This Influenster evaluation is constructed on the corporate’s personal phrases and assist heart, 250 of the most recent retailer opinions learn one after the other, its Higher Enterprise Bureau file and the FTC’s guidelines on opinions written without cost product. Beneath: who owns it, what it does together with your knowledge, and what individuals who joined truly acquired.
Key takeaways
Legit, however promising nothing: Influenster’s Phrases say members are “not assured to obtain something in return”, and cap the corporate’s complete legal responsibility at $100.You might be what it sells: Bazaarvoice tells manufacturers it targets campaigns on “as much as 1,000 knowledge factors per member” and pushes 170,000 opinions a month right into a community of greater than 1,750 retailers.The scores disagree: 4.8 on the App Retailer from 58,571 scores, 3.9 on Google Play, 2.8 on Trustpilot — and the 100 latest App Retailer opinions common 3.1.Social accounts resolve loads: its assist heart says frequent program invites want a related Instagram or TikTok account.Nothing pays money: the one cash in its BBB file is cashback campaigns the place members paid first — one was chased for $120.
The decision: is Influenster legit?
Sure, in each sense that issues for security. Influenster is run by VoxPop Communities, Inc., a Bazaarvoice firm with a named Austin tackle, it has shipped merchandise since 2010, and becoming a member of prices nothing. The App Retailer itemizing is printed by Bazaarvoice, Inc. and was up to date on 9 October 2026.
The trustworthy query isn’t whether or not it’s a rip-off. It’s whether or not the commerce is value your time, as a result of the corporate has written down precisely how little it owes you.
Lifetime scores from the App Retailer itemizing, the Google Play itemizing and Trustpilot, all learn 13 October 2026. The 2 orange bars are our personal averages of the 100 latest US App Retailer opinions (5 March to eight October 2026) and the 150 latest Google Play opinions (13 April to 12 October 2026), pulled newest-first from every retailer’s personal feed.
Value doing
You already publish on Instagram or TikTok and can preserve a related account energetic.You get pleasure from writing detailed opinions and would do it anyway.You need merchandise, not cash, and might deal with a field as a lottery win.You reside in one of many 21 international locations it ships to and are 16 or over.
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You want earnings: nothing right here pays money, ever.You need a assured return for the hours you place in.You do not need an organization holding an in depth profile of you.You’d resent paying up entrance on a cashback marketing campaign and ready to be reimbursed.
Who owns Influenster, and what it’s for
Influenster launched in New York in 2010 and spent its first decade as an impartial product-discovery neighborhood. Bazaarvoice purchased it on 28 August 2019, when it had “practically six million neighborhood members worldwide” and greater than 38 million product opinions. The value was by no means disclosed.
That buy is the entire story of how Influenster works now. Bazaarvoice sells ratings-and-reviews software program to manufacturers and retailers; Influenster is the place the opinions come from.
Sources: US v. Bazaarvoice, Inc. (N.D. Cal., 3:13-cv-00133-WHO), Marlin Fairness, Bazaarvoice’s releases on shopping for Influenster and the THL funding, the FTC’s rule steering and Influenster’s assist heart, all learn 13 October 2026.
Even the member rely is dependent upon which of its personal pages you learn. On 13 October 2026, Influenster’s About web page stated 6.5 million members, Bazaarvoice’s FAQ stated 7.5 million, and the sampling web page it sells campaigns from stated “9M+”. Deal with any single determine, together with ours, as a declare fairly than a rely.
The way you truly get a VoxBox
You can’t apply for a VoxBox. Influenster’s assist heart describes two routes in: you fill in a pre-survey for a marketing campaign, or an invite arrives “primarily based on data you’ve already shared”. Both approach the reply is now rapid, the place members as soon as waited as much as two weeks to listen to.
