What a UGC agency does for a creator
Agency covers three arrangements that pay you in three different ways. Knowing which one you are being offered tells you who owns the work, who owes you money, and who you are actually working for.
- Ask one question first: who pays me, and out of whose money? The answer identifies the model faster than any description on a website.
- An agent represents you and takes a percentage of your deals. A principal buys work from you at an agreed fee. Those are opposite arrangements.
- Joining a roster should never cost you anything, and no reputable arrangement charges you for the chance to be considered.
- A fair offer names the fee, the deliverables, the usage, the revision limit and the payment date before you start filming.
- No honest agency can promise you work. What it can promise is how it will behave when there is work.
The word agency is doing a lot of work in this industry, and it hides three arrangements that are genuinely different for the person holding the camera. In one, a company represents you and earns a share of what you earn. In another, a company runs a pool of creators and takes a cut from each job passing through it. In the third, a company sells finished content to brands and hires you as a subcontractor to make part of it. Your fee, your rights, your risk and your recourse are different in each. This page explains how to tell them apart in about two minutes, what each model means for your income, the questions worth asking before you join anything, what a fair written offer contains, and how we work, which is the third model and not the other two.
Three models, and how the money reaches you
Follow the money and the model becomes obvious. The question that separates them is simple: does the brand pay you, or does the company pay you?
| Model | Who pays you | Their income | What you give up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Talent agent | The brand, often via the agent | A percentage of your fee | A share of earnings, sometimes exclusivity |
| Marketplace or platform | The platform, after the brand pays it | A cut from one or both sides | Rate control, because the pool competes |
| Principal, which is what we are | The company that commissioned you | Margin between its price and its costs | Setting the price on that particular job |
None of the three is dishonest by nature, and all three can be run badly. What matters is that you know which you are in, because it decides who you chase when an invoice is late and whose name is on the contract you signed.
If your work is mostly posting to your own audience rather than filming for brands to run, the economics are different again, and our page on getting brand deals covers that side.
What an agency does that you cannot easily do alone
The useful parts are the parts you would otherwise pay for in unpaid hours. Nothing here is magic and all of it is work somebody has to do.
- Finding the buyer. Brands that have budget and are ready to spend it are the hard part, and most creator time goes into looking for them.
- Carrying the paperwork. Contracts, rights, invoicing terms and the argument about what counts as a revision.
- Carrying the payment risk. If the brand pays late, you should still be paid on the terms you agreed with whoever commissioned you.
- Translating a vague brand request into something filmable, so you are not guessing at what will be approved.
- Repeat work. The second and third job with a buyer who already trusts the output is where creator income becomes predictable.
What an agency cannot do is make demand exist. If nobody is buying in your category this quarter, no roster changes that, and you should be suspicious of anyone who implies otherwise while collecting your details.
Eight questions before you join anything
Ask these of us as well. The answers take a minute each and tell you more than any showreel on their homepage.
- Does it cost me anything to join, to stay listed, to be featured, or to be paid?
- Who pays me, on what terms, and how many days after approval?
- Am I signing exclusivity? With whom, for how long, and is it paid for?
- Who owns the footage afterwards, and do you need an assignment or a licence from me?
- May I see the agreement before I apply, or only after you have my details?
- How is my fee for a job decided, and do I see it in writing before I start?
- What happens if the brand rejects the work? Am I paid, partly paid, or not paid?
- How often do briefs come up in my category, honestly, and what share of your roster never gets one?
An answer that avoids the question is an answer. The last one in particular separates companies willing to be honest about demand from companies collecting applications as a marketing exercise.
