Choosing a KOL agency in Vietnam: what kind you are hiring, how it is paid, and what to check before you sign

A foreign brand preparing for Vietnam searches for a KOL agency and finds dozens. They look alike: a deck of creator photos, follower counts, case studies with large view numbers, and a price for a campaign.

They are not alike. The name covers four different businesses, paid in different ways, and in some cases paid by the creators as well as by the brand. How an agency earns its money shapes which creators it proposes, which products it pushes and what it reports. This piece is about telling them apart and checking them before signing. What a creator fee should buy, and how to judge creators themselves, is covered in influencer marketing in Vietnam.

Four kinds of business answer to “KOL agency”

The last row is the least familiar to head offices, and the platforms formalise it. TikTok Shop runs partner programmes in Vietnam for creator agencies (MCNs), for affiliate partners, whose job its Vietnam seller academy describes as acting “as a third-party agency” matching sellers with creators, and for service partners that operate shops and content. Shopee’s affiliate programme terms list an MCN partner type that must show a network of at least ten KOLs or KOCs.

One firm can be several of these at once. A network can also be a TikTok Shop affiliate partner and also sell full-service retainers. That is not a problem in itself. It becomes one when the brand does not know which role the firm is playing in a given proposal.

Where each one’s money comes from

Four ways of being paid are common, and a proposal can combine them.

A markup inside an all-in price. The brand sees one number per campaign. The agency carries the risk of creators who renegotiate, and keeps whatever it saves.

A management fee on creator fees at cost. Creator fees are passed through, ideally with each creator’s own invoice, and the agency adds a stated percentage.

A retainer. A monthly fee for planning, booking and reporting, with creator fees billed on top.

A share of sales commission. On TikTok Shop, a seller joining an affiliate partner’s campaign sets one total commission rate for the partner and the creator together. TikTok’s partner documentation says commission is then calculated on the split the agency sets when it creates the product link it gives to creators. The seller-side guides show the total; the split is set on the partner’s side.

There is also money from the other direction. TikTok Shop lets a creator agree in the app to share a percentage of their commission with the network that manages them. TikTok’s own example shows what happens when the same agency is both the affiliate partner and the creator’s network: a seller sets 20% in total, split 10% to the partner and 10% to the creator; the creator shares half with the same agency; the creator keeps 5%, and the agency receives three quarters of the commission.

None of these models is wrong. Each pulls the agency’s choices in a direction. A markup rewards creators with the widest margin. A roster rewards the agency’s own creators. A commission share rewards products with high rates and creators who sell on the day, rather than those who make a brand known. The brand needs to know which pull is at work before it reads the plan.

The roster question

Most proposals from creator networks lean on their own roster. That can be the right answer: a network knows its creators’ audiences, can get them to deliver on time, and has a reason to keep them out of trouble.

The risk is that the brief is fitted to the roster rather than the roster to the brief. A product sold to working mothers in Hanoi gets the network’s strongest beauty creators in Ho Chi Minh City because they are available.

Three requests keep this visible without turning it into a dispute:

• The roster share, stated in the proposal. How many of the proposed creators the agency manages, and on what terms.
• Two outside alternatives for every roster creator above a set fee, with the agency’s reason for preferring its own.
• The audience of each creator from their own analytics, read against the brief by someone on the brand’s side who speaks Vietnamese.

The kind of creator matters for a second reason. In a Q&Me survey of 200 people aged 20 to 49 in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, published in September 2026, 54% said they trust ordinary users’ reviews more than KOLs, and 13% leaned towards influencers. A plan built only on large names buys the less trusted kind of voice.

Paying creators: invoices and withholding tax

Many Vietnamese creators are individuals, not companies, and paying them carries tax duties for whoever pays.

Since 1 July 2026, under Decree 253/2026/ND-CP, an organisation paying remuneration of VND 5 million or more per payment to a resident individual without a contract, or with a contract of under three months, must withhold 10% before paying. Until then, under Circular 111/2013, the threshold was VND 2 million. Creators registered as businesses are taxed differently, which is a question for a tax advisor rather than for marketing.

What matters for the brand is where this sits. When the agency contracts and pays the creators, the withholding is the agency’s job, and an all-in price may or may not include it. Ask the agency to state in the contract that it withholds and remits tax on payments to individual creators, and to show it on request. A campaign of fifty small creator payments is where this goes wrong unnoticed.

A brand with no entity operating in Vietnam has a second reason to use a local partner. The Advertising Law requires a foreign organisation that wants to advertise in Vietnam, and does not operate there, to hire a Vietnamese advertising service business to do it.

