How to price your first brand deal

Pricing your first brand deal is guesswork for almost everyone, because there's no universal rate card and the number that feels right varies wildly by platform, niche, and what the brand actually wants from you. What follows is a simple structure to build your own number from, instead of guessing at a flat rate.

Start with three separate inputs

Most creators try to price a deal with one number in their head. It works better as three separate inputs added together.

1. Your time

Estimate honestly how long the deliverable actually takes: concept, filming or shooting, editing, revisions, posting. Multiply by a reasonable hourly rate for skilled creative work — not your day-job rate, your actual production rate. This is your floor even if the brand had zero reach and zero usage rights attached.

2. Your reach

This is where platform and engagement matter. A common starting heuristic some creators use is a rough per-follower or per-average-view rate that scales with your engagement rate, not just your raw count — an account with 10k followers and strong engagement can reasonably charge more than one with 30k followers and weak engagement. Don't treat any specific per-follower number as gospel; use it as a sanity check against your time number, not a formula to trust blindly.

3. Usage rights

This is the input creators most often forget to charge for. If a brand wants to reuse your content in their own ads, on their own channels, or for paid boosting, that's a separate right from "post once on your own account" — and it should cost more. A deal with organic-only usage on your own page should be priced lower than one where the brand can run your face in paid ads for six months.

Usage rights are the single most underpriced line item in a first brand deal — always ask explicitly where and how long the brand intends to use your content before naming a number.

Put it together

A rough structure:

• Base rate = your time estimate
• Add a reach premium based on typical engagement for your niche and platform
• Add a usage premium if the brand wants rights beyond organic posting on your own account
• Add a rush premium if the timeline is unusually tight

What to do when you don't know what's "normal"

Ask the brand for their budget range before naming your own number — it's a completely normal question, and it protects you from underpricing against a budget that was actually higher than you assumed. If they push back and ask you to name a number first, use your calculated total, not a guess.

Don't undercut yourself on the first deal

It's tempting to price low to "build a portfolio," but a rate you set with a brand tends to become the rate they expect on every future deal with you. It's easier to negotiate up from a defensible number than to explain later why the price suddenly tripled. If a brand's budget genuinely doesn't meet your number, it's fine to scope the deliverable down instead of dropping the rate.