What a fair written offer contains
A fair offer is short and specific, and it arrives before you start filming rather than after. If any of these six items is missing, ask for it, and treat reluctance as information.
| Item | What good looks like |
|---|---|
| Fee | A number, in your currency, with tax treatment stated |
| Deliverables | How many finished pieces, how many openings, which ratios, what file format |
| Usage | Channels, countries and term named, with paid advertising stated one way or the other |
| Revisions | A capped number, with revision and reshoot defined separately |
| Dates | Delivery date, approval window, and the payment date counted from approval |
| Failure | What happens if they reject it, if you are ill, or if the product never arrives |
Keep the offer. When a job goes wrong, the message that settles it is nearly always the one where both sides wrote down what was agreed. Our contract checklist lists the same ground in the order a document usually presents it.
How we work with creators
We are a principal, not an agent. Brands buy finished content from us at a fixed price. We commission creators as our own subcontractors to make it, and the relationship on any job is between you and us.
- You apply through the form. There is no fee, then or ever, and nothing is deducted from what we agree to pay you.
- A person reviews the application against nine published checks and writes back, naming anything that is missing.
- When a brief matches your niche, platform and formats, we write to you with the fee for that job and the terms attached to it.
- You accept or decline. Declining changes nothing about your place on the roster and we do not ask for a reason.
- You sign the agreement, which assigns the copyright in the assets you deliver to us so we can grant the brand what it has paid for. Moral rights are waived in it because Canadian law does not allow them to be assigned, and the agreement says so in plain words.
- We pay within seven days of approving your work, out of our own money, whether or not the brand has paid us yet.
The margin between what a brand pays us and what the work costs us is ours. We do not pretend otherwise, and a brand that asks what we paid you will be told. There is no fee to join, no exclusivity, and no promise that a brief will need you. What you get is a written offer when one does, the nine published checks applied to everyone, and the agreement in full before you apply.
When a roster is not the right move for you
You have no work to show yet
Reviews are based on what you can already do. With nothing filmed, there is nothing to assess. Make three samples in one category this week using products you already own, then apply. That is a better use of the same afternoon.
You are already booked out
If direct clients fill your calendar, they will almost always pay more than a subcontracted rate, because nobody is carrying the risk between you and them. Keep the direct work and treat any roster as overflow.
You want to be represented
Representation is a different product. An agent pitches you, negotiates on your behalf and takes a share of what you earn. We do not do that, and if that is what you need, look for it by that name rather than assuming an agency provides it.
Either way, work out your own numbers first. The rate card guide explains how to build one you can defend, and the media kit page covers what buyers actually read.
Questions
Do UGC agencies charge creators to join?
Reputable ones do not, and we do not. Money should flow from the brand towards the person who made the work. Application fees, listing fees and charges to withdraw earnings all reverse that direction and are worth treating as a warning rather than a cost of doing business.
Will an agency get me more work than applying to brands myself?
Sometimes, and only if it has buyers in your category. The advantage is that the search has already been done and the paperwork is somebody else's job. The disadvantage is that you are one name on a list and briefs arrive when they arrive. Most steady creators keep both going.
Who owns the video I film for an agency?
Read the agreement, because it varies. In our case you assign the copyright in the delivered assets to us, which is what lets us grant the brand the rights it paid for. A brand cannot legally receive rights from a company that never held them, which is why an assignment is not optional in this model.
What if the brand does not like my video?
The agreement should say. With us you get the defined revision rounds, and if the work still cannot be used after that and the brief was clear, we may reshoot with someone else. Your fee position for that situation is written into the agreement rather than decided at the time.
Can I say who I worked for in my portfolio?
Ask, and get the answer in writing. Some brands treat the work as confidential and some are happy to be named. When a brief has a restriction, it should be stated before you film so you can price it, not discovered when you try to post the result.
How long does it take to get a brief after joining a roster?
There is no honest average, and any specific number would be invented. It depends on which categories brands are buying, which formats they want and how close your work is to the brief. Some creators on a roster never get one. We would rather say that than let a form imply something we cannot support.
General information, not legal advice. Terms differ between companies, so read what you are asked to sign.
Stop chasing, start receiving.
Apply through the form. If a brand has a paid job that fits you, we write with the fee and the terms. No fee to apply, no exclusivity, and no promise that work is coming.