How these rates are calculated
Every constant in the formula, what it is set to, and why. Nothing here is withheld — the point of this page is that you can recompute any figure we publish without asking us for anything.
What this is, and what it isn't
These are model-computed benchmarks derived from a published formula — not survey data, not observed transactions, and not a report of what brands actually paid.
What it is
- A deterministic pricing model with every constant published, so any figure here can be recomputed from the methodology page alone.
- A structured starting point for a quote, built from the two things that actually drive UGC price: production effort and the value of the licence attached to it.
- The same formula that powers our free calculator and saved rate cards, so no two surfaces can quote different numbers for identical inputs.
What it is not
- It is not a survey. No creators were polled, and there is no sample size, because there is no sample.
- It is not observed market data. We are not reporting transactions, invoices, or contract values.
- It is not a claim about what creators charge on average, or what any brand has paid. Where a figure looks like a market average, that resemblance is a design goal of the coefficients, not a measurement.
- It is not advice about what you specifically should charge. Your market, category, portfolio and negotiating position all move the number.
A survey you cannot audit and a model you can are different kinds of claim. We would rather publish the weaker claim honestly: here is the arithmetic, here are the constants, here is where the constants came from, and here is how to disagree with them precisely.
The formula
Two steps. First a core figure from the work and who is doing it, then every add-on as a share of that core — added, never compounded against each other.
core = baseRate × followerMultiplier × (1 + engagementModifier)
total = core
+ core × usageRightsAddOn
+ core × exclusivityAddOn
+ core × extraRevisionRounds × revisionsAddOnPerRound
+ core × rushFee (only when turnaround < 5 business days)- Add-ons are parallel, not nested. Each one is a share of the same core. A brief with paid usage and exclusivity is not charged exclusivity on top of the licence uplift — both are measured against the original core figure.
- Round exactly once, half up. Full precision is carried through every intermediate step and rounded to the nearest cent only at the very end. Rounding earlier gives a different — and wrong — answer. Exact half-cents round away from zero: a small number of published figures land on a precise .5, and a reimplementation using banker's rounding (which is the default in Python and NumPy) will reproduce every other cell but come out one cent low on those.
- Bundles discount the base first. For a bundle, the base rates of the components are summed and multiplied by the bundle discount before the follower multiplier is applied. Order of operations matters here.
- One revision round is included.
extraRevisionRoundscounts rounds beyond the first, so zero is the normal case rather than a missing value.
Every constant
The formula can price 17,280 distinct combinations before revision rounds run past three. All of them come from the 6 tables below.
Base rate by deliverable
baseRate
The starting figure, set by what the deliverable costs to produce. This is the only term denominated in currency; everything else is a multiplier or a share of it. Base rates carry an organic-only licence — the right for the brand to post the content on its own channels without paid media behind it.
| Setting | Value | Why this number |
|---|---|---|
| PhotoPHOTO | $75.00 | The smallest unit of UGC work. Priced low per asset because the marginal cost of one more frame in an existing setup is small — which is also why almost nobody sells a single photo. |
| Short video / Reel / TikTok (<60s)SHORT_VIDEO | $150.00 | The reference deliverable for the whole model. A vertical video under 60 seconds is what most briefs ask for, so it is the number the other base rates are set relative to. |
| Video (60s–3min)VIDEO | $400.00 | Roughly 2.7× short-form rather than 2× or 3×, because the step up is a script and a structured edit, not extra seconds of footage. Runtime is a poor proxy for effort here. |
| Long-form / dedicated YouTubeLONG_FORM | $800.00 | Double the 60s–3min rate, reflecting that a dedicated long-form piece is closer to a production day — pre-production, scripting, a full shoot — than to a content task. |
| Photo set (5–10 photos)PHOTO_SET | $300.00 | Four times the single-photo rate for five to ten images, not eight times, because one styling and lighting setup produces the whole set. The set-up cost, not the frame count, is the real driver. |
Follower multiplier
followerMultiplier
Multiplies the base rate. Note how flat this axis is compared with the licence axis below — that is the model's most consequential design choice, and the one that most often surprises people.
| Setting | Value | Why this number |
|---|---|---|
| Under 5KUNDER_5K | ×0.8 | A 20% reduction rather than a steep discount. The work is the same; what is lower is the portfolio evidence a brand can check before committing. |
| 5K–25K5K_25K | ×1 | The baseline, set to 1.0. Every other tier is expressed relative to this one, which makes the multiplier column readable as a ratio rather than an absolute claim. |
| 25K–100K25K_100K | ×1.3 | A modest step, reflecting a track record a brand can verify more than reach it is buying. |
| 100K–500K100K_500K | ×1.6 | The whole reach axis scales sub-linearly on purpose: in pure UGC the brand distributes the content, so a creator with 100K followers prices around 1.6× one under 5K for identical work — not 20×. This is the single most misunderstood part of UGC pricing. |
| 500K–1M500K_1M | ×2 | Above this point the multiplier is really pricing scarcity and the reduced risk of working with someone established, not audience size, since the audience largely is not what the brand is buying. |
| 1M+OVER_1M | ×2.5 | Capped at 2.5×. Beyond here the engagement is usually an influencer deal — paid for audience access — which is a different product this model does not attempt to price. |
Engagement modifier
engagementModifier
Applied as (1 + modifier) against the base-and-reach product. Every grid published on this site uses the average setting, so the tables never quietly assume a flattering engagement rate.