What the law asks of the agency, and what stays with the brand

Under the amended Advertising Law, in force since 1 January 2026, cooperation between parties in advertising has to go through an advertising contract. An advertising service business, defined as anyone carrying out one or more stages of the advertising process under an advertising contract, must check the documents on the advertising conditions of the advertiser and the product, and is responsible for the advertising it makes directly.

The brand keeps its own duties. It must give truthful information and documents and is responsible for them, and it is jointly liable for advertising it hires others to carry out. Influencers must verify the advertiser, check the product documents, not present a product they have not used or do not understand, and announce that the content is advertising before and while it runs.

Penalties follow the same line. Under Decree 87/2026/ND-CP, an influencer who fails to verify the advertiser, fails to check the documents or presents a product they have not used can be fined, and where the product’s owner has an advertising contract with that influencer, the owner can be ordered to recall the goods and surrender the money from their sale. The detail is in Vietnam’s advertising law in 2026.

Two practical conclusions. The agency’s legal duty is to check documents, not to stop a creator making claims, so the brand’s written list of approved claims does the real work. And whose name is on each creator contract is worth deciding on purpose, with counsel, rather than by default.

A worked example: two proposals for the same budget

The figures below are illustrative, invented for the example, and are not market rates.

A brand launching on TikTok Shop and Shopee sets USD 30,000 for its first month of creator work and receives two proposals.

As submitted, the two cannot be compared, because only one says what the creators are paid. The brand asks Agency A to break its price out: USD 19,500 goes to creators, the rest covers samples, production and the agency’s margin.

So the same USD 30,000 buys USD 19,500 of creator work in one proposal and USD 24,000 in the other, about 23% more. Proposal A is not dishonest: an all-in price is a normal way to sell, and the agency carries the risk of creators who renegotiate. But the brand was about to choose on the creator names and the total, the two lines that told it least.

Two further lines change the picture. Fourteen of A’s twenty creators come from its own roster, which is worth the roster questions above. And B’s ninety days of usage rights let the brand run the best videos as ads for a full quarter.

Scoring three agencies on the same sheet

A brand that compares agencies on their pitch decks compares presentation skills. A one-page sheet, filled in for each candidate before the meetings, keeps the comparison on what the brand will receive.

The weights are a starting point. A regulated category such as supplements or cosmetics should weigh the compliance process more; a brand with a strong local team can weigh data access less. What the sheet does well is make the trade-off visible: an agency that scores lower on transparency but far higher on category experience may still be right, as long as the brand knows that is the choice it is making.

Five lines for the contract

The general clauses of an agency agreement, account ownership, fee scope, reporting definitions, approvals and handover, are covered in what belongs in a marketing agency contract. A KOL agency needs five more:

• Creator fees at cost, with an audit right. The brand may see each creator’s invoice or payment record on request.
• Every role the agency plays, disclosed. Whether it manages any proposed creator, and any commission share it receives from a platform programme on the brand’s products.
• Usage rights that run to the brand. Written into each creator contract, for named platforms and periods, and surviving the end of the agency relationship.
• Tax on creator payments. The agency withholds and remits where the law requires, and shows it on request.
• A replacement rule. If a creator withdraws or is named by an authority for breaking the law, the agency replaces them with one of equal reach, approved by the brand, at no extra fee.

Where the figures and rules in this article come from

• Advertising Law: Law No. 75/2025/QH15 amending Law No. 16/2012/QH13, in force from 1 January 2026: Article 6 (advertising contracts), Article 12.2 (advertiser’s duties, including joint liability), Article 13.2 (advertising service business), Article 15a (people who carry advertising and influencers), Article 39.2 (foreign organisations).
• Penalties: Decree No. 87/2026/ND-CP on administrative penalties in culture and advertising, in force from 15 May 2026, Article 51.
• Withholding tax: Decree No. 253/2026/ND-CP on personal income tax, in force from 1 July 2026, Article 50.2.
• Platform programmes: TikTok Shop Partner Center pages on affiliate partners, MCNs and partner collaboration, and the TikTok Shop Vietnam seller academy guides “How to Join Affiliate Partner Campaigns” (19 November 2024) and commission sharing with MCNs (14 May 2026); Shopee Vietnam affiliate programme terms, updated 8 July 2026.
• Survey: Q&Me, “How Vietnamese consumers trust online reviews”, September 2026, 200 respondents aged 20 to 49 in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.

Where this work stops

MWY does not book creators, run influencer campaigns or take commission from creators, agencies or platforms. This is not legal or tax advice.

When a brand needs a KOL agency, MWY puts forward three vetted options with the criteria to judge them, reads their proposals on the same sheet, reviews the contract and then oversees the agency chosen, reading the payment log, the creator contracts and the platform statistics each month, as part of Vietnam Marketing Advisory & Oversight. For a brand still planning its entry, where creators fit in the launch and how they will be measured is part of Go-to-Market Strategy.