Keep Austin posted.
Austin's food culture was built by trucks, trailers and counters long before the skyline filled in: breakfast tacos at dawn, brisket lines by eleven, queso treated as a food group. Magpie is forming its Austin founding roster now, with local creators who post the city they actually eat in, and local businesses ready to comp them.
The post is the job.
Magpie is free for creators. Always. Businesses pay the platform. You never pay to join, to list, or to get booked.
Comp visits are the core. Paid bookings sit on top: set your own rate, the business pays it, and the platform fee is 6 percent total, split evenly, so you keep 97 percent of your rate. Paid bookings are held by Magpie until your post is live. Headliners (15,000+ followers) are also first in line for featured paid campaigns when businesses run them.
A city that queues for local
Food truck city, forever
Pods of trailers with communal picnic tables are Austin's original food halls. Creators here built followings one trailer window at a time, and that is exactly the energy Magpie runs on.
Lines are a ritual
People queue for brisket before the doors open and treat the wait as a social event. A creator who posts the line, the tray and the first bite is posting Austin itself.
Keep it local is the law
Austin picks the independent spot over the chain on principle. A comp from a neighborhood business, posted honestly by a neighbor, fits how this city already decides where to go.
Live music, every night
The live music claim is not a slogan, it is a Tuesday. Listening rooms, honky-tonks and patio sets give creators something real to post seven nights a week.
How it works for Austin creators
Claim your founding spot
Sign up free with Austin as your market and finish your profile: your handles, your neighborhoods, what you post about. Founding creators are reviewed in sign-up order, and your tier is set automatically by your total audience.
Go be a customer
Show up, redeem the comp in the app, and experience the business for real. Bring a guest when the offer covers two.
Post within 48 hours
The Standard Visit: 1 post or reel plus 1 story that shares the post, with the goal of posting within 48 hours of the visit, and a week as the outside limit, honest and clearly disclosed as comped. The platform tracks the post, so the business gets proof and you get credit for the visit.
Tacos, trays and trailers
Comps run across the city: breakfast taco counters, BBQ joints, Tex-Mex institutions, food trucks and trailers, coffee shops, salons, barbershops and fitness studios. If it is local and Austin argues about it, it belongs on your feed.
Students count here. If you are at UT Austin, St. Edward's, Austin Community College or Huston-Tillotson, name your school when you sign up or finish your profile: your profile carries your campus, so businesses near your school can find you first. A Standard Visit fits between classes, and alcohol offers are 21+ only.
Where do you land?
Tiers are set automatically by your total audience across platforms, and they rise as you grow. A small, genuinely local audience beats a big, scattered one.
- Everyday people with a local following
- Comp visits, and paid bookings at your own rate
- Perfect first step into local posting
- Regular local posters, the roster's sweet spot
- Comp visits, and paid bookings at your own rate
- Priority access to new businesses
- Established local creators
- Comp visits, and paid bookings at your own rate
- First pick of grand openings and launches
Magpie starts at 500 total followers across your platforms. Your tier is set by your follower count, and it moves up as you grow. What matters most is not the number, it's that your audience is actually local and actually engages. Nobody picks their own band.
Austin businesses: the line starts with a post
Austin decides where to eat by watching what other Austinites eat. Founding businesses put local micro-influencers at the counter: comped at your cost, posting honestly to the followers who become your regulars.
Ads reach everyone except the people who live nearby. Magpie puts Austin micro-influencers who live here inside your business, posting to neighbors who can walk in this week.
Join the founding business list
Apply in a few minutes. Your category spot in your trade area is held in application order, and nothing is charged today.
Founding pricing, held for you
$199 a month for Self-Service (up to 5 creator visits a month, about $40 per creator visit), $349 a month for Growth (up to 10 creator visits a month, about $35 per creator visit) or $699 a month for Managed (up to 20 creator visits a month), with a 3-month minimum and then month to month. Founding businesses get $100 off the first month. Visits you don't use roll into the next month, then expire. The only other cost is the comp the business chooses to offer, provided at its cost, not retail. Founding businesses keep founding pricing while they remain subscribed, and the plan begins when the Austin market opens.
Activate when Austin opens
Pick creators from the founding roster, offer a comp at your cost, and get honest, tracked posts delivered in 48 hours* of each visit.
*Creators have up to one week to post. The goal is to post within 48 hours of the visit, and hitting it earns their Momentum. If a week passes with no post, the visit is replaced and does not count against your plan.
If a booked creator does not show up or does not post, that visit does not count against your monthly visits. It is replaced.
