Which influencer mistake actually costs more: paying a fake, or passing on someone who would have worked?

My instinct says paying someone with a hollow audience is obviously worse. But

I keep noticing that's the error you can see. You lose the fee, you find out,

you don't renew them.

The other mistake is invisible. If you pass on someone who'd have driven real

sales, nobody ever tells you. And you make that mistake far more often than the

first one, because you reject far more people than you sign.

For anyone who's worked the brand or agency side: has either of these ever been

put in numbers? Even rough ones. And at higher price points, does the pool of

suitable people get small enough that a wrong rejection genuinely hurts?