Billion Dollar Boy's Companion Launches "Creator Investment Intelligence"

Jul. 31, 2026

Companion, the proprietary tech platform of Billion Dollar Boy, the social agency with Creator Instinct®, is today launching Creator Investment Intelligence - the creator economy’s first comprehensive pricing tool designed to establish fair market value and bring governance to creator spend.

Creator Investment Intelligence is informed by pricing intelligence aggregated from 180,000 quotes, final deals, and deal data-points totalling $173M in real creator campaign spend with Billion Dollar Boy. Available to direct Companion clients, it helps brands negotiate with confidence, reduce overpayments, govern creator spend more effectively and optimise investment, while supporting fair remuneration for creators.

Crisis of Confidence: Half of Marketers Are Mispricing Creator Fees

The launch resolves a growing challenge for marketers. While creator investments continue to rise, the systems used to fairly price, track and manage those investments haven't kept pace. Without formal pricing benchmarks, organisations are left with inconsistent pricing, overpayments and inefficient negotiations.

New research of 1,000 senior marketers and procurement professionals across the US and UK found that almost half (45%) of all marketers and procurement professionals admit their organisation has mispriced creator fees, rising to 58% in the UK. As a result, less than half (44%) have full confidence that their organisation is equipped with the intelligence needed to negotiate fair market rates for creators.

The challenge is particularly acute for the four in five (81%) organisations who manage creator fee negotiations in-house without specialist external support, up-to-date market knowledge and often with limited negotiation training and little access to reliable benchmarks.

Creator Investment Intelligence is Companion’s solution to restore certainty and transparency. It introduces two major new features: 

Benchmark Algorithm: Establishing Fair Market Value

Benchmark Algorithm is Companion's proprietary pricing intelligence tool, informed by $173 million dollars worth of verified creator deals - spanning 180,000 quotes, final deals, and deal data-points covering more than 50 regions worldwide.

Unlike traditional tools that rely on public rate cards or simplistic follower-based pricing, Benchmark Algorithm flexibly adapts to factor in a range of variables to accurately reflect the craft, production scale, and complexity behind a creator’s work. Benchmark Algorithm’s ‘Suggested Fee’ model evaluates format and platform specifications, region, usage rights, exclusivity, seasonality, production timelines, and creator niche. It dynamically adapts to predicted performance which Companion helps to calculate.

By uniting historical negotiation insights - including quotes and contracts - into a single dashboard, Benchmark Algorithm also gives brands complete transparency over fees previously agreed with specific talent and can adapt the Suggested Fee to reflect existing relationships. 

Budget Tracker: Improving Governance of Creator Spend

Creator spend is increasingly fragmented across teams, markets and business units, making governance difficult. Nearly half (49%) of marketers and procurement professionals cite managing creator budgets across teams, markets and regions as one of their biggest operational and strategic concerns when budgeting and pricing creators. 

Without a unified view of historical quotes, active negotiations, and finalised agreements, organisations can struggle to benchmark creator fees and optimise spend appropriately.  Nearly three-quarters (73%) still track creator spend manually using spreadsheets and email, including one in four (24%) who rely on email chains alone to manage budgets, quotes and deal terms.

Budget Tracker centralises creator investment into a single dashboard, allowing organisations to manage budgets, negotiations and performance consistently across markets. It unifies a Fee Calculator, a secure Budget Group and Optimisation Workflows so teams can track every quote, negotiation and deal, and model permutations using Companion’s predicted impressions to forecast and optimise creator partnerships against budget and campaign KPIs. 

Independent Audit Reveals Potential Savings of 69% on Creator Fees

An independent audit of recent creator campaigns conducted by a global retail brand across ten markets - including Italy, Germany and the UK - found that its internal teams had overseen an overall creator fee spend 69% above benchmark. The brand identified $4 million in potential savings lost over a nine-month period due to limited access to pricing intelligence and specialist negotiation expertise.

Protecting Creators From Underpayments

Creator Investment Intelligence is designed not only to improve budget efficiency for brands but also to support fairer outcomes for creators.

By introducing structured pricing, the tool provides vital protections for niche and emerging creators who may not have established the market intelligence to price their work with confidence.

The launch builds on Companion's recently introduced Early Pay feature, which gives creators greater control over cash flow through flexible payment options, including instant payment upon completion of content deliverable. 

Thomas Walters, Chief Innovation Officer and Co-Founder, Billion Dollar Boy Group, commented:

“For too long, brands and creators have had to guess what a partnership is worth because the industry has lacked a definitive benchmark. But, as the creator economy increasingly professionalises, the demand for accountability and transparency has grown. This tool gives our clients the data they need to maximise their budgets and invest with absolute confidence, while keeping the market stable and healthy; And it protects creators from underpayment, championing the value that belongs to their work, not just their follower count. By combining Companion’s deep data intelligence with the strategic and creative expertise of Billion Dollar Boy and our proximity to creators through our FiveTwoNine creator community, our clients have 360 knowledge of the market. This clarity and guidance ensures brands can hit peak performance with confidence while respecting every single marketing dollar and every creator’s craft.”