How content rights work: on a comp visit, you can share the creator's post natively with the creator credited, and nothing more: no downloads, no reposting the file, no ads. On a paid visit, you can also repost the content on your own channels and run it as an ad for 90 days under the standard license included in the booking. The creator always owns the content. Rights follow the visit, never the plan.
Neighborhood by neighborhood
The founding roster lives where Austin actually eats, drinks and lines up.
- East Austin
- South Congress
- Rainey Street
- South Lamar
- Hyde Park
- North Loop
- Mueller
- Cherrywood
- Zilker
- Downtown
Questions, answered straight
Is Magpie live in Austin yet?
Not yet. Founding sign-ups are open now, the founding roster is forming, and founding businesses are joining the founding list. Offers begin when the Austin market opens, and founding creators see every offer first.
Does it cost anything to join Magpie as a creator?
No. Magpie is free for creators. Always. Businesses pay the platform. You never pay to join, to list, or to get booked. Your compensation on standard visits is the comp itself: the meal, service or experience the business provides.
What would I actually post about in Austin?
A breakfast taco verdict before class, a brisket tray worth the line, a new trailer in an East Austin pod, a patio set on Rainey Street. The Standard Visit is 1 post or reel plus 1 story that shares the post, with the goal of posting within 48 hours of the visit, and a week as the outside limit, honest and clearly disclosed as comped.
I am a student at UT Austin. Can I join?
Yes. Name your school when you sign up or finish your profile and your profile carries your campus, so businesses near campus can find you first. The Standard Visit fits between classes, and alcohol offers are 21+ only.
How does an Austin business join, and when is it charged?
Apply for the founding business list and your category spot is held in application order. Nothing is charged today. Your plan begins when the Austin market opens, at founding pricing: $199 a month for Self-Service (up to 5 creator visits a month), $349 a month for Growth (up to 10 creator visits a month) or $699 a month for Managed (up to 20 creator visits a month), with a 3-month minimum and then month to month. Founding businesses get $100 off the first month. Visits you don't use roll into the next month, then expire.
Which parts of Austin does the roster cover?
Across the city: East Austin, South Congress, Rainey Street, South Lamar, Hyde Park, North Loop, Mueller, Cherrywood, Zilker and downtown. If your followers live here, your audience counts as local here.
How do Austin businesses find micro-influencers?
On Magpie. Businesses browse the founding roster, where creators are ranked by local reach (the share of their audience that lives in Austin) ahead of follower count, and send a comped offer, a paid booking at the creator's listed rate, or a coupon deal. Every visit is tracked in the platform, and founding businesses hold founding pricing.
What does local reach mean in Austin?
Local reach is the share of a creator's audience that lives in Austin, and it is the headline number on every profile here, ahead of follower count. Austin fills with festival visitors, so the number does real work: it separates the East Austin regular whose followers can walk in this week from the travel account whose audience left after the weekend.
How much do Austin creators earn on Magpie?
Joining is free, always. On comped visits your pay is the experience itself, and your rate stays published for paid work. Paid bookings start at a $50 floor, you set your own rate, and you keep 97% of every paid booking. If a business wants to reuse a comped post as an ad, that is a separate license at a fee you set: you approve it, it runs 90 days, and you keep 97% of the license fee too.
What kinds of businesses post offers in Austin?
Restaurants and food trailers first, from breakfast taco counters to brisket lines, then coffee shops, bars and patios, salons, barbershops, fitness studios, shops and local services. If your customers physically visit you and your regulars talk about you, your category belongs on the founding roster.
Can a business require a positive post?
No. No creator on Magpie can ever be required to post positively, on any plan or any deal. What a business is guaranteed is the deliverable: a real visit, and an honest post and story inside the standard. A business that pressures a creator for a positive post loses its account.
I live in Round Rock or Pflugerville. Can I join the Austin market?
Yes. Sign up with the city you actually live in. If your followers live in Austin, your audience counts as local here, and as the roster grows beyond the anchor city, businesses near you can find you too. Creators anywhere can join once they reach 500 total followers across their platforms.
This page is the Austin founding story: why this city, and what founding means here. The Austin market page carries the directory view: founding terms and roster details for this market. Sourcing creators yourself first? Read the field guide: how to find local influencers in Austin. Creator in Austin? See brand deals in Austin for the deal lanes, tiers and money questions.
Austin's founding roster is forming now
Creators join free and are reviewed in sign-up order. Businesses join the founding list at founding pricing, charged nothing until the market opens.