Guide for creators
How to price a brand deal
Start from a base rate of roughly 1 percent of your follower count per feed post, so about 100 US dollars per 10,000 followers, then adjust up or down for engagement rate, niche, platform, and finally add separately for usage rights, exclusivity, and turnaround.
There is no official rate card in this industry, which is why most creators undercharge for their first year. What follows is the method most experienced creators and managers actually use: start from a defensible base number, adjust it for the things that make your audience worth more or less, then charge separately for everything that is not the post itself.
1. Start from the 1 percent base rate
The most widely used starting point is one percent of follower count for a single feed post: 100 US dollars at 10,000 followers, 500 at 50,000, 1,000 at 100,000. It is not a law and no brand will cite it back to you, but it is a number you can defend and it stops you guessing.
Treat it as the floor for a standard in-feed post with no extras attached. Everything after this step moves it up or down.
Common mistake: Quoting this number for a video. Long-form video takes days rather than hours and is discoverable for years, so it prices at a multiple of a feed post, not the same.
2. Adjust for engagement rate
Follower count is what a brand sees first, but engagement is what it is actually buying. If your engagement rate is meaningfully above the norm for your size, roughly above 3 percent by followers on Instagram, you can justify 1.5 to 2 times the base rate, and you should say why in the same sentence you say the number.
The reverse is also true. If your engagement sits well below others of your size, the base rate is optimistic and a brand that checks will notice.
3. Adjust for niche
Audience intent varies enormously by category, and rates follow it. Finance, business software, health, and parenting audiences convert at rates that support fees several times higher than the base formula suggests. Broad lifestyle and entertainment audiences support less.
The test is what a single customer is worth to the brand. If a converted follower is worth 2,000 dollars a year to a software company, your reach is worth far more to them than the same reach is worth to a company selling a 12 dollar candle.
4. Price each platform separately
A deal covering Instagram and TikTok is two deliverables, not one with a discount. Each requires its own cut, its own caption, and reaches a partly different audience. Bundling is fine, but bundle from two full prices rather than quoting one and adding the second free.
Stories price well below feed posts because they take an hour and vanish in 24. A three-frame story set commonly runs at 20 to 40 percent of a feed post.
5. Charge separately for usage rights
Posting the content and licensing the content are different products. If the brand wants to run your content as a paid advert, repost it on its own channels, or use it on its website, that is a licence and it is priced on top.
A common structure is an uplift of 20 to 100 percent of the content fee for three to twelve months of paid social usage, scaling with duration and breadth. Perpetual, all-media rights are a large multiple, because you are giving up every future licence on that asset.
Common mistake: Agreeing to a post and later discovering it is running as an advert to millions. If rights are not written down, assume the brand will ask afterwards, and price it then rather than accepting it was implied.
6. Charge for exclusivity and rush
Exclusivity removes income you could otherwise earn, so it is priced as a premium rather than included. One month of category exclusivity is routine; anything approaching a year is a serious commercial commitment and should be paid for as one.
Turnarounds under about a week displace other work and justify a rush premium, commonly 20 to 50 percent. So do extra approval rounds beyond the one or two you include as standard.
7. Quote a number, then stop talking
Send the figure with a one-line breakdown of what it covers and what it excludes. The breakdown is what makes the number feel calculated rather than invented, and it gives the brand something to negotiate against other than the total.
If the budget is genuinely lower than your rate, reduce scope rather than price. Removing a deliverable or shortening the usage window protects your rate for the next deal; discounting teaches the brand what you actually cost.
Common questions
- How much should a creator with 10,000 followers charge?
- Around 100 US dollars for a single feed post as a starting point, adjusted up for strong engagement or a high-intent niche, and increased further if the brand wants usage rights, exclusivity, or multiple platforms. Creators in categories such as finance or B2B commonly charge several times that at the same follower count.
- Should a creator give a discount for multiple posts?
- A modest bundle discount of 10 to 20 percent for a multi-post package is normal and rewards a larger commitment. Deeper discounts are usually a sign the scope should be cut instead, because a rate you accept once becomes the rate that brand expects forever.
- What if a brand refuses to share their budget?
- Give your rate rather than asking again. Whoever names a number first sets the anchor, and a brand that will not share a budget is usually hoping you name something lower than they had planned.
Terms used in this guide
- Rate card
- A rate card is a creator's published list of prices by deliverable, for example a set fee for a feed post, a story series, or a long-form video.
- 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.
- Exclusivity
- An exclusivity clause stops a creator from working with a brand's competitors for a defined period, in a defined product category.
- Flat fee
- A flat fee is a fixed amount paid to a creator for agreed deliverables, regardless of how the content performs.
- Engagement rate
- Engagement rate is the share of an audience that interacts with a post, calculated as total engagements divided by a chosen denominator, most often followers or reach, expressed as a percentage.