Comparison
Herd vs GRIN
A creator management platform for ecommerce brands, built around a CRM, email sequences, affiliate links and deep Shopify integration. This page puts it beside Herd for UK brands, with the pricing checked on 21 September 2026 and the places GRIN wins written down as such.
Herd at a glance
- Plans
- £999/month for brands, in GBP
- Covers
- Creators, brands and agencies in one account, on the same deal record
- Based
- United Kingdom. Herd UK Ltd, registered in England & Wales
- Best for
- UK brands who want the content, the paperwork and the money in one system rather than in eleven tabs
GRIN at a glance
- Pricing
- A free tier with 200 credits a month, then $200, $500, $1,000 or $1,500 a month in USD for larger credit allowances, with overage at $0.10 a credit.
- Head office
- Sacramento, US
- Best for
- US ecommerce brands running affiliate and gifting programmes at volume on Shopify, who need GMV attributed back to individual creators.
Pricing last checked 21 September 2026 from grin.co.
Prices in USD; features change, check GRIN's site before deciding.
The short version
GRIN is the stronger choice for a US ecommerce brand paying creators on sales, because the affiliate and Shopify stack is genuinely deep. Herd is the stronger choice for a UK brand or agency that pays creators on deliverables, because the contract, the invoice and the creator all live on the same record. The two do not really overlap on money.
GRIN is run from Sacramento, US. It suits US ecommerce brands running affiliate and gifting programmes at volume on Shopify, who need GMV attributed back to individual creators.
Herd is a UK product with three sides in one account. Creators run content, deals, contracts and invoices. Brands run campaigns, review content and pay creator invoices by card. Agencies run a roster with commission splits and white-label client portals. Herd costs £999/month for brands, billed in pounds. That breadth is the whole trade: Herd covers more of the week, and in a few places it covers it less thoroughly than GRIN does.
Feature by feature
Every line in the Herd column is a feature that works today. The GRIN column is what its own site and the listings we read showed on 21 September 2026: a dash means we could not find the feature there, and a plan name in the Herd column is the plan the feature starts on.
| Feature | Herd | GRIN |
|---|---|---|
| Who it is for | ||
| Brands | £999 a month | Free, then $200 to $1,500 a month |
| Agencies | £1,999 a month | Same plans, no commission model |
| Creators | Free, £99 or £299 a month | No |
| Active creator caps | None on Brand or Agency | 100, 250 or 500 on Growth and above |
| Content | ||
| Content calendar and publishing for your own channels | Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X | No |
| Content review and approvals | Yes | Content library |
| Deals & paperwork | ||
| Deals pipeline shared with the creator | Yes | No |
| Proposals with accept or decline | Yes | No |
| Contracts with e-signature | Yes | No |
| Product seeding | Yes | Shopify gifting |
| Money | ||
| Affiliate links, codes and GMV tracking | No | Yes |
| Shopify integration | No | Yes |
| Pay creator invoices by card | Yes | Not verified |
| Agency commission splits and payouts | Yes | No |
| Communication | ||
| Gmail or Outlook inbox | Yes | Email sequences |
| Video meetings with guest links | Yes | No |
| Team & agency | ||
| White-label client portals | Yes | No |
| Pricing & billing | ||
| Currency | GBP | USD |
| Pricing model | One flat monthly price | Credits, with $0.10 overage |
| Free trial or free plan | Free plan for creators, live demo for brands and agencies | Free tier with 200 credits |
Where GRIN is stronger
Nothing below is a concession for the sake of looking fair. These are the parts of GRIN that Herd either does not have or does less well, and if one of them is the deciding factor for you, buy GRIN.
- Widely used for ecommerce creator programmes, rated 4.6 on G2 across 362 reviews when we checked on 21 September 2026.
- Affiliate links and discount codes with GMV tracked back to the creator. Herd has none of this.
- A deep Shopify integration, including product gifting.
- Month-to-month billing and a free tier, which is unusual at this end of the market.
- Email sequencing for outreach at volume.
What Herd adds
The other direction. These are jobs Herd covers that we could not find in GRIN's published feature list when we checked on 21 September 2026, taken from the same list as the table above, plus the differences in how the two are priced. Some of them sit on the higher Herd plans, and the pricing below says which.
- No creator-facing product. The creator does not have an account with a pipeline, invoices or a media kit.
- No agency roster, commission split or payout model.
- No GBP pricing.
- No in-app video meetings.
- Credit pricing means the cost moves with usage rather than sitting still.
Pricing side by side
A free tier with 200 credits a month, then $200, $500, $1,000 or $1,500 a month in USD for larger credit allowances, with overage at $0.10 a credit. Those figures are from GRIN's own pricing page, last checked on 21 September 2026. Herd is priced in pounds and costs £999/month for brands, with 17% off when you pay for the year and a 14-day cooling-off period on every paid plan.
