Most creators we speak to have one number in their head, and they quote it for everything. That single number is why a lot of good work is badly paid. A brand deal is not one thing you are selling — it is usually four, and three of them are routinely given away for free.
Line one: the content itself
This is the part everyone prices. Your time, your concept, your shoot, your edit. Benchmark it against creators in your niche, your city and your follower band, and be honest about where your engagement actually sits within that band.
Line two: usage
How long may the brand keep using the content, and where? A reel that lives on your own grid is one thing. The same reel running on the brand's page for a year is another, and the same reel cut into a television spot is another again.
Price usage as a percentage of the base fee, tied to a duration. If a brand wants perpetual usage, that is not a rounding error in the negotiation — it is a separate purchase.
Perpetual usage is not a rounding error. It is a separate purchase.
Line three: whitelisting and paid media
Whitelisting means the brand runs paid advertising from your handle, using your face and your credibility to reach people who never chose to follow you. It is the single most undercharged item in Indian creator deals.
Standard practice is a percentage uplift on the base fee, scaled to the length of the ad window. Thirty to sixty percent is a defensible range, and it should always be time-bound.
Line four: exclusivity
If a brand asks you not to work with competitors for a period, they are buying income you would otherwise have earned. Price it against what that category realistically pays you in that window, and keep the category definition narrow and written down.
A skincare brand asking for category exclusivity should not accidentally lock you out of every wellness deal for six months because nobody defined the word.
How to present it
Send the four lines separately, with a total at the bottom. It reads as professional, it makes the negotiation about which lines the brand actually needs, and it stops the entire conversation being a single number someone tries to halve.
It also means that when a brand says the budget is fixed, you have somewhere useful to go: drop the usage window, drop whitelisting, narrow the exclusivity. That is a negotiation. Cutting your own fee is just a discount.
Put it to work
There are verified roles open right now that fit this.
Every listing on Suyaara states its fee, names a checked production house, and holds the money in escrow. Applying costs nothing.
