How Much Should You Budget for Xiaohongshu Influencer Marketing?
What does a Xiaohongshu influencer cost?
There is no fixed rate. Creators with 10K to 100K followers often charge RMB2,000 to 8,000 a post.
Is the creator fee the whole budget?
No. In a straightforward campaign, creator payments may be around half to two-thirds of total spend.
What should a first campaign cost?
RMB80,000 to 150,000 can support a tightly defined test with more than one creator type.
Why keep money uncommitted?
So winning posts can be amplified. Roughly 15 to 25% is a sensible planning starting point.
There is a reason marketers searching for Xiaohongshu influencer costs often come away more confused than when they started.
One guide will tell you that a Xiaohongshu creator costs US$100. Another will put the number at US$10,000. Both can be correct. A small creator producing a straightforward image-and-text note may charge a few hundred renminbi, whilst an established fashion, beauty or luxury KOL can charge tens or hundreds of thousands. Add content rights, production, paid amplification, platform charges, product, logistics and campaign management, and two brands that appear to be running broadly similar influencer campaigns can end up with completely different budgets.
The more useful question, then, is not simply “How much does a Xiaohongshu influencer cost?” It is “How much should our brand budget to create enough influence to achieve a meaningful commercial objective?”
That distinction matters because the creator fee is only one part of the equation.
Published market benchmarks illustrate just how wide the range has become. PRIZM Digital's 2025 Xiaohongshu cost guide puts smaller KOC collaborations at the low end of the market, mid-tier creators in the thousands of US dollars, and major KOL or celebrity collaborations considerably higher. Another 2025 pricing analysis published through EIN Presswire places image posts at roughly RMB2,000 to 8,000 ($280 to $1,130) for accounts in the 10,000 to 100,000 follower range, and RMB10,000 to 30,000 ($1,500 to $4,500) or more once creators move above 100,000 followers, with video generally carrying a premium. More recent 2026 market estimates show similarly broad bands.
These figures are useful for planning, but they should not be mistaken for a Xiaohongshu rate card. There is no universal price attached to having 50,000 followers or 500,000 followers. Creator category, average post performance, audience quality, production requirements, timing, exclusivity, and the brand itself all affect what a collaboration costs.
At Red Ant Asia, we therefore prefer to build Xiaohongshu influencer budgets backwards from the campaign. What do we need the creators to achieve? How much searchable content needs to exist around the product? Do we need one recognisable KOL to introduce it, or would several smaller specialist creators be more convincing? How much money should remain available to amplify the posts that perform well? Will the assets be reused in paid media? Is the campaign tied to an important launch date? How much product needs to be shipped?
Once those questions are answered, the budget becomes much easier to defend.
First, a realistic Xiaohongshu influencer pricing benchmark for 2026
Any useful budget discussion still needs some numbers.
Treat the ranges below as working benchmarks rather than guaranteed prices. We have deliberately used broad bands because published 2025 to 2026 pricing sources differ considerably in how they define “micro”, “mid-tier” and “top-tier” creators. That disagreement is itself useful: it shows why marketers should avoid using a tier name as though it were a standard purchasing unit.
At exchange rates around 29 September 2026, RMB100,000 is roughly US$14,900 or €13,100, which gives international teams a quick way of translating the Chinese numbers into familiar budget territory.
Even within those ranges, follower count tells only part of the story. A fragrance creator with 120,000 followers who has built a highly trusted audience around niche perfume can command more than a general lifestyle creator with twice the audience. The same applies to skincare specialists, high-fashion creators, luxury-watch collectors and high-end travel accounts whose audiences are particularly valuable to advertisers.
That is why we would never approve an influencer budget simply by dividing the available spend by a creator's follower count.
Xiaohongshu's official Pugongying platform reinforces this more sophisticated approach. It gives brands access to creator collaboration data and performance information, and the platform explicitly positions itself as a place where brands can compare creators, manage collaborations, measure content and conversion, and connect influencer content with paid amplification.
The quoted price is only one field in that decision.