Herd, in pounds
For brands
- Brand£999/month, £9,950/year
For agencies
- Agency£1,999/month, £19,190/year
Annual billing saves 17% on creator and Brand plans and 20% on the Agency plan. 14-day cooling-off on every paid plan. Brands and agencies can book a live demo before subscribing.
GRIN, as published
- Free$0
USD per month · 200 Gia credits a month
- Starter$200/mo
USD · 2,000 credits
- Growth$500/mo
USD · 7,500 credits; Classic CRM workspace, 100 active creators
- Scale$1,000/mo
USD · 20,000 credits; 250 active creators
- Complete$1,500/mo
USD · 30,000 credits; 500 active creators
Pricing last checked 21 September 2026 from grin.co.
Those figures are from GRIN's own pricing page, last checked on 21 September 2026.
Prices in USD; features change, check GRIN's site before deciding.
What people say
We have no data of our own on how GRIN treats its customers, and no opinion to add. What follows is a summary of public reviews as they stood on 21 September 2026, each linked to its source so you can read them and make your own mind up. Review scores move, so check the source rather than this page.
Reviewers on G2, read on 21 September 2026, mention discovery features being removed without notice, slow page loads, a steep learning curve for new team members, and that the plan they needed cost more than the headline price suggested.
Source: g2.com
Campaigns
One campaign record both sides can see
A Herd campaign holds the brief, the creators, the deliverables and the dates, and the creator is looking at the same record from their own account. That is the part a discovery tool cannot do, because the creator is not in it.
- Briefs, creator invitations, deliverables and deadlines on one campaign.
- Content review with real statuses, instead of approvals buried in a reply-all thread.
- The creator answers inside the campaign, then invoices you through it.
Herd and GRIN, asked and answered
- It depends on volume. GRIN Starter is $200 a month and Herd Brand is £999. But GRIN charges by credits with $0.10 overage, and the Classic CRM workspace only appears from Growth at $500 a month with a 100 creator cap. Herd is one flat price with no credit meter.
- No. Herd has no affiliate link tracking, no discount code attribution and no Shopify integration. If your creator programme is paid on sales, GRIN is the better fit today.
- The creator has their own account. That means a shared deal record, proposals and contracts with e-signature, an invoice the creator raises and you pay by card, and video meetings. GRIN manages creators. Herd works with them.
- It manages creators well, but there is no roster commission split, no payout model and no white-label client portal. UK talent agencies usually need those three things, which is why Herd Agency exists.
Simple pricing in pounds
One price per side of the market. Annual billing saves 17% on creator and Brand plans and 20% on the Agency plan.
Free
Have a proper look around
£0/month
No card needed.
- Content calendar and drafts
- One draft deal to set up
- Invoice preview
- Dashboard with sample data
- Video editor · 1 watermarked export a month
- Community
- Send invoices or activate deals
- Inbox, meetings, media kit
- 7 days of history
- No social integrations
Starter
Run the business by hand
£99/month
Billed monthly. Cancel from your settings at any time.
- Active deals · Up to 5 at a time
- Send invoices your clients pay by card through Stripe
- Stripe payouts to your own bank
- Gmail or Outlook inbox and opportunities queue
- Live media kit, rate card and video meetings
- Video exports · 5 a month, no watermark
- Social integrations · 2 connected accounts
- Contracts, expenses, products and memberships
- 90 days of history
- No automated reminders
Pro
The whole business, no limits
£299/month
Billed monthly. Cancel from your settings at any time.
- Unlimited active deals and video exports
- Contracts with e-signature
- Proposals to brands and agencies
- Payments page with your Stripe balance and payout history
- Digital products and memberships
- Expenses, cashflow and tax-ready exports
- Asset library and email
- Unlimited social integrations
- Prices in GBP. VAT added where applicable.
- Annual billing saves 17% on creator and Brand plans and 20% on the Agency plan.
- 14-day cooling-off period on every paid plan.
- Card payment through Stripe. Cancel from your settings at any time.
- Platform fee on digital product sales: 5%.
Keep reading
The switching notes for GRIN, the other comparisons UK brands tend to read, and how Herd works day to day.
Herd has a page for each side of the market: creators, brands and agencies. The full list of what the product does is on the features page, and every plan and fee is on the pricing page.
- GRIN alternativeWhat changes if you move, what you give up, and the steps for leaving GRIN.
- Herd vs ModashAn influencer discovery and campaign tracking platform for brands, built on a very large index of creator profiles with audience data.
- Herd vs CollabstrA two-sided marketplace where creators list packages with published rates and brands book them through escrow.
- Herd vs PassionfrootA booking platform where creators publish productised sponsorship packages with live availability and brands book and pay through the page.
- How brands use HerdA working week on Herd from the brand side, feature by feature.
Run the campaign without the spreadsheet
Brief, invite, approve and pay creators in one place, with every message and file against the campaign.
£999 a month, or 17% less billed annually. 14-day cooling-off period once you subscribe.