Rateful collects the brand's payment before you film.
They overlap only on brand deals, so run both.
Rateful vs Beacons: the short answer
The overlap is brand deals. Even there, the split is clean. Beacons gives you pitch drafts and invoicing tools. Sam answers brand email and negotiates to the rates you set; Rateful releases your deposit before you film, holds the rest until your posts are live, and pays you out.
On cost, Beacons charges a monthly or annual subscription, and its Free and Creator plans take a 9% cut of sales1. Rateful takes 0% of your deals and charges nothing until it closes your first one. Beacons prices below were checked on beacons.ai/i/pricing on 2026-11-05.
What each tool does for brand deals
| Brand deal job | Beacons | Rateful |
|---|---|---|
| Who answers brand emails | Beacons doesn't publish an AI that answers brand emails; AI Brand Outreach drafts pitches you edit and send yourself2 | Sam answers at handle@rateful.ai |
| Pitching brands | AI Brand Outreach pitch drafts | Sam pitches; 10 free, unlimited on Scale |
| Rate setting | Pricing calculator and rate cards | Sam negotiates to your rate card, never below your minimum, and you OK every deal |
| Contract | No contract tool is listed; its help center describes invoicing as free3 | Sam sends a written agreement |
| How the brand pays | Your invoice, with Net 30/60/90 terms | Brand pays Rateful through the platform in advance |
| When the creator gets paid | When the invoice is paid | Deposit before filming on your own deals; the rest after the posts are live |
| Payout method | PayPal, Stripe or bank account | Stripe, US only |
| Fee on deals | Beacons doesn't publish this | 0% of deals; brands pay about 5% booking protection |
| Media kit / public page | Auto-updating media kit with contact form and Brand Deal Profile | Public page at rateful.ai/@handle |
| Minimum age | 16+ | 18+ |
| Posts or DMs on social | Instagram auto-DM on keywords | Never posts or messages on TikTok |
| Scam check | Not listed on Beacons' pricing page or help center | Included on every plan, Free included |
Beam, the AI chat assistant, covers brand deal strategy, with 10 exchanges a day on Free at 3 credits each. The Beacons media kit refreshes daily, and you can connect Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Twitch14.
Beacons pricing and terms next to Rateful
Beacons has four plans. Rateful has three, and billing there only starts after a closed deal.
The 9% seller fee on Beacons' Free plan at monthly sales from $100 to $2,000, crossing the $30 price of Creator Plus at about $333 in sales. Source: Beacons pricing page. Source: 1.
| Plan | Monthly | Annual | Seller fees |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beacons Free | $0 | $0 | 9% |
| Beacons Creator | $10 | $100 ($8.33/mo) | 9% |
| Beacons Creator Plus | $30 | $300 ($25/mo) | 0% |
| Beacons Creator Max | $100 | $1,000 ($83.3/mo) | 0% |
| Rateful Free | $0 | n/a | 0% |
| Rateful Pro | $49 | n/a | 0% |
| Rateful Scale | $149 | n/a | 0% |
Beacons advertises annual billing as "2 months free"1. For the full plan-by-plan breakdown, see Beacons pricing 2026: plans, the 9% fee and what you keep.
The 9% seller fee applies on Free and Creator, to store sales and affiliate links, and those affiliate links point to about 12,000 brand partners you can embed on your page. Creator Plus and Creator Max drop the fee to 0%1.
On Free, that fee costs more than the flat $30 for Creator Plus once store sales pass about $333 a month. Against Creator at $10 plus 9%, Plus pulls ahead past about $222 in monthly sales.
| Monthly store sales | 9% fee on Free | Creator Plus (flat) |
|---|---|---|
| $100 | $9 | $30 |
| $250 | $22.50 | $30 |
| $333 | $29.97 | $30 |
| $500 | $45 | $30 |
| $1,000 | $90 | $30 |
| $2,000 | $180 | $30 |
Over a year, the paid plans stack up like this:
| Plan | Cost over 12 months |
|---|---|
| Beacons Creator (annual) | $100 |
| Beacons Creator Plus (annual) | $300 |
| Rateful Pro ($49 x 12) | $588 |
| Beacons Creator Max (annual) | $1,000 |
| Rateful Scale ($149 x 12) | $1,788 |
Both tools have a $0 plan. Rateful bills nothing until your first closed deal.
A few Beacons terms most reviews skip: subscriptions renew automatically each billing cycle unless cancelled, cancelling ends the subscription and your paid features immediately, and subscription fees are non-refundable except where law requires. Beacons can change fees. The new price applies at the end of your current billing cycle5. Support response times run from under 48 hours on Free to under 24, 12 and 6 hours on Creator, Creator Plus and Max1.
