Comparison
Verza vs a spreadsheet
A spreadsheet can track a creator program. It cannot launch one from a product URL, write the email, or pay the creator.
Stay in a spreadsheet if the program is a handful of creators you already know and someone enjoys keeping the sheet true. Move to Verza when the sheet is where you try to keep search, email, codes, payouts, and ROAS, and it is already wrong.
Checked against public product pages in September 2026. Prices and features change. Confirm the current plan on the vendor’s site before you buy.
| What you need | Verza | Spreadsheet |
|---|---|---|
| Find creators | Optic searches five networks and scores the match. | Tabs, DMs, and memory. The sheet records whoever you already found. |
| The email | Written for that creator. Send on approval, or leave it in Gmail. | You write it. The sheet does not know if it was sent. |
| The code | Unique, minted with the campaign, tied to the store order. | A column. Shopify will not update it. Someone pastes the order in, or nobody does. |
| The money | Paid on Verza. Tax forms in the same flow. No net-60 portal required for that payout. | Another tab, then a bank transfer, then a PDF of a W-9 in someone’s inbox. |
| The question | “What’s our ROAS for this campaign?” | A formula, if the orders were pasted, if the spend was typed, if the person who owns the sheet is online. |
| What it costs | Verza’s first campaign is free. Launch is $69 a month with 100 Optic leads. Enterprise and Flagship are custom, at 3,500 and 8,000 Optic leads. What you pay creators stays separate from the subscription. | The software is free. The cost is the hours, the missed emails, and the payouts that slip to day 90. |
A full bar means this is a reason to buy it. A shorter bar means it can do this. No bar means it does not.
Run it from Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or Codex
Start from a product URL
Search Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch
First email, sent after approval or held in Gmail
Shopify orders tied to that creator
WooCommerce orders tied to that creator
Ask for status and ROAS
Pay creators and handle tax forms
Creators can still apply
A price you can read before a sales call
What the spreadsheet is actually doing
A sheet is a list plus a memory. For five creators and one owner, that memory holds. The columns look like a product: name, platform, email, code, fee, status, sales. None of those cells search Instagram. None of them send the email. None of them move money. The person does, and the sheet apologizes later.
The failure mode is specific. The code in the sheet is not the code in Shopify. The fee in the sheet is not what finance paid. The “ROAS” cell divides two numbers nobody updated after the post went live. The team still feels busy.
What Verza replaces
Verza replaces the handoff, not the judgment. You still approve the campaign. You still approve the email or send it yourself from Gmail. You still decide flat fee, result, or both. What you stop doing is retyping the creator into four tools and calling the third one a report.
You start in the chat because that is where the brief already was. The product URL is the source. Optic writes the shortlist. The Vault writes the email. Attribution writes the link and the code. The payout writes the tax form. The creators stay in Verza. The next message is how the campaign is doing.
Where the work happens
Keep a sheet if it is a scratchpad for a decision you will make today. Stop treating it as the home of the program when more than one person asks it a question it cannot answer. “Who sold” is that question. A sheet can store the answer. It cannot pull the order.
- Search: a sheet stores handles. Optic finds them.
- Email: a sheet stores addresses. Verza drafts the note and can leave it in Gmail.
- Money: a sheet stores an amount. Verza pays it.
- ROAS: a sheet stores a formula. Verza answers from the orders.
Money, tracking, and tax forms
The expensive part of the spreadsheet is not Google’s price. It is net-60, because nobody wants to push a creator invoice through a procurement portal, so the creator waits. Verza pays creators on Verza. The subscription is $69 a month on Launch, after a free first campaign, and it does not include what you owe the creator. That split is deliberate. Software is not media.
If the sheet is only a forecast you like to look at, keep it. If it is how a sale gets a name, it has already been asked to be a product.
Which one to pick
Stay with the spreadsheet when
One person owns a short list of known creators, the emails are personal, and finance has a payout path that creators do not hate.
Pick Verza when
The sheet is pretending to search, email, attribute, and pay. Launch the campaign from the product URL instead, and ask it what came back.
Questions people ask
- Is a spreadsheet fine to start?
- Yes, for a handful of creators you already know. Verza’s first campaign is free when the handful becomes a program.
- Will I lose the list if I leave the sheet?
- You can keep the sheet as an export. The Vault can also export to CSV. Trust the place that knows who was paid and who sold. On Verza, that is the creator record.
- What does the spreadsheet cost in practice?
- The hours to keep it true, the creators who wait 60 to 90 days, and the ROAS number nobody trusts. Verza’s Launch plan is $69 a month plus the media you choose to spend.