Why an RMB100,000 influencer budget is not really an RMB100,000 creator budget
This is the part that catches overseas marketers out most often.
A global brand receives approval for an RMB100,000 Xiaohongshu influencer campaign and immediately starts selecting RMB100,000 worth of creators. By the time contracts are being finalised, the budget is already under pressure.
Products need to be shipped. Some creators request additional production costs. The brand wants to reuse the strongest photography. A creator wants an additional payment for category exclusivity. One promising post starts performing organically and the team wants to amplify it through paid media. There are campaign-management costs, translations and reporting. In some cases there are platform charges associated with official creator collaborations.
The original RMB100,000 has become RMB130,000 before anybody has consciously decided to increase the campaign.
A better budget begins with the all-in amount and works down to the creator pool.
For a relatively straightforward Xiaohongshu campaign, creator payments may account for around half to two-thirds of total spend. The precise percentage changes dramatically by campaign. A simple creator programme using established local assets may allow more money to flow into talent. A premium international campaign requiring complex logistics, extensive approvals, production support, content usage rights and paid amplification will naturally allocate more outside the creator line.
PRIZM, for example, cites agency-management fees of roughly 10 to 20% in its market guide and separately identifies content production, influencer fees and paid promotion as meaningful cost categories. Those figures are market references rather than universal rules, but they demonstrate why comparing two quotes solely on the creator fee can be misleading.
The basic budgeting principle is simple enough: do not commit the last renminbi before the first post has gone live.
You want room to respond to performance.
If three creator posts considerably outperform the rest, there should be money available to amplify them. If an unexpected search angle starts emerging in comments, you may want another creator to address it. If an initially shortlisted KOL fails due diligence, the campaign should be able to replace them without disrupting the entire financial plan.
A budget that is completely allocated on day one may look wonderfully efficient in procurement. It leaves very little room for marketing.
How much should a first Xiaohongshu influencer campaign actually cost?
For international premium brands, we would generally be cautious about budgets that are technically sufficient to publish a few notes but too small to teach the company anything useful.
That does not mean every company needs to spend hundreds of thousands of renminbi. It means the size of the experiment should be large enough to test more than one creator and more than one message.
As a working framework, an RMB80,000 to 150,000 campaign, roughly US$12,000 to 22,000 at current exchange rates, can support a tightly defined Xiaohongshu influencer test if the scope is kept disciplined.
Rather than spending most of that on one recognisable KOL, we would usually want enough diversity to compare creator types and content angles. Depending on the category and specific rates, that might involve several micro creators, a larger base of smaller KOCs, product and logistics, modest paid amplification and campaign management. There is enough activity to see whether consumers respond differently to a product demonstration, a detailed review, a styling angle or another relevant message.
The important word is test.
An RMB100,000 campaign should not try to dominate Xiaohongshu. It should answer questions that make the next RMB300,000 more intelligent.
This is where some published advice aimed at small overseas businesses becomes misleading for established consumer brands. You will find guides proposing US$1,000 to 5,000 Xiaohongshu campaigns, generally based on gifting products to very small creators. Such programmes can produce content, particularly for inexpensive products with generous samples and relatively low creator expectations. They are much less useful as a benchmark for an international beauty, luxury or lifestyle company that requires guaranteed deliverables, controlled brand presentation, compliance checks, measurable reporting and enough creator variety to draw useful conclusions.
A campaign can be cheap and still cost too much if it generates no useful learning.
An RMB250,000 to 500,000 budget gives you much more strategic room
Once budgets move into the RMB250,000 to 500,000 range, roughly US$37,000 to 75,000, the creator mix becomes considerably more flexible.
At this level, a brand can usually build a genuine portfolio rather than a collection of isolated sponsored posts. There may be one or two more established category KOLs providing meaningful reach, several micro and mid-tier creators addressing different product stories, and a broader KOC layer creating more granular consumer evidence.
Importantly, the budget can also leave room for amplification.
That matters on Xiaohongshu because influencer marketing and media do not need to be treated as separate activities. Pugongying itself supports collaboration workflows in which creator content can be connected with advertising and boosted during or after publication.