If you've seen different numbers elsewhere, those pages are older or don't match Beacons' own pricing page. Older or third-party pages list Creator Pro at $30 monthly or $240 a year (Talkspresso, Apr 2026)6, Creator Max at $75 (Roborhythms, May 2026) and Business Pro at $90 (The Leap, 2024)768. A price tracker logged on Nov 3, 2026 that Beacons dropped Creator Pro and Store Pro and added Creator Plus at $309. Trust Beacons' own page. That's what the table above uses.
One $600 brand deal on each, step by step
Say a brand agrees to 3 TikTok videos at $200 each. That's $600 total.
On Beacons, you set your rates with the pricing calculator or a rate card1, then pitch with an AI Brand Outreach draft you polish and send2. When the brand says yes, you send an invoice and pick a due date or Net 30, 60 or 90 days. Payment lands in your PayPal, Stripe or connected bank account3.
The terms say payments go directly between buyer and seller and Beacons does not handle or process them, and disputes are resolved between buyer and seller or through the payment processor5. If the brand goes quiet after Net 30, chasing that payment is on you, and what to do when a brand hasn't paid you covers that playbook.
With Rateful, the brand emails your address, Sam negotiates to your rates, and you approve the deal. A written agreement goes out, and the brand pays $600 plus about 5% booking protection (about $30, about $630 total) before you film. You keep the full $600 (0% take), and the payout goes to your Stripe account (US only).
The practical difference: on Beacons you do the admin and the brand can pay on Net terms, while with Rateful the money is locked in before you pick up the camera.
Rateful vs Beacons for brands
On Beacons, a brand sees a creator's media kit refreshed daily from connected social accounts14. Invoices can carry Net 30, 60 or 90 terms3.
Payment is between the brand and the creator. Beacons doesn't process it. The brand settles the invoice directly5.
On Rateful, brands book packages on the creator's public page at rateful.ai/@handle or email the creator's address handle@rateful.ai. They get a written agreement and see the booking protection fee before paying.
For brands booking TikTok Shop creators, the payment is collected before filming. On a creator's own deals, the deposit is released to the creator before filming, and Rateful holds only the rest until the posts are live. Holding the whole payment until the posts are verified live applies only to deals from a brand's creator list. More on that side at TikTok Shop brands that work with creators.
Who should pick Beacons, who should pick Rateful
Pick Beacons if you want one link in bio with an always-current media kit and Instagram auto-DMs1. Start on Free, then move to Creator Plus once monthly sales clear about $333, where the flat $30 beats the 9% fee. If you're comparing it against other link-in-bio tools like Stan Store or Linktree, Beacons alternatives in 2026, picked by job does that comparison on its own page.
Pick Rateful if you're a US TikTok Shop creator, 18 or older, with brand emails you don't have time to answer. It fits when you want every deal negotiated to your rates and approved by you. Payment is locked in before filming.
If the inbox is what's drowning you, how an AI manager handles your brand emails explains the workflow. Free is the plan where each reply waits for your approval. Pro is $49 a month. Scale at $149 adds unlimited brand pitches.
One caveat applies to both tools: what a creator makes depends on their rates and which brands say yes, and neither can promise earnings.
Questions people ask
Is Beacons free or does it take a cut?
Beacons has a Free plan at $0 a month, described as "free forever". The Free plan carries a 9% seller fee1.
Does Beacons take a percentage of brand deals?
Your chosen payment processor may charge its own fees. The 9% seller fee is listed for store sales and affiliate links1, and Beacons' help center describes its invoicing tool as free3. Where it is listed, it applies on Free and Creator, and higher tiers drop it to 0%. What you still pay is the monthly subscription on any paid tier1.
How much is Beacons Creator Plus?
Creator Plus is $30 a month or $300 billed annually, which works out to $25 a month. It drops seller fees to 0% and lets you keep 100% of affiliate link commissions. Annual billing is advertised as "2 months free"1.
Can Beacons negotiate brand deals for me?
Beacons' AI Brand Outreach writes pitch drafts, but you revise and send them yourself, and its Beam assistant can chat about deal strategy12. Nothing on its pricing page or Brand Collabs help pages says it answers or negotiates inbound brand emails. If you want replies and negotiation handled for you, that's the job Sam does.
How do brands pay you on Beacons?
Your invoice is paid to PayPal, Stripe or your bank3. Beacons' terms say it never touches the money; payment runs straight from the buyer to the seller5. Beacons' help page says most brand deals over $600 in a calendar year will need a W-9, and its invoice tool offers to create one3.
Can I use Beacons and Rateful together?
Yes, with one limit. Beacons runs your bio link and store, and Sam answers your brand email. But when a brand and creator first meet through Rateful, every paid deal between them for the next 12 months goes through Rateful, so you can't invoice those brands through Beacons.