Every DTC founder I talk to has the same question buried inside a different one. They ask which creator platform is best. What they actually mean is: which platform will stop me wasting money on commission for sales I was already going to make, and which one will actually put my product in front of a creator's audience for the first time.
Those are two different problems, and LTK, ShopMy, Impact, Levanta, and Aspire solve them in different ways. Here is what each platform actually does, what it costs, and the framework I use with clients to pick the right one instead of the loudest one.
Why This Decision Is Harder Than It Looks
Most of the content comparing these platforms is written for creators, not brands. It answers "which platform pays me more" rather than "which platform gets my brand a return." Those are different questions with different answers, and a founder reading creator-side content walks away with the wrong priorities.
The deeper issue is attribution. 86% of affiliate programmes globally still run on a last-click model, which means the majority of affiliate spend funds demand capture, not demand creation. A creator posts about your product, a shopper searches your brand name a week later, clicks an affiliate link on the way to checkout, and the platform credits the creator for a sale your brand generated through its own marketing. You end up paying commission twice for the same customer.
The platform is not the strategy. The platform is infrastructure. If you do not know what you are trying to buy, reach, content, or long-term ambassadors, no platform will fix that for you.
The Platforms, Broken Down
These are the five platforms DTC and CPG founders ask me about most. Each one solves a genuinely different problem.
LTK
Best for: editorial reach and established fashion, beauty, and lifestyle audiences
LTK is the most established creator commerce platform, built around a shoppable storefront model where creators curate product links for their audience. It requires creators to have 5,000 or more followers, which filters out the smallest accounts but also means you are paying for reach, not just content.
Commission rates run 10-25% depending on category, with fashion clothing averaging 10-20% and beauty averaging 5-15%. The catch is timing. LTK pays on a biweekly cycle for top performers but operates a 60-90 day commission close window, meaning a sale today is not fully reconciled and paid out for two to three months. If you are forecasting affiliate spend against cash flow, that lag needs to be in your model, not a surprise on your P&L.
LTK suits brands that want polish and an audience that already behaves like a retail shopper. It is a weaker fit if your goal is fast, high-volume seeding of micro-creators.
ShopMy
Best for: fast seeding, lower-friction onboarding, and micro-creator programmes
ShopMy accepts creators from 1,000 followers and pays out weekly, every Friday, with commissions ranging 10-30%. The standout feature is that it automatically applies the highest available commission rate when a creator adds your product to their storefront or shares a link, without requiring the creator to manually join your individual programme.
That lower friction cuts both ways. It is genuinely faster to get creators talking about your product, but the lower follower floor also means more variance in audience quality. You will get creators who move product and creators who post once and disappear.
ShopMy is the platform I recommend when a brand needs momentum, a product launch, a seasonal push, a content gap to fill, rather than long-term brand-building reach.
Impact.com
Best for: brands running a mature, multi-channel partnership programme
Impact is not a creator marketplace in the LTK or ShopMy sense. It is affiliate infrastructure: tracking, contracts, payout automation, and reporting across every type of partner you might run, creators, cashback sites, content publishers, and traditional affiliates, in one system.
The tradeoff is that Impact gives you infrastructure, not creator discovery. You still need to find and recruit the partners. What you get in return is clean attribution reporting and the flexibility to run incrementality tests properly, which matters given how much affiliate spend leaks to last-click misattribution.
Impact makes sense once your affiliate programme has outgrown a single creator marketplace and you need one system managing partnerships across several channels at once.
Levanta and Aspire
Best for: marketplace-driven traffic (Levanta) and hands-on, managed creator relationships (Aspire)
Levanta is built primarily for brands selling on Amazon and other marketplaces, connecting you with a network of 60,000-plus vetted creators and affiliates whose content points traffic at your marketplace listings specifically. If a meaningful share of your revenue runs through Amazon alongside your DTC site, Levanta closes a gap that LTK and ShopMy do not address.
Aspire combines a vetted creator marketplace with full campaign management tools, and its network of over 1 million creators produces materially higher response rates than cold outreach. It is a higher-touch, higher-cost option built for brands that want a managed relationship with creators rather than a self-serve marketplace.
Both are worth evaluating once your affiliate strategy has a specific gap, marketplace traffic or managed creator relationships, that the bigger, more generalist platforms are not filling.
How to Actually Choose
Skip the feature comparison chart. Work through these four questions in order and the right platform, or combination, becomes obvious.
Define what you are actually trying to buy
Reach, content, or long-term ambassadors are three different purchases. A product launch needs fast content volume, which points to ShopMy. An established brand defending share in a crowded category needs reach and editorial credibility, which points to LTK. A brand with real Amazon revenue needs marketplace-specific traffic, which points to Levanta. Name the outcome before you name the platform.