From a budgeting perspective, this means the strongest creator post can become an asset for paid media.
That changes the economics of creator selection. A slightly more expensive creator may still represent better value if the resulting asset performs strongly enough to justify substantial paid distribution. Conversely, buying a famous name purely for the organic follower reach can become very expensive if the content itself does little once it leaves the creator's immediate audience.
For brands planning their first serious China product launch, this middle range is often where campaign design becomes interesting. It is large enough to create multiple points of consumer contact whilst remaining small enough to learn and change course.
The exact composition depends on the category. A prestige skincare launch may put more money into specialist creators and a wider testing base because consumers require detailed product evidence. A luxury fashion house may work with fewer creators but pay more for the right aesthetic and cultural alignment. A premium hotel could use a small group of high-quality travel creators because each collaboration involves accommodation, transport, and production costs as well as a publishing fee.
We cover those category differences separately in our guides to Xiaohongshu marketing for beauty brands and Xiaohongshu marketing for tourism and travel brands. For budgeting purposes, the relevant point is that two campaigns with the same number of creators can still have very different economics.
When does a Xiaohongshu campaign become an RMB1 million campaign?
Surprisingly quickly.
An RMB1 million budget is approximately US$149,000 at current exchange rates. For a multinational brand, that can sound substantial until the campaign includes several recognisable KOLs, dozens of supporting creators, video, content rights, amplification and a major launch period.
Take a hypothetical premium beauty launch.
Suppose two large beauty KOLs account for RMB250,000 between them. Another six specialised creators average RMB25,000, adding RMB150,000. Thirty smaller paid creators average RMB3,000, adding another RMB90,000. Creator fees alone have now reached RMB490,000.
Add product and fulfilment, content usage, paid media behind the strongest creator notes, agency work, measurement and contingency, and the total moves towards RMB700,000 to 900,000 without involving a celebrity.
If the company adds a head creator, expensive exclusivity requirements or a major video collaboration, RMB1 million is no longer an extravagant scenario.
This is particularly relevant for global teams accustomed to thinking of influencer marketing as a cheaper alternative to advertising. At the upper end of China's creator economy, that description simply does not hold. Established influencers are media businesses. Their access to a specific audience has a market price.
That does not mean the largest budget produces the strongest campaign. We have seen more than enough examples of brands concentrating money into one famous KOL and discovering that impressive reach produced very little depth around the product.
For high-consideration purchases, especially premium beauty, fashion, and travel, the budget needs to leave room for the supporting voices that a consumer finds after the initial moment of awareness.
Our separate guide to KOLs vs KOCs in China goes deeper into the roles of the different creator types. The budgeting implication is straightforward: spending RMB500,000 on one person and spending RMB500,000 across a structured creator portfolio are two entirely different marketing investments.
Category can move the price as much as follower count
A common budgeting spreadsheet contains columns for creator name, followers, price, and estimated engagement.
That is a useful start. It is not enough to explain the rate.
Creators operate in markets of their own. Some audiences are considerably more valuable to advertisers than others. Beauty is the clearest example because an authoritative skincare or make-up creator may influence a large number of purchases and can therefore attract intense competition from brands. Fashion and luxury can produce similar premiums when the creator has an affluent audience and strong credibility with the category.
Published 2025 pricing analysis has suggested significant premiums for beauty and parenting creators compared with broad lifestyle accounts, whilst fashion and luxury collaborations can vary dramatically according to exclusivity and the perceived commercial value of the audience.
Travel is different again.
The cash fee for a travel creator may look attractive compared with beauty, but the creator fee can understate the real activation cost. Flights, hotels, meals, transfers, guides, attraction access, and production logistics all need to sit somewhere in the campaign budget.
A European luxury hotel inviting Chinese creators to stay for three nights should therefore resist comparing its campaign with a skincare brand simply by looking at publishing fees. The hotel may pay a lower cash creator rate whilst absorbing considerably more value in hospitality.
Products can create the same distortion.
