UGC rate card: how to build one and when to send it

The line items that stop work being handed over free

One video is never one thing. It is a concept, a filming session, an edit, captions, a vertical master, probably two alternative openings, possibly a folder of clips, and a permission slip saying where it may run. A card reading 'UGC video, $200' gives most of that away, because the brand will ask for the rest after the price is already agreed.

Structure the card as one base deliverable plus priced additions. The base should be the smallest useful job: a single video, one runtime, one opening, one revision round, organic posting from the brand's own feed. Everything beyond that becomes a line with a figure beside it, which converts a negotiation into a selection.

1. Base deliverable, with runtime and ratioName the length and the aspect ratio. A short vertical cut and a minute-long edit are different amounts of work and must not share one price.
2. Additional openingsPriced per extra first line filmed against the same body. This is the addition brands reach for most, so it should never be free.
3. Raw clipsState which clips, at what resolution, and whether the brand may build new edits from them. Give it a figure; bundling it is the most expensive habit beginners have.
4. Revisions, and where a reshoot startsIncluded rounds, then the boundary in plain words: two rounds on the edit, while a new script or a new setup is a reshoot at the base rate.
5. StillsA photo set from the same session, priced as a set with a stated count rather than per image, so nobody asks for nine more.
6. Licence per channel, with a termOrganic brand channels, paid social, and ads through your handle are three separate permissions, each carrying a number of months.
7. Rush and exclusivityA genuine schedule compression and a restriction on who else you can film for both carry fees. Keep them off the base and out of the licence paragraph.
8. Payment termsDeposit on scope-heavy jobs, days to pay, late fee, and the point at which final files are released.

Planning estimates only. Your own card should reflect your hours, your gear and your turnaround, not this arithmetic.

Usage priced as a term, not as a yes

A licence is not a checkbox. It is a channel, a length of time, a territory and a set of editing permissions, and each of those changes what is being bought. Can we use this is therefore not a question with a one-word answer.

The benchmark model on this page puts real figures against it. Three months of paid social sits as a $55 line for a micro creator while twelve months sits at $225, and $70 covers whitelisting, which is a separate permission because ads served through your handle are not the same product as ads served through theirs. These are calculator outputs for planning and nothing more.

Sell short terms with a renewal price printed next to them. An opening licence of three months plus a stated renewal beats perpetual rights sold once, because the clip they want to keep running is the clip that worked, and that conversation is much better had when the performance data exists.

Write one line saying what is excluded, or it will be assumed included. Out-of-home, packaging, retail screens, paid search, resale and sublicensing to a distributor are not paid social, and full rights is a phrase that should always cost more than any figure printed on a card. Treat this page as background, not legal advice; a signed agreement, not a price list, is what actually binds anyone.

A beginner sheet, built from the benchmark model

47% of our 24,032 qualified profiles carry a four-figure following, which puts most readers squarely in the nano column of the model, so start with that version. Take the modelled figures as a starting frame, then adjust once three paid jobs have told you what your hours really cost.

A nano sheet using the 2026 estimates reads: $150 for a short vertical video, $195 for a minute-long cut, $30 for each additional opening, $50 for raw clips, $175 for five edited stills, $40 for three months of paid use and $150 for twelve. Those are modelled numbers for planning, not a floor the market has agreed to.

Two small additions make a beginner sheet look like a supplier's document instead of a guess. A review date, so it is clear the prices are current as of a named month; our own index aggregates carry a snapshot of 14 September 2026 for the same reason. And one line naming what the base excludes, which is where beginners usually lose the raw clips.

Do not build a discount column. Three tiers named after metals invite a brand to pick the cheapest one and then ask for the scope attached to the most expensive. One base, priced additions, one review date.

When to send the card and when to quote the project instead

Never attach it to a first pitch. It answers a question nobody asked and prices a job nobody has described. Send it once a brand asks what you charge, with one sentence naming the deliverable you think fits their product, so it reads as a menu with a recommendation rather than a wall of options.

Quote the project when the shape is unusual: a four-week skincare check-in across two filming days, travel, a product you have to buy yourself, another person in frame, or a brief wanting eight openings in three ratios. Add up the hours, treat the card as your floor, and send a single total with the scope written underneath it.

Agency inbound arrives the other way round, with a fee and a scope attached, asking whether it works. Read the licence before the fee. A modelled $295 video with twelve months of paid rights folded in for nothing is a $520 job dressed as a $295 one.

Keep one card in one place, as a file and a link. Re-cutting it per brand is how you end up quoting two different prices to two people who sit next to each other.

Raising your prices without losing the client

Raise new clients first. The next three quotes go out at the higher figure while existing work carries on untouched, which tells you inside a month whether the brands you actually pitch will pay it. Nothing gets renegotiated before that evidence exists.

With existing clients, move at a boundary and give notice. The end of a campaign, the start of a quarter, or the renewal of a licence are all natural moments; halfway through a shoot is not. One short message covers it: the new figure, the date it applies from, plus whatever they gain that the old price did not include.

Attach the rise to something visible. More setups, a second ratio as standard, raw clips included at the new price, or a shorter delivery window. A price that moves with no change to the offer leaves a client with nothing to weigh, only a yes or a no.

Some will go. That is the mechanism working rather than failing, because the clients who walk over a small increase are usually the ones sending vague briefs and paying slowly. Decide in advance how many you can afford to lose, and do not move everybody in the same week.

Benchmark rates, tier by tier

Estimates, not quotes. Run your own scope through the UGC rate calculator and treat the output as a planning range.