How to charge brands for exclusive content

A student in my private community recently asked a question that confuses a lot of creators:

“How should I price a deal where the brand wants me to create exclusive content for them (that I don't post on my platforms)?”

In other words: content that the brand gets to use on its "O&O" aka owned and operated platforms (social media, its own website, for paid ads, etc).

I mean, it’s hard enough to figure out how to set your prices on your own platforms, right?

But where do you start when the content is gonna end up on the brand’s platforms?

First of all, there are two potential scenarios here:

1. The brand ONLY wants content to use on their O&O (i.e. you don’t post the content on your platforms at all).

2. The brand wants exclusive content AND for you to post/amplify on your socials (could be additional assets, or utilizing the exact same content across both).

Now here’s the critical realization:

In each scenario, your pricing should be very different.

Here's what to do when...

1/ The brand wants ONLY exclusive content

If the brand’s goal is to repurpose the content for its own platforms, the amount you charge is now completely detached from your views / downloads / subscribers.

Remember, the brand is basically telling you they love your content and wanna pay to leverage your “name & likeness”, NOT your follower count.

So charge them accordingly!

In a moment, I’ll explain how to come up with a figure here.

But first, here's how to approach it when…

2/ The brand wants exclusive content AND amplification from you

In these situations, for better or for worse, how much you charge for the exclusive “piece” of the package is going to be anchored by the amount you quote for a typical post (which is not always ideal).

That's why your aim should be to bake everything into an overall package, e.g.:

• 1 x YT video

• 1 x Podcast ad read

• 1 x IG or TikTok video

• 1 x one-minute exclusive video for the brand’s usage

• 30 days Exclusivity / Usage

If the brand asks for something a la carte, like maybe they wanna pick and choose only some elements of the package…

You tell them no 

Politely, of course 

You need to articulate that that’s not how your business works.

Because if brands wanna work with you, there’s a minimum investment required 

But how do you actually price it?

To be honest, it totally depends on whether you love or hate making exclusive content.

Some creators love it because they don't have to expose their audience to another sponsorship (and thus give brands a discount).

But others are super proud of their sponsorships and kiiinda wanna flex which brands they’re working with.

Not to mention they might be losing out on downstream earnings like YouTube AdSense (and thus charge brands a premium).

This is how I think about pricing in either case:

Treat additional content requests AS IF you were going to post them.

However you would normally charge for creating a piece of content like that, use that as a baseline.

Then, per the above, levy a discount or a premium depending on your personal love/hate stance for requests like this!

Make sense? ✌️