LTK vs Tano: a shopping marketplace, or a creator programme your brand owns?
LTK is a marketplace. Tano is the operating layer for a creator programme that belongs to your brand. They answer different questions, and a lot of brands end up asking both.
LTK is a creator shopping platform: a consumer app with 40 million monthly shoppers by LTK's count, 350,000 creators, and tracking that attributes the sales they drive. Creators curate across every brand they like, and the relationship they build is with LTK. That is the model, and for curator-style creators with high purchase-intent audiences it works.
Tano is a creator programme partner for DTC brands whose creator programme is outgrowing the people running it. It makes creator marketing programmatic: always-on, rules-driven and measurable, rather than a sequence of manually managed deals. Tano's agents run outreach, follow-up, programme communication, codes and payments across thousands of creators, the relationship stays direct with your brand, and the programme is run to a revenue outcome rather than a post count. Skin+Me grew creator-driven sign-ups and revenue 3.5× at a CAC three times lower than its other channels.
The other difference is where the sale lands. On LTK the customer buys in the LTK app or at a retailer, and LTK holds the relationship and the data. On Tano the customer buys on your site, the creator is in your programme, and every organic post adds to a content library your brand owns. The best of that content goes into paid ads with the rights already tracked, which is where Bloom & Wild saw 125% higher CTR and 13% higher ROAS than from their other creative. And as AI shopping agents start acting on creator content, and Meta's Muse can already turn a saved Reel into a purchase, a rights-cleared library that sits with your brand is what those agents will work from.
How are they different?
On LTK the creator's relationship is with the marketplace. On Tano it is with your brand.
A creator on LTK builds one storefront across every brand they like, and your product is one shelf in it. The audience, the sales history and the creator's habits sit with the platform, which is what makes the app work for the shopper.
Your brand gets reach into that audience. The marketplace accelerates access and mediates the relationship, which means the relationship does not outlast the next commission.
Every creator joins your programme and is signed to your brand. They see your offer, their tier, their earnings and their next action. A brand-scoped agent works from that creator's own content, performance and programme history, so what it says reflects where they are: approaching a launch, yet to post, missing a code, or ready to move up a tier.
The relationships, the data and the content rights stay with you, whichever other platforms you also run.
A marketplace is built for the sale that happens on one recommendation. A programme is built for everything else.
A creator links the product, a follower taps through, the commission lands. Where a product converts on first exposure, that is an efficient loop and there is little a lifecycle programme would add to it.
Most products need repeated exposure, education and advocacy before they convert, and that is what a programme is for. Tano designs the programme around the psychology of the product: which creators post again, when to regift, which activation moves which tier.
At Skin+Me, 4 of the 5 top-performing creators in September 2025 were onboarded through Tano.
LTK gives your team the tools. Tano's team and agents carry the load, and you approve.
LTK Connect is self-serve, so your team runs discovery, outreach and campaign management inside LTK's tools. LTK Optimize is the managed tier. Pricing is not published; brands are quoted after a demo.
Tano is the managed model from the start, without an upgrade tier. Agents run outreach, follow-up and programme communication, codes and payments run through automated workflows, and performance connects to sales on your own site through links, codes and your commerce stack. Your team approves and keeps the strategy and the creative judgement; Bloom & Wild reported 138+ team hours saved a month.
Programmes start at $3,000 a month, and Tano earns a share of the affiliate commission the programme generates, so it is paid on performance. The comparison is with LTK Optimize, a hire or an agency retainer, not with a software subscription.
Which should you choose?
Choose LTK if
- Your product converts on one recommendation and your customer already shops in the LTK app.
- Your creators are curators with high purchase-intent audiences, and a storefront across many brands is how they like to work.
- You are stocked at the retailers LTK creators link to, so a sale there is as good to you as a sale on your own site.
- Your team has the bandwidth to run discovery and campaigns in LTK Connect, or the budget for LTK Optimize.
Choose Tano if
- You sell on your own site and want the customer, the data and the creator relationship to land there rather than in a shopping app. “One person managing every channel meant outreach capped quickly and consistency suffered.” Skin+Me case study, before Tano
- Your product is bought on habit rather than impulse, so one link in a storefront does less than a creator who posts about it month after month.
- You want the relationship, the data and the content rights to sit with your brand rather than with a platform.
- You want creator content in your paid social with the rights already cleared. Bloom & Wild saw +125% CTR and +13% ROAS against non-Tano ads.
- You want the programme connected to a revenue outcome rather than a post count. HelloFresh saw a 93% uplift in CVR across 4,500 creator collaborations managed by Tano.
- You want the admin off your desk without handing the relationship to an agency. “You've removed all the admin stuff. I finally have time to focus on engagement, and we're on track for our biggest month ever.” Katie McKane, Influencer Executive, Skin+Me
- You are on LTK today and want an owned programme alongside it. Tano runs the owned layer, and LTK carries on doing what it does.
