How brand deals and rates actually work

The most expensive gap in a new creator's knowledge is not how to shoot. It's this.

1What you are actually selling

Two things, priced separately, and beginners routinely charge for one and give away the other.

1. The work. Making the thing. Your time, your kit, your judgement.

2. The rights. What the brand may then do with it — where they can run it, for how long, whether they can put money behind it, whether you can work with a competitor next month.

The second one is often worth more than the first, and it is the one nobody asks a beginner to pay for, because beginners don't raise it.

A brand paying you $100 for a video and then running it as a paid ad for eighteen months across four markets has bought something worth a great deal more than $100. That isn't sharp practice on their part. They asked for a video and you sold them a video.

2The base rate

The market research this guide uses, unchanged from the figures established elsewhere:

Two things to understand about that spread.

It's a range, not a ladder with rungs. Nobody promotes you. You move up it by raising your rate on the next quote and finding that people still say yes — and you find the ceiling by occasionally hearing no. If you never hear no, you're under-priced.

What moves you along it is not tenure. It's evidence you can be trusted with a brief. A creator with four months' experience and a portfolio that shows process can charge more than one with two years and a folder of finished clips. That is what Module 4 is for.

3The levers that sit on top of base

This is the structure of a real quote. Base rate, then each of these priced deliberately rather than absorbed.

Usage rights — the big one. Scope of what they can do:

• Organic only — they post it on their own channels. Cheapest.
• Paid amplification — they put money behind it as an ad. This is where the value is, because they're using your work to buy attention at scale.
• Whitelisting — running ads that appear to come from your account.
• Territory — one market or global.
• Duration — three months, twelve, in perpetuity. Never agree to perpetuity without pricing it as if it were forever, because it is.

Exclusivity. Agreeing not to work with their competitors for a period. This is a real restriction on your business and should be priced as one. Ask which competitors and for how long — "the category, indefinitely" is not a term you should accept at a beginner rate.

Volume. Multiple deliverables in one job. A discount is normal; make it a modest one, since your cost per piece falls less than they'll suggest.

Turnaround. A rush job displaces other work. There is nothing wrong with a rush fee, and quoting one calmly is a mark of a professional.

Revisions beyond the included rounds. Two included is a common shape. Say what happens after that — hourly, or per round — before you start.

Raw footage. If they want the unedited files, that's a separate thing and often a significant one. Don't hand it over as a courtesy.

4How a deal actually goes

1. They approach you, or you pitch. Section 3.
2. They send a brief, or a vague message that isn't one. If it isn't one, ask for the missing pieces before quoting. You cannot price what you can't scope.
3. You quote. Base plus levers, itemised, so the rights line is visible rather than buried.
4. They negotiate, usually on price and occasionally on rights. Rights is where you should hold.
5. You agree in writing. The kit's contract template exists for this.
6. You make it, deliver, take notes, deliver again.
7. You invoice, and then you chase, because you will have to.

The questions to ask before quoting

If a brief doesn't answer these, the brief isn't finished:

• How many deliverables, in what format and length?
• Where will it run — organic, paid, both?
• For how long, and in which markets?
• Is exclusivity involved? With whom, for how long?
• How many revision rounds, and who signs off?
• When do you need it, and when do you pay?

Ask all six every time. It takes one message, it makes you look like someone who has done this before, and it prevents the most common way these jobs go wrong — which is not being underpaid, but discovering afterwards that you agreed to something you hadn't priced.

5Getting paid

• Deposit up front for new clients. Half is common. This is normal and asking for it is not aggressive.
• Net terms — 30 days is typical, so a job finished today may be paid next month. Plan for it.
• Kill fee. If they cancel after you've started, what are you owed? Agree it in advance, not on the day it happens.
• Chase. Politely, on a schedule, in writing. The tracker in the kit exists partly so you can see what's owed at a glance.

6The one-line summary

Price the work, then price the rights. Itemise both, so the client can see what they're buying and you can see what you're selling.

The rate calculator in the kit turns this into a working method.