What a UGC creator is, and what one costs you

A UGC creator films your product so you can run the result as advertising. The name is inherited from the years when user generated content meant an actual customer posting unprompted, and almost none of the paid version is that. It is commissioned, written to a brief, shot on a phone in somebody's kitchen or bathroom, and bought because footage of a person talking plainly to a camera tends to hold attention longer than footage that announces itself as an advert. Nobody except you is meant to distribute it, which is why follower count sits so low on the list of things worth checking. This page covers what the job involves, how it differs from paying an influencer to post, what files arrive at the end, who owns them, what the work costs, and the three situations where buying it is a mistake.

The job in one paragraph

The job is producing advertising footage on commission. A creator receives a brief, a product and a deadline, films to that brief at home, and sends back finished video. Publishing is somebody else's problem, usually yours.

A typical commission asks for a short piece built around one idea: a problem stated in the first three seconds, the product used on camera, one claim you can support, and a closing line that tells the viewer what to do. Good creators shoot several openings for the same body of footage, because the opening is the part that decides whether anything after it is watched.

• A hook that lands before the viewer's thumb moves, which is roughly three seconds.
• The product in hand, in use, in ordinary light, in a room a customer would recognise.
• Speech that sounds like a recommendation rather than a script read aloud.
• One claim only, and one you can evidence if a regulator asks.
• Vertical framing by default, with other ratios exported properly rather than cropped from the same file.
• Files delivered in a format your ad account will accept without a re-encode.

Our UGC content service page sets out how a commission runs from brief to delivery, including who approves what and at which point.

UGC creator or influencer: the difference that changes the invoice

One sells you footage, the other sells you access to people. Confusing the two is the most expensive mistake a first-time buyer makes, because the pricing, the rights and the risks are different in every respect.

Both at once is a reasonable plan and a common one. It is also two purchases on one invoice, and it helps to price them separately so you can tell which half worked. Our comparison of UGC versus influencer marketing goes through the trade in more detail.

Who owns the footage, and why that is the whole question

Paying somebody does not transfer copyright to you. The creator owns what they filmed unless they sign something that says otherwise, and in Canada an assignment of copyright has to be in writing and signed by the owner to be valid at all.

This matters at exactly the wrong moment. A brand runs a video for eight months, the creator asks for it to come down or asks for a further fee, and the brand discovers that a message thread saying yes go ahead is not an assignment. The cost is not the fee. It is the ad set that was working and now cannot run.

1. A written assignment or a licence wide enough for every use you plan, signed before filming starts.
2. The term stated in plain words. Perpetual means perpetual. One year means you are renting.
3. Paid social named explicitly, because organic permission does not cover media spend.
4. Music cleared for commercial use. A trending in-app sound is licensed for a person posting, not for a brand advertising.
5. The creator's own permission for their face and voice, separate from the copyright in the footage.
6. What happens if you want to recut it in two years, which is why raw files are cheap to ask for now.

Our page on usage rights explains each term in the order a contract uses them, and our creator agreement is published in full so you can read what the people filming for us actually sign.

What commissioned UGC costs

Price follows three things: how many finished assets you get, how widely you may use them, and who carries the risk if one comes back unusable. A cheap quote usually wins on the first and loses on the other two.

We work as principal. 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 assignment, and we grant the rights on to you when the invoice is paid. The difference between your price and what we pay creators is our margin, and we will tell you what it is if you ask. Adding a creator posting to their own audience is a separate line, quoted per creator, from about $400 at the micro tier. The full list is on our pricing page and the packages are itemised on the content packages page.

How to tell a good creator from a cheap one

Watch three of their videos with the sound off, then watch one with the sound on. That takes four minutes and settles most of it.

• Sound off: can you tell what the product does from the framing alone? Most viewers start this way.
• Sound on: does the delivery sound like a person or like a paragraph being read?
• Lighting: a window is enough. Yellow ceiling light and a dark face is not.
• Hands: can they hold and use the product without blocking the label?
• Range: do they have more than one opening style, or is every video the same trick?
• Reliability: did the samples arrive when they said, and did they answer questions in full sentences?

Everything on that list is visible before you pay anybody. Our step by step on vetting a creator adds the audience checks you need when the same person will also post to their own following.

Three times a UGC creator is the wrong buy

Nothing is running behind it

These assets are fuel for media you are already buying. With no ad account, no email list and no product page traffic, six videos sit in a folder. Spend the money on the first of those instead and come back when there is something to feed.

The problem is the offer, not the creative

If people reach the basket and leave, better video brings more of them to the same wall. Shipping cost, price, delivery time and returns policy are cheaper to fix than a content programme and they move the number further.

You need one video this week

A single asset does not justify the process around it, and a batch is where commissioning starts to pay. For one video, film it yourself on a phone by a window, or ask a customer who already likes the product. Neither costs anything and both are honest.