| Setting | Value | Why this number |
|---|---|---|
| Above average (10–15%+)ABOVE_AVERAGE | +12.5% | A deliberately small uplift. Engagement signals that content performs, which matters to a brand, but it is self-reported and easy to inflate — so it nudges the number rather than transforming it. |
| AverageAVERAGE | no change | The neutral case, and the setting every published grid uses so the tables compare like with like. |
| Below averageBELOW_AVERAGE | −10% | Smaller in magnitude than the uplift, because low engagement on a personal account says little about whether someone can shoot a good ad for a brand's channel. |
Usage-rights add-on
usageRightsAddOn
A share of the core, added on top. All eight tiers are published here and priced in the index; the per-deliverable grids elsewhere on the site show only the four most common columns, which is why this table exists.
| Setting | Value | Why this number |
|---|---|---|
| Organic onlyORGANIC_ONLY | included | Zero, by definition — this is the licence the base rate already includes. Everything below is priced as a share of the core, because a licence is worth a proportion of the asset it attaches to. |
| Paid usage, 30 daysPAID_30_DAY | +25% | A short paid flight. The brand is now spending media money behind the asset, which is a materially different use from an organic post. |
| Paid usage, 90 daysPAID_90_DAY | +50% | Double the 30-day uplift. Duration is the cleanest lever in the whole model, and the one creators most often give away by leaving the term unstated. |
| Paid usage, 6 monthsPAID_6_MONTH | +75% | Three times the 30-day figure. The curve is intentionally sub-linear — six months is not six times thirty days in value, because most creative fatigues long before the term ends. |
| Paid usage, 12 monthsPAID_12_MONTH | +100% | A full year doubles the price of the work. This is the headline finding of the whole model, and the reason the grids are laid out with usage across the columns: the licence moves the number more than the follower count does. |
| Whitelisting / spark adsWHITELISTING | +30% | Priced as an addition to paid usage, not a replacement for it, because running ads from the creator's own handle borrows their identity as well as their footage. Modest on its own; it is meant to be stacked. |
| Broadcast / OOHBROADCAST_OOH | +100% | Equal to a 12-month paid licence. Broadcast and out-of-home place the asset in front of audiences no social licence contemplates, and the production values it is judged against rise accordingly. |
| Perpetual / buyoutPERPETUAL_BUYOUT | +175% | The largest coefficient in the model, at 1.75× the core. A buyout is not a long licence — it is the sale of an asset that would otherwise generate a renewal conversation every year, forever. Priced to be a genuine decision rather than a checkbox. |
Exclusivity add-on
exclusivityAddOn
Also a share of the core. Category exclusivity means you cannot shoot for a competing brand for the stated term.
| Setting | Value | Why this number |
|---|---|---|
| NoneNONE | none | The default. No restriction on who else you can shoot for. |
| 30-day category exclusivityCATEGORY_30_DAY | +15% | Exclusivity is compensation for turning down work you cannot know the value of in advance. A month is priced modestly because the opportunity cost is bounded. |
| 90-day category exclusivityCATEGORY_90_DAY | +30% | Double the 30-day figure. Beyond a quarter, exclusivity starts to shape which clients you can take at all, which is why this model stops here rather than offering a year. |
Revisions, rush and bundles
revisionsAddOn, rushFee, bundleDiscount
The three remaining terms. The first two are shares of the core; the bundle discount applies to the base rate before anything else.
| Setting | Value | Why this number |
|---|---|---|
| Each revision round beyond the firstREVISIONS_ADD_ON_PER_ROUND | +10% | One round is included in every base rate. Pricing further rounds converts an unbounded request into a line item, which is the main reason to state it at all — the fee matters less than the cap existing. |
| Rush (under five business days)RUSH_FEE | +25% | Flat rather than sliding, because the cost of a rush is displacing other work, and that cost does not scale smoothly with how rushed it is. |
| Bundle discountBUNDLE_DISCOUNT | ×0.9 (−10%) | Applied to the summed base rates before reach, engagement or licensing. Set at 10% because that is roughly the genuine efficiency of producing several assets from one setup — a deeper discount would erode the effective hourly rate faster than the added volume recovers it. |
Worked examples
Five end-to-end calculations, each chosen to show something the others don't. The arithmetic below is generated by the same function that prices a brief in our calculator, so these cannot quietly disagree with it.
The simplest possible case
The floor of the model, and the figure quoted across the rate pages as a beginner's starting point. With no add-ons at all, the total is just base × reach.
- Deliverable
- Short video / Reel / TikTok (<60s)
- Following
- Under 5K
- Engagement
- Average
- Usage rights
- Organic only
- Exclusivity
- None
- Extra revisions / rush
- 0 / no
| Core | $150.00 × 0.8 × 1 | $120.00 |
|---|---|---|
| Total | rounded once | $120.00 |
What a twelve-month paid licence does
The model's central claim, in one line: the same video, same creator, same effort — and the licence doubles the price, because a 100% add-on is applied to the core.
