What UGC costs, and what moves the price
There is no single rate for a UGC video, because the same phrase covers a twenty second phone clip and a set of assets you can run as advertising for years. Price the terms, not the file.
- You are paying for three separate things: filming, rights, and someone carrying the risk if an asset is unusable.
- Cost per asset falls quickly with batch size, because one commission produces a hero piece plus alternate openings and formats.
- Perpetual paid usage is the line that most often turns a cheap quote into an expensive one later.
- Our published prices: free plan, then $1,250 for six assets, $3,200 for fifteen, $4,800 a month for twenty-four, up to $9,600 for forty-eight.
- Compare quotes on assets, usage term, audio licensing, revision limits and failure terms. On price alone they are not comparable at all.
Ask five suppliers what a UGC video costs and you will get five numbers that are not measuring the same thing. One is quoting a single clip with thirty days of organic use. Another is quoting a batch with rights that never expire. A third is quoting a per video price and will charge again for the aspect ratio your ad account needs. The number is not the product, which is why comparing numbers is close to useless without a common definition of what arrives and what you may do with it. This page breaks the price into the parts that actually drive it, shows how batch size changes the arithmetic, lists what quotes routinely leave out, states what we charge, and gives a short method for putting two very different quotes onto the same basis so a decision is possible.
The three things inside any price
Every quote, however it is presented, is paying for some combination of three things. When one supplier looks much cheaper than another, it is nearly always because it is only selling you the first.
| Component | What it covers | How it is usually hidden |
|---|---|---|
| Production | Somebody films, edits and delivers a finished piece | Counted per video rather than per usable asset |
| Rights | What you may do with it, where, and for how long | A short default term, or paid advertising excluded |
| Risk | Who pays when an asset is unusable or the creator vanishes | Silence, which means the answer is you |
Risk is the component buyers forget and the one that decides whether a project stayed on budget. A batch where one creator disappears and two assets come back off brief can cost more in delay than the whole quote did in money.
Six drivers that move the number
These are the levers. Every one of them is negotiable before work starts and almost impossible to change afterwards.
| Driver | Direction | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Assets per commission | Down per asset | One product, one setup, several openings and ratios |
| Usage term and paid media | Up, sometimes sharply | Perpetual worldwide costs materially more than organic only |
| Category | Up in regulated or technical fields | Fewer credible creators and more claim risk |
| Turnaround | Up | Rush work displaces bookings somebody already made |
| Exclusivity | Up, priced per competitor | You are paying for work the creator must decline |
| Direction level | Up when tightly scripted | More takes, more review, and a less natural result |
Batch size is the driver with the largest and most predictable effect, because filming one product once and delivering several outputs from that session is far cheaper than repeating the whole arrangement. That is why per asset prices in a package fall well below what a single commissioned video costs.
What quotes leave out
Seven items turn up as surprises often enough to be worth a line in your own comparison sheet. Ask about each before signing anything.
- Product cost and shipping to each creator, which is real money and is rarely in the quote.
- Extra aspect ratios, which some suppliers treat as separate deliverables rather than exports.
- Additional openings on the same footage, which are the cheapest performance lever there is and are sometimes billed as new videos.
- Raw files, which are inexpensive to request up front and awkward to obtain later.
- Music licensing. Platform sounds cover a creator posting, not a brand advertising, and clearing audio properly is part of the cost.
- Whitelisting or partnership ads, which are a separate permission from the creator and are priced per creator per month.
- A creator posting the content to their own audience, which is a different purchase from receiving the file.
The last two are the ones people conflate most often. Buying content and buying access to an audience are separate transactions with separate prices, and our comparison of the two explains which goal needs which.
