Pricing your first brand deal
Your first brand offer will probably come with no price attached. This guide helps you build a rate you can explain and defend.
By Karan Malhotra
The awkward first email
The first brand deal often arrives as a friendly message: a company likes your content and wants to “collaborate”. Then comes the question every new creator dreads: “What are your rates?” Many beginners panic, name a tiny number or accept free products, and later realise they undervalued their work.
There is no official rate card for creators, and anyone who quotes a universal price per follower is oversimplifying. What you can do is build a rate from your own numbers and your own time, so you can explain it confidently.
Know what you are actually selling
A brand is not paying for your follower count. It is paying for some combination of these:
- Access to an audience that matches its customers.
- Your creative work: scripting, filming, editing and the trust you have built.
- Usage rights, meaning permission to use your content in its own ads or channels.
- Exclusivity, meaning you agree not to work with competitors for a period.
Each of these has value, and each should be priced. Beginners often give away usage rights and exclusivity for free without noticing.
Build a base rate from your numbers
Start with your typical reach rather than your follower count. Look at the average views on your last ten to fifteen posts of the format the brand wants, ignoring unusual outliers. That is the realistic audience the brand is buying.
Next, estimate your time honestly. A single sponsored Reel might take a day once you include briefs, scripting, filming, edits, revisions and posting. Decide what a day of your creative work is worth to you. Your base rate should cover at least that, plus something for the audience you have built.
As a purely illustrative example: suppose your Reels average around 8,000 views, a sponsored video takes you roughly a day, and you value a working day at ₹4,000. You might start your quote for one Reel somewhere around ₹5,000 to ₹8,000, and adjust from there based on what you learn. These numbers are not a benchmark. Rates vary widely by niche, audience location and engagement, so treat this as a method, not a price list.
Price the work and the trust, not just the follower count.
Add the extras clearly
Once you have a base rate for a single deliverable, add separate lines for anything beyond it:
- Additional deliverables, such as stories, a second Reel or a YouTube integration.
- Usage rights, especially paid ad usage, which usually deserves a meaningful extra fee and a time limit.
- Exclusivity, priced according to how long it lasts and how many opportunities it blocks.
- Rush timelines, if the brand needs content faster than your normal schedule.
Itemising like this makes negotiation easier. If the budget is lower than your quote, you can remove usage rights or a deliverable rather than simply cutting your price.
Negotiate without fear
Brands expect negotiation. Asking first about their budget is perfectly normal and often reveals that they planned to spend more than you would have asked. If they push back on your quote, you have options: reduce the scope, offer a smaller package, or politely decline.
Accepting only free products is a choice you can make for brands you genuinely love, but it should be a choice, not a default. Remember that products also have tax implications in many countries, including India, so it is worth understanding the rules or speaking to an accountant once deals become regular.
Protect yourself in writing
Even for small deals, get the key terms in writing, whether that is a formal contract or a clear email thread. It should cover the deliverables, deadlines, number of revision rounds, usage rights and duration, payment amount and timeline, and how the sponsorship will be disclosed. Advertising rules in many countries require clear disclosure of paid partnerships, and platforms have their own branded content tools for this purpose.
Your first rate will not be perfect. Keep a record of every quote, what was accepted and how the content performed. After a handful of deals you will have real data to justify raising your prices, which you should review every few months as your audience grows.