The figures below are an illustrative example to show the method — not a rate quote. Your reach, market, and the rights a brand wants will differ, which is exactly why a workbook you can change beats a number someone else picked. The uplift ranges are rules of thumb, not fixed rates.
Step 1 — Find your average reach per deliverable
Before you can price anything, you need the number brands actually pay for: your reach — the count of unique people a post puts the message in front of. Not your follower count, which is a ceiling, not a delivery. Open your analytics, look at your recent posts by format, and take a typical reach for each format you offer.
For an illustrative creator:
| Format | Typical reach |
|---|---|
| Reel | ~40,000 |
| TikTok | ~60,000 |
Use a normal post, not your one viral outlier. Brands are buying what you can repeat, and a rate card built on your best week ever won’t survive the first campaign report. (For why reach, not followers, is the right basis, see what an effective CPM is.)
Step 2 — Set a floor CPM
CPM is cost per 1,000 people reached — the unit brands price advertising in. Your floor CPM is the lowest CPM you’re willing to work for, set from what your time and audience are worth. It’s the single rate every base price is built from, so it’s worth setting deliberately rather than guessing per deal.
For this example, take a $25 floor CPM. That means you charge at least $25 for every 1,000 people a post reaches. Set it once, apply it everywhere, and revisit it as your reach and demand grow.
Step 3 — Calculate a base rate for each deliverable
The base rate for any deliverable is one bit of arithmetic:
- Base rate = reach × floor CPM ÷ 1,000.
Run each format through it:
| Deliverable | Reach | Base rate |
|---|---|---|
| Reel | 40,000 | 40,000 × $25 ÷ 1,000 = $1,000 |
| TikTok (×3) | 60,000 each | 60,000 × $25 ÷ 1,000 = $1,500 each |
A deal of 3 TikToks + 1 Reel therefore has a base subtotal of:
$1,500 × 3 + $1,000 = $5,500, over a combined reach of 220,000 people.
That $5,500 is the price of the content itself — making the posts and putting them in front of your audience once. It is not the whole fee, because it doesn’t yet pay for anything the brand does with the content afterward.
Step 4 — Add usage and exclusivity uplifts
The base subtotal buys organic posts. The moment a brand wants to run your content as paid ads, whitelist it through your handle, or lock you out of working with their competitors, that’s extra value — and it belongs on the quote as its own line. Price the uplifts against the base subtotal:
- Paid usage commonly adds roughly +25–50%. Take +40% here: $5,500 × 0.40 = $2,200.
- Category exclusivity commonly adds roughly +15–40%. Take +15% here: $5,500 × 0.15 = $825.
Stack them on the base:
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Base subtotal (3 TikToks + 1 Reel) | $5,500 |
| + Paid usage (+40%) | $2,200 |
| + Exclusivity (+15%) | $825 |
| Total fee | $8,525 |
Those percentages are rules of thumb to adjust for your market, not authoritative rates — but the principle never changes: more use, more money, quoted as a separate line. (For where the ranges come from, see what usage rights are.)
Step 5 — Check the effective CPM against your floor
The fee alone doesn’t tell you whether the deal was priced well. Collapse the whole thing back into a rate and compare it to your floor:
- Effective CPM = fee ÷ reach × 1,000.
- $8,525 ÷ 220,000 × 1,000 = a $38.75 effective CPM.
That effective CPM is the honest verdict. At $38.75 it sits comfortably above your $25 floor — the gap is exactly the usage and exclusivity you charged for. If the effective CPM had come out below your floor, it would mean you gave away rights for free somewhere, and you’d re-quote before sending. Run every deal through the same check and you’ll never accept a fee that only looks big.
Do it for every deal in minutes
You can price a single deal right now with the free brand-deal rate calculator — no signup. To build a full rate card, price whole deals with usage and exclusivity as separate lines, track the pipeline from pitch to paid, and see the effective CPM on every one, the Creator Brand-Deal & Sponsorship Workbook sets your floor CPM once and carries it onto every deliverable, deal, and payment — in Excel, Google Sheets, or LibreOffice. It’s a workbook you own, not a monthly app you rent. Learn what an effective CPM is, or browse every tool on the content creator hub.