What we charge
Published rather than quoted on request, so it can be compared against anything else on your desk.
| What | Price | Included |
|---|---|---|
| A plan | Free | Named creators, what each would make, and an honest read on whether the budget is enough |
| Six assets | $1,250 | Perpetual worldwide digital usage, cleared audio, written reshoot guarantee |
| Fifteen assets | $3,200 | Enough faces and openings to learn something you can act on |
| Twenty-four assets a month | $4,800 a month | A steady pipeline into the ad account, refreshed before the last batch tires |
| Forty-eight assets | $9,600 | Volume and speed together for a date that cannot move |
| Creator posts to their own audience | Quoted per creator | From about $400 at the micro tier, with disclosure handled |
We are the principal on every job. You buy finished assets at a fixed price, we commission the creators as our own subcontractors and offer each one a fee in writing, we take the signed copyright assignment, and we grant you worldwide perpetual digital rights when the invoice is paid. Creators are paid within seven days of approval out of our money, whether or not yours has arrived. The difference between your price and our costs is our margin, and we will tell you what it was on your job if you ask.
Putting two quotes on the same basis
Work out a cost per usable asset on identical terms. That single number makes quotes comparable, and it usually reorders them.
- Count finished assets, not videos. An opening variant you can actually run is an asset. A file you cannot upload without re-encoding is not.
- Normalise the rights to what you need: paid social, every digital channel, worldwide, forever. Add whatever each supplier charges to reach that.
- Add product cost and shipping for every creator involved, since more creators means more parcels.
- Add the cost of one failed asset at each supplier's failure terms. Some reshoot it, some refund the balance, some do nothing.
- Add your own hours at a rate you would actually pay someone, because a self-managed route is not free.
- Divide the total by the assets you could genuinely run, and compare that figure.
Quotes that looked half the price frequently land within a few dollars per asset once rights and failure terms are levelled, and occasionally the cheap one ends up ahead, which is worth knowing too. The budget calculator will size the campaign before you request any quotes at all.
What a small budget should do instead
Below roughly a thousand dollars, a package is the wrong product and we will say so rather than shrinking one to fit.
Send product instead of paying fees
Seeding trades product for the chance of content. Nothing is guaranteed and you must say that up front, but the cost per piece when it works is lower than any commissioned rate.
Commission one or two creators directly
With a small number of people the coordination is manageable in-house. Take a written assignment, define the revisions, and keep the money that would otherwise pay for project management.
Film it yourself first
A phone, a window and an honest ninety seconds about why the product exists will out-perform a poor commissioned video. It also tells you which message deserves a budget later.
All three are written up on this site at no charge. Product seeding covers the first and the hiring checklist covers the second.
Questions
How much should one UGC video cost?
There is no dependable single figure, and any number quoted without terms attached is meaningless. A short clip with organic use only and no rights beyond that sits far below a set of assets with perpetual paid usage and a reshoot guarantee. Price the terms, then compare. Our own published starting point is $1,250 for six assets.
Why are batch prices so much lower per video?
Because one commission covers one product, one setup and one round of coordination, and several finished assets come out of that session. Repeating the whole arrangement for a single video means paying for the coordination again. That is arithmetic rather than a discount.
Is it cheaper to pay creators directly?
On the invoice, usually. Add the hours spent finding, briefing, chasing and replacing people, plus the assets that come back unusable and the rights you did not take, and the gap narrows a lot. For two videos, direct hiring is genuinely cheaper and we will say so.
What does perpetual usage add to a price?
It varies by supplier, and some do not offer it at all. The pattern worth knowing is that short paid usage windows are frequently the default, so a quote that looks cheap may be renting you the asset. Ask for the term in writing and price the difference rather than assuming.
Do you charge more for a regulated category?
The package prices are the package prices. What changes in regulated categories is how long sourcing takes and how much claim review the brief needs, and if that means a package is not the right fit we will say so before you buy rather than after.
Can I get a price without talking to anybody?
Yes. The packages and the extras are published with numbers, and the budget calculator gives a planning range for a campaign. A plan naming specific creators and one fixed price for your scope still needs a brief, because a quote is specific to what you sell and where it will run, but the plan itself is free.
General information, not legal advice. Prices are in Canadian dollars and exclude tax.
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