Sending a £35 skincare product to 50 KOCs is financially very different from seeding 50 premium handbags. Even where a gifted product does not appear in the marketing department's cash budget, it is still a real campaign cost and should be visible when ROI is being assessed.
This matters particularly for headquarters teams comparing China with other markets. China's creator fees can look competitive until the full activation scope is included, or expensive until the long shelf life of a successful Xiaohongshu note is considered.
The spreadsheet needs both sides of the equation.
Video is more expensive, but “video costs more” is not a budgeting strategy
Most published Xiaohongshu pricing data show a premium for video over image-and-text notes. Estimates vary, but the gap frequently falls somewhere between roughly 30% and 100% depending on the creator and complexity, with very sophisticated production costing considerably more.
That premium is understandable. Video takes longer to shoot and edit, often requires more approvals, and puts more pressure on the creator's on-camera performance.
The mistake is assuming that a larger budget should automatically buy more video.
On Xiaohongshu, image-and-text notes can still be exceptionally useful when the subject requires detail, comparison, or search visibility. A hotel itinerary, product review, or styling breakdown may not need a cinematic production. A relatively simple note with excellent information can remain useful long after a visually elaborate launch film has exhausted its initial audience.
Budget according to what the content needs to do.
If the objective is to demonstrate the texture of a beauty product, show a hotel room properly, or communicate the movement of a garment, video may justify the additional expense. If the creator is answering a search query that users want to revisit, a well-structured image-and-text post may offer better economics.
The underlying choice is editorial, not merely financial.
Brands should also resist taking a video produced for another platform and counting the reuse as a saving. As we explain in our Douyin vs Xiaohongshu guide, the platforms serve different user behaviours. Saving money on production becomes irrelevant if the reused asset performs the wrong job.
Content rights and exclusivity are where apparently cheap deals become expensive
A creator quotes RMB20,000 for a Xiaohongshu post.
The marketing team wants to use the video in Xiaohongshu ads. The regional team wants it on the brand's own social channels. Global wants the footage for a paid campaign in Singapore. E-commerce wants stills for a product-detail page. The brand also asks the creator not to work with any direct competitor for the next three months.
The collaboration is no longer an RMB20,000 collaboration.
Usage and exclusivity are among the most frequently forgotten influencer-budget lines because marketing teams tend to think about them after seeing the finished content.
Some 2026 market benchmarks put additional usage rights in the region of 30 to 50% of a base creator fee, whilst short-term exclusivity can cost considerably more. Actual terms vary widely. For premium creators and tightly contested categories, the creator or MCN may negotiate very different conditions.
Brands should therefore decide what they want to own before requesting a quote.
If the content will only live on the creator's Xiaohongshu account, say so. If paid amplification is planned, include it in the brief. If global reuse is genuinely valuable, negotiate those rights from the beginning rather than discovering the price after the creative team has fallen in love with the asset.
The same applies to category exclusivity. A luxury fragrance company may have good reason not to want a creator promoting a direct competitor two days later. A six-month block on all fragrance partnerships is a much larger commercial restriction and will naturally be priced differently.
This is one of the places where a superficially more expensive creator agreement can ultimately be better value because the brand has actually purchased what it needs.
Build paid amplification into the influencer budget before the campaign starts
A successful Xiaohongshu creator post has value beyond its organic audience.
The platform's own Pugongying materials explicitly describe the connection between creator collaborations and advertising, including the ability to amplify creator notes and assess performance throughout the collaboration.
For marketers, that means some of the influencer budget should remain uncommitted.
If every renminbi has already been committed to creator contracts, a brand can find itself in the ridiculous position of producing an unusually strong piece of content and having no money left to distribute it.
We generally prefer campaign budgets that allow winning posts to earn additional investment.
Exactly how much depends on the campaign. A brand with a separate Xiaohongshu media budget may keep amplification entirely outside the influencer line. Where influencer and media spend sit together, reserving roughly 15 to 25% of the activation budget for amplification and optimisation can be a sensible planning starting point rather than a fixed formula.
