How Creators Should Charge Brands (2026 Guide)

How Creators Should Charge Brands (2026 Guide)

Working with brands is different from working with individual clients. You need to understand usage rights, deliverables, industry rates, and how to price for brand partnerships.

This guide explains how creators should charge brands — from pricing strategies to usage rights to industry standards.

📖 Part of our pricing guide series: This is a specialized guide for brand work. For general pricing, see How to Price Design Work.

---

Understanding Brand Work

What's Different About Brand Work?

Brand partnerships involve:

• Usage rights (how brand can use your content)
• Deliverables (what you're creating)
• Timeline (often tight deadlines)
• Brand guidelines (must follow brand style)
• Multiple stakeholders (approval process)

It's more complex than individual client work.

Types of Brand Work

Content creation:

• Social media posts
• Video content
• Photography
• Influencer partnerships

Campaign work:

• Full campaign creation
• Multi-platform content
• Long-term partnerships

One-off projects:

• Single post/video
• Event coverage
• Product photography

---

Pricing Strategies for Brand Work

1. Per Post/Video Pricing

How it works:

• Set price per post/video
• Client pays per deliverable
• Simple and clear

Example:

• Instagram post: $500
• Reel/TikTok: $800
• YouTube video: $2,000

Best for: One-off content, social media posts.

2. Package Pricing

How it works:

• Bundle multiple deliverables
• Set package price
• Better value for client

Example:

• 5 Instagram posts: $2,000 ($400 each)
• 3 Reels + 5 posts: $3,500
• Full campaign (10 posts, 5 reels): $6,000

Best for: Campaigns, multiple deliverables.

3. Usage Rights Pricing

How it works:

• Base price for content
• Additional fees for usage rights
• More usage = higher price

Example:

• Content creation: $1,000
• Instagram only: +$0
• Instagram + website: +$500
• All platforms (unlimited): +$2,000

Best for: Content that will be used multiple ways.

4. Value-Based Pricing

How it works:

• Price based on value to brand
• Not just hours or deliverables
• Focus on impact/results

Example:

• Campaign that reaches 100K people: $5,000
• Brand partnership with high engagement: $10,000

Best for: High-impact campaigns, strategic partnerships.

---

Usage Rights Explained

What Are Usage Rights?

Usage rights define:

• Where brand can use your content
• How long they can use it
• What platforms it can be used on
• Geographic restrictions

Usage rights affect pricing significantly.

Common Usage Rights Tiers

Tier 1: Single Platform

• One platform only (e.g., Instagram)
• Limited time (e.g., 6 months)
• Price: Base rate

Tier 2: Multiple Platforms

• 2-3 platforms (e.g., Instagram + website)
• Extended time (e.g., 1 year)
• Price: Base + 50-100%

Tier 3: Unlimited Usage

• All platforms
• Unlimited time
• Geographic: Worldwide
• Price: Base + 200-300%

More usage = higher price.

---

Industry Rates (2026)

Social Media Content

Instagram:

• Single post: $300-$1,000
• Reel: $500-$1,500
• Story: $200-$500
• Carousel: $400-$1,200

TikTok:

• Single video: $500-$2,000
• Series (3+): $1,500-$5,000

YouTube:

• Short: $500-$1,500
• Long-form: $1,000-$5,000

Rates vary by:

• Your following/engagement
• Brand size
• Content complexity
• Usage rights

---

Photography/Videography

Photography:

• Single shoot: $500-$3,000
• Product photography: $300-$1,500
• Event coverage: $1,000-$5,000

Videography:

• Short video (30-60s): $1,000-$5,000
• Long-form video: $2,000-$10,000
• Commercial: $5,000-$50,000+

Rates vary by:

• Project scope
• Equipment needed
• Editing requirements
• Usage rights

---

What to Include in Brand Invoices

Essential Elements

1. Deliverables

• What you're creating
• Quantity
• Specifications

2. Usage Rights

• Where content can be used
• How long
• Geographic restrictions

3. Timeline

• Delivery date
• Revision rounds
• Approval process

4. Pricing

• Base price
• Usage rights fees
• Additional services

5. Payment Terms

• Deposit (if applicable)
• Payment schedule
• Due dates

---

Brand Work Best Practices

1. Define Usage Rights Clearly

In contract/invoice:

• Specify platforms
• Set time limits
• Define geographic scope
• Clarify exclusivity

Clear usage rights prevent disputes.

2. Charge for Usage Rights

Don't give away usage:

• Base price: Content creation
• Additional: Usage rights
• More usage = higher price

Usage rights have value. Charge for them.

3. Set Clear Deliverables

Specify:

• What you're creating
• Quantity
• Format/specifications
• Revision policy

Clear deliverables prevent scope creep.

4. Include Revision Policy

Set limits:

• Number of revision rounds
• What's included
• What's extra

Revision policy protects your time.

5. Get Everything in Writing

Document:

• Deliverables
• Usage rights
• Pricing
• Timeline
• Payment terms

Written agreements prevent disputes.

---

Common Brand Work Mistakes

1. Not Charging for Usage Rights

Mistake: Giving unlimited usage for base price.

Fix: Charge separately for usage rights. More usage = higher price.

2. Vague Deliverables

Mistake: "Social media content" (too vague).

Fix: "5 Instagram posts, 3 Reels, specifications included."

3. No Revision Policy

Mistake: Unlimited revisions included.

Fix: "2 rounds of revisions included. Additional rounds at $X/hour."

4. Underpricing

Mistake: Charging too little for brand work.

Fix: Research industry rates, price based on value, don't undervalue.

5. Not Getting Agreement in Writing

Mistake: Verbal agreements only.

Fix: Get everything in writing (contract or detailed invoice).

---

Brand Work Invoice Example

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Your Name]
[Your Email]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

INVOICE #INV-2026-0001
Date: March 7, 2026
Due: March 21, 2026

Bill To:
[Brand Name]
[Brand Contact]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Project: Social Media Campaign — Spring 2026

Services:
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Content Creation:
- 5 Instagram posts (feed)                        $2,500
- 3 Instagram Reels                              $2,400
- Content strategy & captions                    $800

Usage Rights:
- Instagram only, 6 months                       Included
- Instagram + website, 1 year                   +$1,500
- All platforms, unlimited                       +$3,000
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
                                                                    TOTAL: $10,200

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Usage Rights:
- Content can be used on Instagram and brand website
- Usage period: 1 year from delivery date
- Geographic: Worldwide
- Exclusivity: Non-exclusive (creator can use for portfolio)

Payment Terms:
- 50% deposit ($5,100) due upon project start
- 50% balance ($5,100) due upon final delivery
- Payment via card: [payment link]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Clear, professional, includes usage rights.

---

FAQs

How much should I charge brands?

Depends on:

• Your following/engagement
• Content complexity
• Usage rights
• Brand size
• Industry rates

Research rates, price based on value, don't undervalue.

Should I charge for usage rights?

Yes. Usage rights have value. Charge separately:

• Base: Content creation
• Additional: Usage rights
• More usage = higher price

What if brand wants unlimited usage?

Charge premium:

• Unlimited usage = 2-3x base price
• Or set high flat fee
• Don't give away unlimited usage

Unlimited usage has high value. Price accordingly.

How do I handle revisions with brands?

Set clear policy:

• Include 2-3 rounds of revisions
• Charge for additional rounds
• Set clear boundaries

Brands often have multiple stakeholders. Set revision limits.

---

Ready to invoice brand work? Try inv.so free — professional invoices with usage rights tracking.