Deal types and terms
Whitelisting
Whitelisting is when a creator grants a brand permission to run paid advertising from the creator's own social account, so the ad appears to come from the creator rather than the brand.
Also called allowlisting, creator ads, spark ads, partnership ads.
The advantage is trust and targeting at once. The ad carries the creator's name and face, which performs better than brand-account creative, and the brand controls the budget, the audience, and how long it runs.
It is a separate right from posting, and is priced separately. A creator who agreed to one sponsored post has not agreed to have that post run as an advert to millions of strangers for six months. Whitelisting terms should state the ad platforms, the spend cap or duration, and the audiences it may target.
Common questions
- How much should whitelisting cost?
- It is normally quoted as an uplift on the content fee, often 20 to 100 percent depending on duration, or as a flat monthly rate for ongoing access. The length of the licence drives the price more than anything else.
Related terms
- Usage rights
- Usage rights define where a brand may reuse a creator's content, in what form, and for how long. Without them, the brand may not repost or advertise with the content even though it paid for the post.
- UGC creator
- A UGC creator makes content for a brand to publish on the brand's own channels, rather than posting it to their own audience. They are paid for the content itself, not for distribution.
- Sponsored post
- A sponsored post is a single piece of content a creator publishes to their own audience in exchange for payment, and which must be disclosed as an advert.
- Exclusivity
- An exclusivity clause stops a creator from working with a brand's competitors for a defined period, in a defined product category.
Distinct is the workspace where brands and creators run the work behind these terms. For brands, for creators, or back to the full glossary.