Search advertising deserves separate consideration. Our guide to Xiaohongshu search marketing puts a focused search-media test at roughly RMB5,000 to 10,000, whilst broader campaigns can move well beyond that depending on category competition and keyword volume. Those costs should not simply be deducted from creator fees without thinking through what the search activity is expected to capture.
The creator creates demand and evidence. Paid distribution makes the strongest evidence easier to encounter. Search helps capture consumers when they actively investigate the subject.
The budget works better when those three elements are designed together.
Do not pay a premium for followers you cannot use
Influencer rates tend to rise with follower count because audience scale has value. The relationship is not linear.
A creator with one million followers is not automatically ten times more useful than one with 100,000.
For marketers, the key word is useful.
Suppose a European ski resort wants to reach affluent Chinese travellers planning winter trips to Japan and Europe. A million-follower general lifestyle creator may offer enormous reach, but much of that audience may have little immediate relevance. A specialist ski or premium travel creator with 150,000 followers could have far fewer total viewers and still generate more saves, more meaningful questions and more qualified destination interest.
The second creator may be cheaper in absolute terms and more expensive on a cost-per-follower basis. The latter metric is irrelevant if the campaign objective is qualified influence.
This is why creator due diligence belongs inside budget planning rather than happening afterwards.
Red Ant Asia's guide to spotting fake influencer followers in China covers the fraud side of this problem in detail. Even where the follower base is genuine, marketers still need to examine audience location, demographic composition, historical branded-content performance, category relevance and the quality of comments.
Every irrelevant follower in an expensive KOL's audience is reach you paid for but cannot use.
Peak periods can make an already expensive KOL considerably more expensive
Influencer supply is finite.
The same creators that an international beauty brand wants for 11.11 are being approached by Chinese beauty companies, luxury groups, retailers and dozens of other advertisers.
Published 2025 to 2026 industry benchmarks report rate increases around major commercial periods including 6.18, Double 11 and Chinese New Year, with some estimates putting peak premiums around 20 to 40% for sought-after talent.
The exact percentage matters less than the underlying lesson: late booking weakens your negotiating position.
This can be particularly painful for global companies because internal budgets are often approved later than the China team would like. By the time a purchase order arrives, the first-choice creator is unavailable and the second choice has raised their fee.
There are three ways to deal with this. Pay more, choose somebody else or move earlier.
The third is usually the cheapest.
Longer-term creator relationships can also change the economics. Instead of approaching the same KOL from scratch for every campaign, brands can negotiate several collaborations over a season or year. This will not suit every creator and does not automatically guarantee a discount, but it can reduce negotiation, briefing and onboarding work whilst creating a more believable relationship between creator and brand.
For premium brands, repeated collaboration can have another advantage: the creator begins to look like somebody who genuinely knows the product rather than somebody who happened to receive it this week.
The cheapest creator can be the most expensive line on the plan
Imagine two creators.
Creator A charges RMB8,000 and produces a note that attracts little engagement, ranks for nothing useful and cannot be amplified because the content feels generic.
Creator B charges RMB15,000. Their note answers a question consumers frequently search, performs organically, generates detailed comments and is subsequently amplified through paid media for another RMB20,000.
Creator B cost almost twice as much initially and may ultimately consume more than four times the budget.
They can still be the better purchase.
This is why cost per post is such a weak way to evaluate Xiaohongshu influencer spending.
The useful denominator depends on the objective. It might be cost per qualified engagement, cost per save, cost per relevant search exposure, cost per product-page visit, cost per lead, cost per booking enquiry, or ultimately incremental revenue.
Our separate guide to measuring KOL ROI in China explores those metrics in more detail. When setting the budget, however, it is worth agreeing the measurement logic before the creators are selected.
Otherwise, procurement optimises for what it can easily compare: price.
Marketing then spends the next three months explaining why the cheapest quote did not create the cheapest result.
A better way to build your Xiaohongshu influencer budget
Rather than starting with a desired number of influencers, begin with the decision you want the consumer to make.