Map the commission structure to your margin, not the market rate
Commission rates of 10-30% sound reasonable until you stack them against product cost, platform fees, and your existing contribution margin. If a 20% commission on top of your other variable costs takes an order into negative contribution margin, the platform is not the problem, your rate is. Set commission from your numbers, not from what a competitor is rumoured to be paying.
Model the cash flow lag before you commit budget
A platform with a 60-90 day commission close window changes how you plan spend, not just how you report it. If you are running lean on working capital, a platform with weekly reconciliation, like ShopMy, is easier to manage than one where three months of commission sits unreconciled.
Build attribution rules that reward incrementality, not last click
Whatever platform you choose, restrict brand-term bidding by affiliates, add new-customer bonuses, and run periodic holdout tests to confirm the channel is creating demand rather than capturing it. This single change does more for affiliate ROI than switching platforms ever will.
What This Looks Like in Practice
A skincare brand I work with was running LTK and a self-managed affiliate spreadsheet at the same time, paying commission on both without a clear view of which one actually drove new customers. We pulled 90 days of order data, tagged each affiliate sale by whether the customer had visited the site before, and found that roughly a third of "affiliate" revenue was existing customers using a creator's code out of habit, not new demand.
We kept LTK for reach, added ShopMy specifically for a product launch that needed fast content volume, and rebuilt the commission structure around new-customer bonuses instead of a flat rate. Affiliate spend as a percentage of revenue dropped. New-customer volume from affiliate links went up. The programme got smaller and more effective at the same time.
That is the pattern worth repeating: fewer platforms, clearer purpose for each one, and commission tied to genuine acquisition.
Inside the system
How we build this for brands
When we take on a brand's creator and affiliate strategy, we run creator and buyer discovery agents that identify the right creators for a specific product or launch rather than relying on whichever platform's algorithm surfaces first. That discovery work runs alongside profit and cash-flow dashboards built from live Shopify and ad data, so commission spend is measured against contribution margin per order, not against a target ROAS that hides the real cost.
Part of this runs live for portfolio brands today. The full system, discovery, attribution design, and weekly reporting built around your actual margin, is what we deploy when we take a brand on.
Affiliate Audit
Find Out Which Creator Platform Actually Fits Your Margin
I'll review your current affiliate or creator programme, show you where commission is funding demand you already had, and tell you exactly which platform (or combination) fits your numbers. No pitch deck. No fluff.
Book Your AuditFrequently asked questions
What is the difference between LTK and ShopMy for DTC brands?
LTK requires creators to have 5,000 or more followers and leans toward established fashion and beauty audiences, with commissions of 10-25% and a 60-90 day commission close window. ShopMy accepts creators from 1,000 followers, pays out weekly, and automatically applies the highest available commission rate when a creator shares a link. LTK suits brands wanting reach and editorial polish. ShopMy suits brands wanting speed and lower-friction seeding.
How much commission should I pay creators on LTK or ShopMy?
Commission rates across both platforms typically run 10-30%, varying by category. Fashion and apparel commissions average 10-20%, while beauty tends to sit lower at 5-15%. The right number depends on your contribution margin, not on what competitors are paying.
Is Impact.com or Levanta better for a DTC brand?
Impact.com is full affiliate infrastructure built for brands managing partnerships, tracking, and payouts across many partner types. Levanta is more specialised, built for marketplace sellers and connects brands with 60,000-plus vetted creators pointed at marketplace listings. Impact suits mature, multi-channel programmes. Levanta suits brands with meaningful Amazon or marketplace revenue.
How long does it take to get paid or reconcile affiliate commissions?
This varies significantly by platform. ShopMy pays creators weekly with fast reconciliation. LTK operates a 60-90 day commission close window, meaning a sale today may not be fully reconciled and paid out for two to three months. Build your affiliate budget forecasting around the platform's actual close window, not the sale date.
Should a DTC brand use more than one creator affiliate platform?
Only when each platform serves a genuinely different purpose, such as one for editorial reach and one for fast micro-creator seeding. Running multiple platforms without a clear reason usually means paying for overlapping reach with no way to tell which one drove the sale.
How do I know if my affiliate programme is actually driving incremental revenue?
86% of affiliate programmes still run on a last-click attribution model, which rewards whichever link a customer clicked last rather than the creator who actually influenced the purchase. Run periodic holdout tests, restrict brand-term bidding by affiliates, and add new-customer bonuses that reward genuine acquisition over coupon-code harvesting.
About the author
Caner Veli built Liquiproof from zero to 3,000+ global retailers in under 6 years, then exited profitably. He now helps DTC and CPG brands fix broken growth engines. In the last 90 days, he 10x'd monthly revenue in his own business.