LTK and Tano side by side
| LTK | Tano | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Creator shopping platform with a consumer app | Creator programme partner: strategy, software and agentic AI |
| Whose relationship it is | The creator's, with LTK | Your brand's, with each creator |
| Creator supply | 350,000+ on the platform | Sourced for your programme from the open market of roughly 250 million creators, including the independent and up-and-coming creators who are not on any marketplace |
| Who does the work | Your team (Connect) or LTK's team (Optimize) | Tano's agents run outreach, follow-up, programme communication, codes and payments; your team approves and keeps the strategy and creative judgement |
| Programme design | Commission on the sale | Lifecycle: gifting, tiers, regifting, affiliate, paid, re-engagement |
| Where the sale lands | The LTK app, or a retailer's site | Your site, with your customer data |
| Gifting | Campaign tools, run by your team | ✓ Run for you |
| Affiliate tracking | ✓ Through LTK links | ✓ Codes and links, managed end to end |
| Re-engaging proven creators | Your team, by hand | Brand-scoped agents, with your team on the high-value moments |
| Creator content into paid ads | Rights agreed per creator | ✓ Whitelisting and content rights available, assets ad-ready |
| Creator payments | Commission, through LTK | Automated workflows, run by Tano |
| Pricing | Not published; quoted after a demo, plus commission | From $3,000 a month plus a share of affiliate commission; paid on performance |
| Data ownership | The platform | You: the relationships, the programme history and the performance data |
Common questions
Can you run Tano alongside LTK?
Yes, and the two do different jobs. LTK gives you reach into its shopping audience through creators who are already on the platform, and if you are stocked at the retailers they link to, that is distribution you keep. Tano finds the creators LTK does not have: the micro, up-and-coming and independent creators who are not on any marketplace, recruits them into a programme your brand owns, and points their content at your own store, where the customer and the data are yours. Brands already on LTK are exactly who Tano is built for, and nothing has to be switched off on day one.
How do you run Tano alongside LTK in practice?
Decide three things at the start. Which creators sit where: curator creators with an LTK storefront stay on LTK, and the programme creators Tano recruits are contracted to your brand, so the same creator is rarely in both. Attribution: LTK attributes sales in its app and at retailers, Tano attributes sales on your site through codes and links, so the two rarely claim the same order, but agree the rule for creators who hold both. Reporting: LTK reports in its dashboard and Tano in its platform, so agree which numbers roll up to the channel view. Tano's team sets this up with you.
What are the alternatives to LTK for brands?
It depends on what you want to own. ShopMy is the closest like-for-like: a smaller creator commerce marketplace, around 200,000 creators, with published brand pricing from $399 a month, where the relationship also sits with the marketplace. Affiliate platforms such as AWIN and Partnerize put the contract with the brand, but they are systems of record and your team still runs the outreach, the tiers and the payments. Agencies run the programme for you and scale by adding people. Tano is the layer that combines the three: the ownership of an affiliate platform, the creator-side experience of a marketplace, and a team and agents to run it.
How does LTK compare with ShopMy?
Both are marketplaces where the creator's relationship is with the platform. LTK is larger and has a consumer shopping app, with 40 million monthly shoppers by its own count and 350,000 creators. ShopMy is smaller, publishes its brand pricing, and is built around creator storefronts and commissionable links rather than a shopping app. ShopMy is self-serve. LTK Connect is self-serve and LTK Optimize is the managed tier.
Which option lets the brand own the creator relationship?
Tano, and any affiliate platform where you contract creators directly. It also makes Tano the lower-risk one to try: every creator is in your programme, so if it is not working for you, the relationships, the programme history and the content rights leave with you. On LTK and ShopMy the storefront, the links and the history belong to the platform, so if you leave, the creator base you have built stays there.
How much does LTK cost compared with Tano?
LTK does not publish its pricing. Brands are quoted after a demo and pay commission on the sales creators drive, at a rate the brand sets. Programmes start at $3,000 a month, and Tano earns a share of the affiliate commission the programme generates, so it is paid on performance. The comparison is with LTK Optimize, a hire or an agency retainer rather than with a software subscription, because the fee covers the people and the agents running the programme, which on LTK Connect is your team's job. At low volume the marketplace is the cheaper option; as the programme grows, the direct model is.
How soon can creators be posting?
On LTK, as soon as a creator who already has a storefront chooses to link your product, which can be immediate if you are stocked where they shop and slower if you are not. On Tano the first creators are recruited and onboarded in the first days of a programme, because sourcing, briefing, contracting and gifting run as agent workflows from day one, and the creators Tano recruits are not waiting for a marketplace to surface your brand. The programme then builds tier by tier.
Can you scale a creator programme without hiring?
On Tano that is the model. The team and agents do the sourcing, outreach, briefing, contracting, payment and re-engagement, so the same marketing team can run hundreds or thousands of creators with graduated human oversight by tier. On LTK the equivalent is LTK Optimize, the managed tier; on LTK Connect your team runs discovery and campaigns inside LTK's tools, so the work grows with the programme.
Why does owning the creator relationship matter more now?
Because the sale is moving into content, and where it lands is starting to matter as much as whether it happens. Retail Economics forecasts UK social commerce rising from £9.1bn in 2025 to £20bn by 2030, and Momentum Works and Tabcut estimate TikTok Shop generated $50.3bn of GMV in the first half of 2026, up 92% year on year. In The Influencer Marketing Factory's US dataset, 63% of brand-creator relationships were one-off. A shopping platform gives you a share of that demand on its terms, in its app. A programme you own puts the customer on your site, keeps the creator base and the content library with your brand, and gives you the history to know which creators are worth the next brief.
Does AI outreach damage creator relationships?
The agents are brand-scoped and grounded in each creator's own content, performance and programme, so a creator hears from your brand about their work, not from a generic affiliate mailer. Frequency is governed centrally so a creator in several Tano programmes is never spammed. Katie McKane at Skin+Me put it plainly: “I was anti-AI at first. I've changed my mind.”
“AI doesn't replace the human; it unlocks the human.”