Age 16, not 18. Its assist heart says “legally, you must be 16 to hitch”, although particular person applications might require 18. Its privateness coverage, dated March 2021, nonetheless makes use of 13 — three totally different ages throughout three stay paperwork.21 transport international locations. The US, Canada, Mexico, the UK, Australia and 16 European international locations. Anybody 16 or over might be part of from anyplace, however a field solely travels to that record.One field per family, per program. The Phrases name it “a strict coverage of sending one VoxBox per family tackle per program”, so two members at one tackle can not each be picked for a similar marketing campaign.A related Instagram or TikTok is successfully required. The assistance heart is blunt: “if you wish to obtain frequent invites to applications, you may need to have both of these platforms related”. Follower rely, it says, “doesn’t influence your eligibility”.Critiques want 120 characters. That’s the solely printed size rule. The shape additionally rejects any phrase longer than 15 characters, which is why hashtags fail inside a evaluation.Claiming is a dedication. Opting out earlier than you declare prices nothing; after you declare, “we’re unable to take away members from these kinds of applications”, and an unfinished process stays in your account.Promoting a field ends your membership. Merchandise should not for resale; swapping them for money means membership “might be terminated instantly”. Giving one to a pal is allowed.Supply takes 4 to six weeks, transport is free on shipped applications, and nothing goes to a PO Field. Samples carry no guarantee and no receipt.
From Influenster’s Phrases of Service (final up to date 21 December 2020) and its assist heart, learn 13 October 2026. It publishes no determine for the way lengthy a primary VoxBox takes, or what share of members ever obtain one.
What Influenster publishes is one factor. What the blogs about it publish is one other, and the hole issues in case you are making an attempt to work out your odds.
Checked on 13 October 2026 in opposition to Influenster’s Phrases of Service, its privateness coverage and all 122 public articles in its assist heart, plus Bazaarvoice’s open community web page.
Backside line: the printed guidelines are quick, and they’re largely about what you owe Influenster. Nothing in them tells you the way doubtless you’re to be picked, as a result of it has by no means printed that.
What a VoxBox is value, and what it prices you
A field is free and will be beneficiant: a Google Play reviewer of greater than ten years put their haul at roughly $5,000, from $1,000 of Dior skincare right down to $9 potting soil (September 2026). Ready is among the many commonest complaints within the latest opinions.
The price isn’t cash. It’s the profile you hand over, and Bazaarvoice is unusually open about that, as a result of it’s the factor it sells.
All 4 are Bazaarvoice’s personal advertising claims to the manufacturers that purchase campaigns, from its sampling web page and its open community web page, learn 13 October 2026. None is independently audited.
These 4 numbers are Bazaarvoice telling manufacturers what a sampling marketing campaign buys them: focusing on on “as much as 1,000 knowledge factors per member”, an “85% content material completion charge inside eight weeks” and a “2x common raise in conversion from opinions”. Your trustworthy opinion is the stock.
On whether or not that knowledge is bought, its personal paperwork give three totally different solutions. Influenster’s privateness coverage, efficient 8 March 2021, solutions “Sure” to disclosing identifiers — identify, alias, on-line identifier, IP tackle, e mail, account identify — “for invaluable consideration within the 12 months prior”, and publishes a “Do Not Promote My Private Data” hyperlink.
Its assist heart says the other: that neither firm sells knowledge, “so there isn’t any want for a separate ‘Do Not Promote’ request”. Bazaarvoice’s personal coverage, up to date 14 February 2024, denies any sale outright.
Three extra clauses are value studying earlier than you enroll. The Phrases cap Influenster’s most legal responsibility at $100 in all circumstances. They take a “worldwide, unique, irrevocable, royalty-free” license to your opinions and photographs, with no finish date, for promotion via any media channel. They usually let the corporate terminate your account “for any cause at any time”.
Backside line: the product is genuinely free, and the worth is an in depth, everlasting profile plus a license to your phrases. Whether or not that may be a whole lot relies upon totally on how a lot you’ll have reviewed anyway.
What occurred when folks tried it
No one right here has used Influenster, so what follows is different folks’s documented expertise, with the month every account was printed. The unfold is the discovering: there isn’t any typical wait.
Each account learn on 13 October 2026. Retailer and Trustpilot reviewers should not named, as they’re non-public people; the 2 bloggers and the discussion board thread are linked in full.
Two patterns survive the unfold. The primary is {that a} field can arrive shortly or by no means: the shortest documented wait is 4 days from choice, and the longest documented non-event is a member with 50 photograph opinions and no invitation in any respect.
The second is that being an influencer isn’t any assure both. The App Retailer reviewer above had a attain most members would envy and nonetheless noticed nothing in two months, which is in step with Influenster’s personal line that follower rely “doesn’t influence your eligibility”.
Backside line: deal with the primary field as a possibly, not a plan. Anybody quoting you a dependable timeline for a primary VoxBox is quoting a quantity no one has printed.
