Is that UGC retainer worth the workload?
Separate guaranteed pay from a view-based bonus. See what remains per hour after expenses, using your own assumptions—not an influencer rate card.
Read the offer as a workload
Replace every illustrative figure. Use one period and currency; currency changes only relabel the amounts. This tool does not submit or store your inputs.
Only unconditional contracted pay. Enter zero if the advertised base is conditional or unknown.
Include contracted variants; count social reposting time under hours too.
Research, travel, filming, editing, revisions, posting and account management for the same period.
Props, travel, purchased credits and other costs allocated once to this work.
Choose it yourself. This is not a market-rate recommendation.
Conditional bonus scenario
These views may never happen. Keep this separate from the guaranteed fee.
Use the contract's rate, not an assumed platform payout.
After the contract's eligibility rules; this is an assumption, not a view forecast.
This calculation uses one period-level threshold. For per-post rules, qualify each post separately first.
Leave blank for uncapped. Enter zero if no bonus can be paid. This cap applies to the bonus, not total pay.
Start with one period and the full job
Use the same week, month or project for every input. Include time spent finding ideas, travelling, filming, editing, making variants, handling revisions, posting and reporting. A promise of “60 videos” might mean 60 different concepts or ten concepts with six variants each. Ask which it means before estimating hours.
The guaranteed hourly figure is (guaranteed fee − cash expenses) ÷ working hours, before tax. The target floor is hours × your chosen hourly fee + expenses. It is a planning floor, not a recommended market rate or a complete business profit calculation. Add your own overhead and rights fees when quoting.
Worked example: $600 for 60 videos
The prefilled example is invented to explain the maths. At 45 hours and $60 of expenses, $600 leaves $540: $12 per hour, before tax. A $20 hourly target would require $960 including those expenses, leaving a $360 gap in the guaranteed offer. None of these numbers estimates what creators normally earn.
At 100,000 qualifying views, a 10,000-view threshold and a $2 CPM, paying only views above the threshold gives 90,000 billable views and a $180 bonus. That makes the conditional scenario $780 gross, or $16 per hour after expenses. Those views are not guaranteed.
Two threshold rules that change the payout
Excess: only views above the threshold count. Hurdle: once the minimum is reached, all qualifying views count. In the example, the hurdle rule gives a $200 bonus. The optional cap limits the bonus, not the base fee. A blank cap means uncapped; zero means no payable bonus.
This tool applies one threshold to the whole period. If a contract requires each post to reach 10,000 views, do not add together posts below that minimum and enter the total as if they qualified. Calculate each eligible post under its contract first. Ask whether views are unique, organic, paid, country-restricted or measured within a fixed window.
What if the advertised base is conditional?
Enter zero as the guaranteed fee until the unconditional amount is confirmed. A base that depends on acceptance, posting frequency, an account milestone or minimum views is not the same as guaranteed payment. Write the acceptance criteria, revision limit, cancellation terms, payment date and dispute process into the agreement.
Check raw-footage delivery, ad use, exclusivity, account ownership and who handles comments separately. Use the brand deal quote calculator for a proposed production-and-rights quote. This retainer tool reviews an offer; it does not verify the client, predict views or decide whether a contract is fair.
Do you save my deal details?
The calculation and text export run in your browser. No account connection, server submission or currency conversion is involved. Copy or download the summary yourself. Replace every sample amount before using it.
Agree on the job before the number.
Filming assets, posting daily and running a brand account are different services. Make the deliverables and permissions clear before accepting a retainer.
Educational planning tool · Not tax or legal advice