- Deliverable
- Short video / Reel / TikTok (<60s)
- Following
- 100K–500K
- Engagement
- Average
- Usage rights
- Paid usage, 12 months
- Exclusivity
- None
- Extra revisions / rush
- 0 / no
| Core | $150.00 × 1.6 × 1 | $240.00 |
|---|---|---|
| Usage rights — Paid usage, 12 months | core × 1 | $240.00 |
| Total | rounded once | $480.00 |
Every term switched on at once
All five add-ons stacking. Each is computed against the same core figure, not compounded against each other — which is why the total is legible as a sum rather than a chain of multiplications.
- Deliverable
- Video (60s–3min)
- Following
- 25K–100K
- Engagement
- Above average (10–15%+)
- Usage rights
- Paid usage, 90 days
- Exclusivity
- 30-day category exclusivity
- Extra revisions / rush
- 2 / yes
| Core | $400.00 × 1.3 × 1.125 | $585.00 |
|---|---|---|
| Usage rights — Paid usage, 90 days | core × 0.5 | $292.50 |
| Exclusivity — 30-day category exclusivity | core × 0.15 | $87.75 |
| Revisions — 2 extra rounds | core × 2 × 0.1 | $117.00 |
| Rush | core × 0.25 | $146.25 |
| Total | rounded once | $1,228.50 |
A bundle, where the discount lands
Three short-form videos plus a photo set. The 10% discount applies to the summed base rates first, before the follower multiplier — so the order of operations changes the answer, and this is where.
- Deliverable
- 3 × Short video / Reel / TikTok (<60s) + 1 × Photo set (5–10 photos)
- Following
- Under 5K
- Engagement
- Average
- Usage rights
- Organic only
- Exclusivity
- None
- Extra revisions / rush
- 0 / no
| Core | $675.00 × 0.8 × 1 | $540.00 |
|---|---|---|
| Total | rounded once | $540.00 |
The one that does not come out even
A case that lands on a fraction of a cent mid-calculation. Full precision is carried through every intermediate step and rounded exactly once at the end — round earlier and you get a different, wrong answer.
- Deliverable
- Photo
- Following
- 25K–100K
- Engagement
- Above average (10–15%+)
- Usage rights
- Organic only
- Exclusivity
- None
- Extra revisions / rush
- 0 / no
| Core | $75.00 × 1.3 × 1.125 | $109.69 |
|---|---|---|
| Total | rounded once | $109.69 |
Where the coefficients came from
The coefficients are editorial judgements. They were chosen to be defensible and internally consistent — the licence terms scale with duration, reach scales sub-linearly because in UGC the brand does the distributing — and calibrated against publicly discussed rate ranges and the structure of briefs creators bring to us. They are not derived from a dataset, and a different practitioner could reasonably pick different ones. That is precisely why they are published: disagree with a specific number rather than with the whole table.
If you think one of them is wrong, we would genuinely like to hear which one and what you would set it to — that is a far more useful conversation than arguing about a headline number. Write to info@sproutugc.com.
Citing this
sproutUGC UGC Rate Index, 2026 edition, version 1.0, last updated 2026-08-23. The citation below is the wording we would like used, because the alternative is an attribution that drops the word “model” and turns a benchmark into a market statistic.
sproutUGC. "sproutUGC UGC Rate Index, 2026 edition." Version 1.0, 2026-08-23. Model-computed benchmarks, not survey data. https://www.sproutugc.com/rates/ugc-rate-index-2026
Released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. Copy it, republish it, chart it, build on it, use it commercially — including in a paid product or a client deliverable. The one condition is attribution: name sproutUGC and, where the medium allows, link back to the index.
Questions
Is this survey data?
No. These are model-computed benchmarks derived from a published formula. No creators were surveyed, there is no sample size, and no transactions were observed. Every figure is the arithmetic output of the constants published on this page.
Where do the coefficients come from?
They are editorial judgements, chosen to be defensible and internally consistent and calibrated against publicly discussed rate ranges and the structure of briefs creators bring to us. They are not derived from a dataset. A different practitioner could reasonably choose different ones, which is exactly why we publish them — so you can disagree with a specific number rather than with the whole table.
Can I reproduce your published rates myself?
Yes, and that is the point. Take the base rate for the deliverable, multiply by the follower multiplier, multiply by one plus the engagement modifier, then add each applicable add-on as a share of that core figure. Round once at the end, with exact half-cents rounding up. Every constant you need is on this page.
Why does the licence move the price more than follower count?
Because in user-generated content the brand distributes the work, so the creator's own reach is not the main thing being bought. The follower multiplier spans 0.8 to 2.5 across the whole range, while usage rights span zero to a 175% add-on. A twelve-month paid licence doubles the price of the same video.
Can I use these numbers on my own site?
We propose making the index available under CC BY 4.0, which would allow commercial reuse with attribution. That licence is not yet ratified, so ask us first — but the intent is to say yes.
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