How much does it cost to get food influencers to my restaurant?

Ask what it costs to get food influencers in and you tend to hear one number. The money actually leaves from four places, and a platform price or an agency quote may cover some of them and not others. Write all four down before you compare anything.

The creator has to eat at your restaurant to film it, so unless they pay their own bill, the meal is the one cost almost every visit has. What you pay is whatever lands on the table: the creator, any guest you allow, drinks if you include them, and the tip if you cover it. The guest count matters more than the price of any one dish.

The LA Times reported on Men & Beasts, a plant-based Chinese restaurant in Echo Park. Its owners agreed to a meal for a creator and her sister in exchange for posts. Co-owner Alex Falco said the creator named other influencers she said were coming, and that he ended up feeding six. The meal came to just under $500.

On your books, a comp costs the food and drink you serve, plus a table you could have sold. That is why a quiet weeknight costs you less than a Saturday. Put the number of guests, the drink rules and who covers the tip in the invitation, and decide before anyone asks what you will say to a bigger party. Our guide on paying creators or offering a free meal covers what to put in writing.

Not every creator charges. Some are glad to come for the meal alone, especially when they already post about restaurants in your area. Others quote a fee, and the work you ask for raises it. That means more videos or several of your locations. It can also mean a promise not to promote a competing restaurant for a while, or the right to run the video as an ad.

Format moves the number too. Collabstr reports that Instagram Reels on its marketplace average $288 per post, against $217 for TikTok videos. None of these figures is a restaurant price list: a creator who films one dinner in your city may ask far less, or far more, than a marketplace average.

That last deal shows how a quote moves. The LA Times reported that at Hollywood Thai, the creator said his manager asked $575 to post one reel. The owners agreed to a payment of $500 and nearly $100 of food. The owner has since said, “I’m not gonna pay anybody to come in like that anymore.” So write down what you want, ask two or three creators for a price per finished video, in writing. Pay once the video is live, or half before and half after.

Ask your accountant about Form 1099-NEC

Around the meal there is work. Someone has to find creators who post about food in your area, write to each one and follow up. Someone has to agree a date, check that the video went up and pay any fee. Someone pays for that work, in one of three ways.

• Do it yourself. There is no bill, but it takes time every week, and it stalls when the person doing it is busy on the floor.
• Software. A monthly subscription. Depending on the tool, it finds creators, sends the invitations and follow-ups and tracks the visits, while you still choose who comes and approve what is said.
• An agency. Its people run the campaign for you. Ask how it charges, by the month, by the video or both, and whether the creator’s fee is inside that price or on top.

The right choice depends on how many visits a month you want and who on your team has time. Our guide on hiring an agency, using software or doing it yourself walks through the trade-offs, and our guide to finding food influencers covers the search itself.

A visit takes more than a table. Someone answers the creator’s messages and sets the date. Someone tells the floor who is coming, greets the creator, and makes sure the dishes that film well go out looking their best. After the visit, someone checks that the video went up, pays any fee and reads the comments. On a busy night, that time comes out of service for your other guests.

CreatoRain, a done-for-you creator video service for restaurant chains and franchises, publishes this guide. It has one price for every restaurant: $300 a video, the creator’s pay included.

• One price per video. You pay $300 for each finished video, and the creator’s pay comes out of it. There is no monthly fee and no minimum, so you can add videos in any month.
• Finding and managing creators. You don’t send a single email: our in-house team invites the creators, pays them and follows up until each video is posted. Creators book their own visit, and you host it.
• The creator’s fee. It is inside the $300, so you don’t agree a fee with each creator or pay them yourself.

Set against the four costs, the $300 covers two of them in full: the creator’s fee, and the work of finding and managing creators. The meal and your staff’s time stay with you, so add them before you hold $300 against a creator’s own quote or an agency’s package.

A per-video price compares fairly once you know what sits around it. Ask any provider whether its price adds a monthly plan or a minimum. CreatoRain has neither.

A monthly plan or a per-video price is easier to judge once you know what a single visit costs you. Before you sign anything, cost one visit, line by line.

1. The meal: the guests you allow, times what a guest usually spends with you, drinks included if you offer them.
2. The fee, if there is one, for each finished video.
3. The tool or service: the monthly price divided by the visits it will run that month, or the per-video price.
4. Staff time: the hours spent on messages, the visit and the follow-up, at what you pay for them.

Add the four, then multiply by the visits you want a month. Hold that number against a quote, and against your other marketing. For scale, Toast cites RestaurantGrowth as saying restaurants spend 3-6% of their total revenue on paid advertising such as Google Ads, print ads and billboards.

A meal or a fee pays for a visit and the videos you agreed on. It does not buy praise, and it does not guarantee a post. The FTC says endorsements must reflect the endorser’s honest opinions or experiences, so if the food misses, an honest video can say so. Invite creators on a night when the kitchen is at its best.

Keep Google and Yelp reviews out of the deal. Google’s Maps rules bar offering incentives such as payment, discounts or free goods in exchange for a review, and say such reviews will be removed. Yelp tells businesses not to offer freebies, discounts or payment in exchange for reviews.

And the post has to say the meal was free or paid. The FTC’s Endorsement Guides FAQ says that if you get free meals from a restaurant you review, you should let your readers know. Tell creators how to disclose when you invite them; our guide on whether a food influencer has to disclose a free meal has the wording. If a creator eats and never posts, see what to do when a food influencer never posts.

A quote that answers every question is one you can compare with another. One that can’t answer the first is not a price yet.