What 250 of the most recent opinions truly say
Lifetime star scores on an app this outdated inform you about 2019 as a lot as about now. So the 100 latest US App Retailer opinions (5 March to eight October 2026) and the 150 latest Google Play opinions (13 April to 12 October 2026) had been pulled newest-first from every retailer’s personal feed and skim one after the other.
Our personal rely. Of the 100 latest US App Retailer opinions: 41 five-star, 1 four-star, 17 three-star, 12 two-star, 29 one-star. Of the 150 latest Google Play opinions: 55 five-star, 11 four-star, 13 three-star, 15 two-star, 56 one-star. A pattern, not a census.
The App Retailer pattern averages 3.13 in opposition to a lifetime 4.77; the Play pattern averages 2.96 in opposition to a lifetime 3.9. On Google Play, one-star opinions narrowly outnumber five-star ones, 56 to 55. Loads of individuals are nonetheless delighted, although: 52 of the 100 App Retailer opinions and 47 of the 150 Play opinions reward merchandise that did arrive.
Our personal rely of the 100 latest US opinions of the Influenster app, 5 March to eight October 2026, learn 13 October 2026. 52 of the identical 100 opinions say they had been proud of merchandise they acquired, so the columns above are complaints inside a combined pattern, not the entire image.
Reviewers in each shops date a change to early 2026, and the Play pattern reveals why a few of them are new to the grievance: model testing applications together with Lowe’s Loop and Craftsman had been folded onto Influenster, and the migrated testers are among the many angriest. One September 2026 two-star evaluation says Craftsman had despatched merchandise near-monthly and Influenster has despatched none in a number of months.
The Higher Enterprise Bureau file is smaller and sharper. Influenster, Inc. is rated D-, isn’t accredited, and BBB provides the rationale as failure to answer eight complaints. Learn on 13 October 2026, the file confirmed 11 complaints in three years, eight of them listed, 5 unanswered.
Virtually all of them are about one factor: cashback campaigns, the place the member buys the product first and is reimbursed afterwards. One complainant stated they paid $121 for a Hershey’s marketing campaign and by no means bought the promised $120 again; others had been owed $59.98, $25.70 and $12. A December 2024 grievance says a Serta marketing campaign delivered a twin XL mattress as a substitute of a queen and the assigned consultant by no means replied.
For scale, Trustpilot reveals 2.8 out of 5 from 130 opinions, 49% of them one star, on an unclaimed profile — a tiny, self-selected base beside 58,571 App Retailer scores. The father or mother firm’s personal BBB profile is B- with 5 complaints, and people are enterprise contract disputes, not member ones.
Backside line: the intense complaints should not “it’s a rip-off”. They’re sluggish or silent help, an app that breaks, and cashback campaigns the place actual cash went out and got here again late or by no means. By no means spend your individual cash on a marketing campaign you can not afford to lose.
Is a free product for a evaluation even authorized?
It’s, and the rule that governs it’s newer than most articles about Influenster. The FTC’s Rule on the Use of Shopper Critiques and Testimonials took impact on 21 October 2024 on a 5-0 Fee vote. It bans faux and AI-generated opinions, undisclosed insider opinions and the suppression of adverse ones.
What it bans about incentives is slim and exact: compensation “conditioned on the writing of client opinions expressing a selected sentiment”. Giving somebody a free product for an trustworthy evaluation isn’t prohibited. Telling them the product is theirs provided that they’re optimistic about it’s.
That’s the reason disclosure sits on you in addition to on the model. Influenster’s 2020 Phrases hand members a sentence to publish, naming Influenster and the model and stating the merchandise got here “without cost … in trade for my trustworthy evaluation”. It should sit inside the primary 125 characters on Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest and YouTube, or the primary 477 characters on Fb.
Its 2026 assist article is softer, recommending #gifted, #freesample or #freeproduct and warning in opposition to burying the disclosure in a hashtag record. Failing to reveal, the Phrases say, “will lead to suspension from Influenster”.
On the platform facet, Bazaarvoice’s Authenticity Coverage, final up to date 20 January 2023, is stricter than most readers count on. Manufacturers “are prohibited from rejecting content material, or inflicting it to be rejected, solely on the idea of star ranking or evaluation sentiment”, might not edit a evaluation, and will not reasonable their very own content material. Sampled opinions carry an “incentivized evaluation” badge, and when one syndicates to a retailer’s website Bazaarvoice appends the road “[This review was collected as part of a promotion.]” House Tester Membership’s opinions attain Walmart.com by the identical route, as our House Tester Membership evaluation reveals.