A new luxury fragrance may need one or two culturally relevant creators to establish desirability, several credible fragrance specialists who can explain the scent in detail, and a wider set of smaller voices that make the product visible when people begin researching it.
A boutique hotel may require fewer creators because the value of each trip is higher and logistics are more expensive. The budget could favour a small number of travel creators capable of producing lasting destination content rather than a large volume of lightweight posts.
A skincare launch may benefit from greater creator density because consumers investigate ingredients, textures, routines, skin types and comparative performance. Even then, paying 50 creators to repeat the same approved claim would be a poor allocation.
We often find it useful to divide the budget according to the role the money performs rather than the title of the supplier. One portion creates initial attention. Another creates depth. Another allows the strongest content to travel further. Another covers the infrastructure required to execute the campaign properly.
This is also where Red Ant Asia's KFS approach becomes relevant. We think about KOLs, Feeds and Search as connected parts of the same demand system rather than three unrelated media lines. A creator helps establish the product story, feed amplification extends the strongest content, and search captures consumers once curiosity turns into active research.
For a marketing director in London, Paris, or New York, this approach can initially look less tidy than buying five influencers for a fixed fee. It is considerably closer to the way Xiaohongshu actually works.
Three practical Xiaohongshu influencer budget scenarios
To make all of this more tangible, consider three hypothetical campaigns.
A focused market test at RMB100,000 could allocate around RMB50,000 to 60,000 to creators, using a mix of smaller KOCs and several stronger micro creators. Perhaps RMB15,000 goes into amplification, with the remainder covering management, product, logistics, translations and contingency. The purpose is to compare messages and creator types rather than achieve national awareness.
A substantial launch at RMB350,000 might put RMB190,000 to 220,000 into talent, combining one or two recognisable mid-tier KOLs with several micro creators and a broader KOC layer. RMB50,000 to 70,000 could remain available for paid amplification and search, with the balance supporting production, rights, product, logistics, campaign management and performance analysis. At this level, there is enough scale to build both visibility and useful searchable content around the launch.
A major premium-brand launch at RMB1 million can work very differently. Half a million renminbi or more may go into creators, including larger KOLs. Six figures may be reserved for amplification. Video production, usage rights, exclusivity and seeding can absorb a substantial amount, particularly if the campaign involves luxury goods or international travel. The remaining budget covers the work required to coordinate a much larger campaign without sacrificing brand control.
These are illustrations, not packages. The point is the allocation.
A travel campaign could reverse several of those ratios because flights and hospitality are expensive. A luxury brand may spend much more on fewer carefully selected creators. Beauty may devote more to a broad base of content because search depth is particularly important to purchase research.
The appropriate budget comes from the consumer journey, not from an agency template.
So, how much should a US or European brand actually budget?
If you want a single planning answer, here is ours.
For an international consumer brand that wants to learn whether Xiaohongshu influencer marketing works for a specific product or proposition, RMB100,000 to 150,000 is a sensible range for a deliberately narrow test.
For a meaningful launch with multiple creator tiers and enough paid amplification to build on what works, RMB250,000 to 500,000 provides considerably more flexibility.
For a major premium or luxury launch using established KOLs, multiple supporting creators, video, paid amplification, and broader rights, spending can readily move into RMB800,000 to 1.5 million or more.
None of these numbers is a minimum imposed by Xiaohongshu. A brand can spend much less, and major companies can spend vastly more. They are planning ranges intended to answer a more useful question: how much budget gives a marketer enough room to design a coherent campaign rather than simply purchase a handful of posts?
The distinction becomes particularly important on Xiaohongshu because creator content can have a longer commercial life than the publication date suggests. A useful note may continue surfacing when users search for the product months later. The person who eventually buys may never have followed the creator who introduced them to it.
That makes Xiaohongshu influencer budgeting different from buying impressions alone.
You are paying partly for distribution, but you are also building the body of evidence that consumers encounter around the brand.
Once marketers start thinking about the investment in those terms, the question changes. Instead of asking, “How many influencers can we get for RMB300,000?”, they start asking, “What should Chinese consumers be able to discover about us after we have spent RMB300,000?”
