rigorous financial tracking to keep your books clean and risk-free.

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