The enamel are actual. The FTC can search civil penalties of as much as $53,088 per violation, and on 22 December 2025 it despatched warning letters to 10 firms; it didn’t identify them, and the letters should not findings of wrongdoing. The closest enforcement precedent for a sampling program is the FTC’s 2019 order in opposition to UrthBox, which paid $100,000 after providing free snack packing containers for optimistic BBB opinions with no system to test that reviewers disclosed the freebie.
Backside line: no FTC motion, state attorney-general matter or class motion naming Influenster or Bazaarvoice over opinions might be discovered. The one courtroom loss on report is an antitrust case, US v. Bazaarvoice, which has nothing to do with whether or not opinions are trustworthy.
Higher makes use of of the identical hour
Influenster is value conserving as a background lottery ticket. It’s a poor important plan, as a result of the hours are unpaid and the end result is anyone else’s choice. If you need one thing you management, run considered one of these alongside it.
Trustpilot scores learn 13 October 2026: PINCHme 4.5 from 1,413 opinions, BzzAgent 3.3 from 16. Swagbucks and Survey Junkie are DollarBreak companions.
Swagbucks is the closest factor to the other of Influenster: each process has a acknowledged payout earlier than you begin it, and nothing is dependent upon being chosen.
Swagbucks Abstract
Some ways to earn cash and e-gift playing cards
$10 welcome bonus with a $25 buy
As much as 10% cashback when buying on-line
Money out by PayPal or e-gift card
Play video games and take surveys for $
Legit platform run by Prodege
Survey Junkie pays money for a similar type of detailed opinion Influenster asks without cost, and it tells you what a survey is value earlier than you reply it.
Survey Junkie Abstract
$0.50-$5 earnings per survey
Further factors in the event you screened out of survey
3 surveys each day = as a lot as $100 month-to-month
Set up Survey Junkie extension for bonus
Low payout threshold of $5
Number of surveys
For extra of each varieties, our guides to free samples, product testing apps and getting paid to put in writing opinions cowl the applications that pay money and those that solely ship product.
How we researched this
This evaluation rests on main sources: Influenster’s Phrases of Service and privateness coverage, all 122 public articles in its assist heart, Bazaarvoice’s sampling, community, authenticity and privateness pages, its acquisition and possession bulletins, the FTC’s rule steering and enforcement report, and the DOJ docket in US v. Bazaarvoice.
The scores and grievance figures are our personal counts, taken on 13 October 2026: the 100 latest US App Retailer opinions, the 150 latest Google Play opinions, Influenster’s Trustpilot profile and the eight complaints listed on its BBB file. These are samples, not censuses, and a single evaluation can point out two topics.
No one at DollarBreak has a VoxBox. Every little thing about what arrives in a field, and the way lengthy a wait feels, is credited to the bloggers, discussion board members and retailer reviewers who recorded it, with the month they did.
Influenster FAQ
Is Influenster free?
Sure. Its assist heart says “Influenster is free and at all times has been”, and transport is free on applications the place it posts you the field. Some cashback campaigns ask you to purchase the product first and reimburse you afterwards, which is the place most of its BBB complaints come from.
How lengthy does it take to get a VoxBox?
No one publishes a determine, and the documented accounts run from 4 days after choice to months of nothing for members posting usually. As soon as you’re picked, Influenster says the field takes 4 to six weeks to reach.
How do you join Influenster?
Obtain the app or register on the location with an e mail, Apple, Google or Fb account, full your profile and begin reviewing merchandise you already personal. One account per individual; a second one will rely in opposition to you.
Do you want Instagram or TikTok to get merchandise?
Its assist heart says frequent program invites require one related Instagram (Creator or Enterprise) or TikTok account, and that you may join just one per platform. It additionally says follower rely doesn’t have an effect on eligibility.
What’s Influenster Professional?
A separate tier for members with a public social following, the place Influenster says your Instagram insights — engagement charge and follower rely — are shared with manufacturers. It publishes no value for it, and says the platform as an entire is free.
What does Influenster do together with your knowledge?
Bazaarvoice tells manufacturers it might probably goal campaigns on “as much as 1,000 knowledge factors per member”. Influenster’s privateness coverage says it collects protected traits and background location, and its personal CCPA desk says it disclosed identifiers for invaluable consideration; its assist heart and Bazaarvoice’s coverage each say nothing is bought. Deleting your account doesn’t delete every part: it “should still retain” your data and your public opinions.