That is a much better place to begin.
FAQ: Xiaohongshu Influencer Marketing Costs
How much does a Xiaohongshu influencer cost in 2026?
There is no fixed rate. As broad planning benchmarks, small KOCs may charge roughly RMB500 to 2,000 for an image-and-text post, whilst creators with 10,000 to 100,000 followers can often fall around RMB2,000 to 8,000. Established KOLs can charge tens of thousands of renminbi, and large creators or celebrities can move into six- or seven-figure RMB territory. Published pricing guides show substantial variation, so actual Pugongying quotes and creator performance data should be checked before budgeting.
How much should a brand budget for its first Xiaohongshu influencer campaign?
For an established international consumer brand, we would normally consider roughly RMB80,000 to 150,000 a useful planning range for a focused test. That provides enough room to work with more than one creator type, retain some money for paid amplification, and cover the operational costs surrounding the collaborations. A smaller campaign is possible, but the scope should then be narrow enough that the brand can still learn something meaningful from it.
How much do mid-tier Xiaohongshu KOLs charge?
Definitions of “mid-tier” vary. For creators around 100,000 to 500,000 followers, current published benchmarks often place image-and-text collaborations roughly in the RMB10,000 to 30,000 range and video around RMB15,000 to 50,000, although specialised or unusually influential creators can charge much more.
Is Xiaohongshu video more expensive than an image-and-text post?
Usually. Video requires more production and editing, and market pricing guides consistently show a premium over image-and-text posts. The difference varies substantially by creator and brief. A simple talking-head video may be only moderately more expensive, whilst location shooting, multiple scenes, professional crews, or elaborate editing can push production costs much higher.
Should we spend more on KOLs or KOCs?
It depends on what is missing from the campaign. KOLs are useful when the brand needs significant awareness or category authority, whilst KOCs and smaller specialist creators can provide broader social proof and more detailed searchable content. For many premium brands, concentrating the full budget in one major KOL creates a dramatic launch but leaves very little information for consumers who subsequently research the product. A mixed portfolio is often more useful.
Do Xiaohongshu creator rates increase around Double 11 and Chinese New Year?
They can. Sought-after creators face much higher commercial demand around major shopping periods and culturally important dates. Published 2026 market estimates have reported premiums of roughly 20 to 40% in some peak periods. More importantly, popular creators become unavailable. International brands can often improve both price and creator choice simply by completing planning and approvals earlier.
Should product gifting be included in the influencer marketing budget?
Yes. Even if the marketing team does not record the retail value of gifted goods as media spend, the product has a cost to the business. Logistics, customs and fulfilment can also become significant for overseas brands. This matters especially for luxury fashion, jewellery, premium beauty sets and travel campaigns, where the non-cash value provided to a creator may be considerable.
Do Xiaohongshu influencers charge extra for content usage rights?
Often. The original creator fee generally reflects an agreed set of deliverables and distribution rights. Reusing the creator's images or videos in paid advertising, on the brand's own channels, in e-commerce, or in other countries may require additional licensing. Market benchmarks sometimes place these additions at 30 to 50% of the original fee, but the actual price depends entirely on the creator, duration, territory and media.
How much does influencer exclusivity cost on Xiaohongshu?
There is no standard price because exclusivity can mean very different things. Preventing a creator from working with one direct competitor for 30 days is a much smaller restriction than preventing all partnerships within an entire beauty or fashion category for six months. The longer and broader the restriction, the higher the likely premium. Exclusivity terms should therefore be specified before asking creators for final quotes.
What is the minimum budget for a Xiaohongshu KOL campaign?
There is no platform minimum for a “KOL campaign”. A brand can work with a single creator for a few thousand renminbi. The more useful minimum is the amount required to achieve the campaign objective. If the goal is simply to test how one creator responds to the product, that may be enough. If the objective is to establish a new premium brand and influence search behaviour, a single post is unlikely to provide sufficient scale or evidence.
