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How Creators Should Think About Their Value
Whether you’re a creator on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, or Twitch, at some point during your career, you’ve probably seriously undercharged for a brand sponsorship.
That’s probably because you didn’t know how to value your work and yourself as a creator.
To understand the full scope of their value, creators need to develop a comprehensive, birds-eye view of why a brand wants to work with them. It goes beyond basic metrics like follower count and subscriber numbers (which do matter, but not as much as you might think). A creator’s value includes all the hours of work it takes to produce the content, your creative direction and ideas, your expertise in your niche, and the trust and relationship you have built with your audience.
Common Mistakes Creators Make When Pricing Brand Deals
Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all formula for calculating how creators should price their brand deals. But, fortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all formula for calculating how creators should price their brand deals because that means creators can often charge more than they think.
As mentioned above, the number of followers and subscribers is important, but not as important as you might think. Most online pricing calculators or formulas are based on follower count, which can be a helpful starting point but isn’t necessarily an accurate reflection of your worth as a creator.
There are plenty of factors to consider when calculating your rates, like the specific deliverables, how the assets will be used, and when the campaign is happening.
Here is our guide to how creators should price brand deals.
How Creators Should Calculate Base Rate
In this instance, base rate refers specifically to how a creator should value their time, labor, and personal brand. Some creators use a baseline hourly rate, and others use a day rate.
Depending on your niche, size is not always the best indicator for how much you can charge. What matters more is your niche and how engaged your audience is. Certain niches, like finance and business, have much higher CPM rates compared to other verticals, which generally means you can charge more relative to your audience size. Additionally, having a high engagement rate and click-through rate often means you can charge more, relative to your audience size.
Creators should think of their base rate as an hourly or day rate, multiplied by how much time it would take to create the deliverables. So, if you charge $100 an hour and it takes 12 hours to create, say, an Instagram Reel, then your starting rate is $1,200.
And whatever you do, do not forget to include your time in pre-production, like brand correspondence, organizing a team, etc.
Additional Costs Creators Should Factor into Rates
Sometimes a brand will cover any campaign and treat creators more as “the talent.” Other times, the creator will be responsible for the creation and execution of the campaign deliverables. In those instances, creators should factor in any related production costs to their rate.
For example, some common production costs could include:
- Videographers
- Photographers
- Editors
- Wardrobe
- Props
- Venue rental
How Deliverables Affect Brand Deal Pricing
Obviously, the more complex the ask, the more creators can charge. The price of a one Instagram Story photo won’t be the same as an hour-long YouTube video because the amount of work that goes into each is vastly different.
By that same logic, if a brand wants multiple deliverables, and/or an ongoing collaboration, the higher your fee.
When Can Creators Charge More for Brand Deals?
Each brand deal is different. Sometimes a brand will want the usage rights to your sponsored content, or maybe they want to whitelist it – in cases like these, creators can charge higher fees.
For more information on when to charge more for brand deals, check out this article we did on the Brand Deal Contract Dos and Don’ts.
How BATNA Can Help Creators Price Brand Deals
The last thing creators should keep in mind when negotiating brand deals is BATNA – Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement.
A BATNA is a creator's backup plan in the event a brand deal doesn’t work out. It’s not something creators can use in the actual negotiation process, but it is helpful because it can give creators perspective and keep them from feeling pressured to take any and every deal, even if it’s not the right fit.
For example, if this sponsorship deal falls through, that’s ok because you know your BATNA is that deal with another brand, or perhaps it’s your AdSense revenue, or affiliate link income. Basically, a BATNA should help keep creators from undercharging or accepting lower-than-fair rates.
