How to verify an agency is real, before you talk to them

Step 1: Find the legal entity

Every legitimate US agency is a registered company somewhere, and every US state publishes a free business search. Take the company name from the agency's website footer or terms page and search the register for the state they claim to operate in.

What you're looking for: the company exists, the name matches, and the registration is active rather than dissolved. You'll usually also see the formation date, which tells you how long they've actually been operating, as opposed to how long their marketing says they have.

If the website names no legal entity at all, that's the finding. It doesn't prove wrongdoing, but it means there is no identifiable company to hold responsible if things go wrong, and no way to check anything else. Most creators should stop here.

Step 2: Check how old the website is

A WHOIS lookup shows when a domain was registered. This is useful because it's the one claim an agency can't quietly inflate: if the site says "managing creators since 2018" and the domain was registered eight months ago, those two facts need reconciling.

There are innocent explanations: rebrands, domain changes, agencies that operated without a website for years. But it's a fair question to ask, and the answer tells you something either way.

Step 3: Search for them outside their own website

This is the check that separates established operations from new ones with good design. Search the agency name alongside terms like "review", "scam", and "experience". Then search it on Reddit specifically, where creators discuss agencies with considerably more candor than anywhere else.

What matters is not whether you find complaints. Every agency of any size has some. What matters is whether you find anything. An agency claiming years of operation and hundreds of creators, with no independent trace anywhere on the internet, has a story that doesn't add up.

Read negative reports carefully rather than dismissing them. A complaint about slow replies is different in kind from a complaint about withheld payouts or a locked account. If you are already working with an agency and the numbers feel wrong, reconciling one month against the platform turns a feeling into a figure.

Step 4: Test the claims against each other

Marketing pages tend to contain numbers. Check whether they're internally consistent:

• Team size against creator count. A team of five managing four hundred accounts around the clock is arithmetically implausible.
• Revenue claims against founding date.
• "Since [year]" against the domain registration and the company registration.

Inconsistencies aren't proof of dishonesty. Websites go stale. But an agency that can't explain its own numbers when asked is telling you how carefully it treats facts generally.

Step 5: Reverse-search the testimonials

Run a reverse image search on the photos attached to testimonials. If a "creator" pictured on the site is a stock photo, you've learned something significant about how much of the rest is real.

Anonymized testimonials aren't a red flag in themselves. Many creators reasonably don't want their name on an agency's website. Fabricated ones are a different matter entirely. The red flags page sorts seventeen of these by what they cost.

Step 6: Ask the six questions

Only now is a call worth your time. Ask directly:

1. What exactly is the commission, and is it calculated on gross or net?
2. Who holds the account login, and who types the password? Most agencies work an inbox through a CRM, which is normal; the question is whether you connect the account yourself or hand the credentials over.
3. Is there a minimum term, and how do I exit?
4. What happens to my content if I leave?
5. Can I speak to a current or former creator?
6. Do I pay anything before my first payout?

Ask all six even if the website answered some, because you're testing two things at once: the answers themselves, and whether the answers match what's published. A discrepancy between the website and the call is more informative than either one alone.

The longer version, twelve questions with what a straight answer to each sounds like and a sheet you fill in during the call, is on the call questions page.

Step 7: Read the contract before you feel ready to sign it

Ask for the agreement in writing and take it away. Any agency that resists this, or that pushes for a decision on the call, has answered a question you didn't have to ask.

Read specifically for: the commission figure and its basis, the term length, the notice period, what happens to content and account access on termination, and any exclusivity or non-compete language. We cover what to look for clause by clause here.

The first five cost about twenty minutes and happen before you speak to anyone. Only then is a call worth your time, and the last two happen around it. An agency that clears all seven has told you a great deal, and so has one that does not.

What a clean result looks like

An agency worth continuing with will have: a findable, active registered company; a domain history consistent with its claims; some independent trace of existence; internally consistent numbers; verifiable testimonials; direct answers to all six questions; and a contract it will send you without pressure.

That's a low bar. It's also one that a meaningful share of agencies fail, which is precisely why running the checks is worth twenty minutes of your time.