- 2,644
- 25
- Subscriber Goal
- 250000
I've seen this asked a few times and I remember having difficulty figuring this out myself early on. At times I charged too much; $250 for a sponsored video when I only had 1,200 subs got laughed at but a month later a different company approached me and offered $300 for a 30-second ad integration. Sometimes I may have charged too little... I agreed to script out an entire video based around a boat-cleaning product in return for the product itself and in six-months I have yet to get the boat dirty. Every product, every possible sponsorship and ad integration prospect is going to provide a different level of value to the product owner, to you and to the audience that they are trying to get in front of. So there is not going to be a set standard formula in order to determine what you should charge. But there are some things we can look at in order to help determine your value.
Who Are You Selling To?
Before we figure this out though let's take a moment to look at how we should maximize our value. The success of your ad integrations is based largely on your ability to provide their product to a fresh, new audience. Most of the time that means your subscribers... and yes they have value but honestly if you are good at YouTube then you know that ~90% of your views come from Non-Subscribers. This is where TubeBuddy and proper SEO can really provide some value. Making a video rank not only for a product but for the things people type when they are searching for the thing this product resolves is critical. As an example; here is my process from a recent video that I did targeting affiliate sales (the same mindset applies to sponsored videos):
Commission Rates
I was provided a series of discount codes for select items from a store on Amazon. Mostly outdoors, camping stuff. So I created a 2 minute video about the best outdoors gifts for husband on Father's Day. I did my keyword research to determine what people had been searching for on Father's Day the previous year and applied it to my optimization for the video this year. This video got about 1,000 views. Not great... but not bad. But it was my conversion rate that made me stand out. Of those 1,000 views I had over 60 sales... a 6.5% conversion rate that resulted in over $1,000 in affiliate sales. That is the numbers that I am going to pitch to brands when we talk about video sponsorships. These are excellent numbers for sponsors but as a creator you need to be aware that you are being paid a commission for these sales. Typically this is a rate that falls somewhere between 8% - 30% of the total revenue earned. I ask for 15% as this number is what I took in prior jobs. By that standard I can pitch that a video like this is worth about $150.
For Introductory Rates
Because I want to foster more long-term working relationships with brands I will often give introductory quotes that reflect my Adsense CPM's. As an example, in 2021 my average CPM was $8.45 and I earned 125,000 views with 50 videos. That means that I averaged 2,500 views per video and at a rate of $8.45 per 1,000 views my videos are worth on average about $21. But this is the rate that YouTube pays the creator and not the amount that they charge the advertiser. YouTubers collect 55% of the ad revenue from their videos, so that means that they are taking 45% and charging more than that. So I will double that number... and this gives us a figure of $42. Round that up to an even $50 and this is a very fair introductory rate for an ad integration.
Sponsored Content
But what if someone literally wants you to make a video for them. That means you must script, film, edit, promote and market a video with the specific intent of getting their product in front of eyes. This is actually very simple; I charged an hourly rate and I do so knowing that A) I work very fast and I am not going to over charge for my time and B) I know how much I have collected as an hourly rate in my regular jobs that I work. If I earned $10 an hour at my current job and I want to make a living doing YouTube I might charge an hourly rate of $12, give myself a raise over what I am currently earning. What I am not going to do is take my 500 subscriber channel with it's 100,000 views and think that for some reason my time is worth $40 an hour while I half-*** the editing of a video I would never had made if someone hadn't offered to paid me to do it. I am going to plan 1 hour for scripting, 4 hours for filming, 4 hours for editing and 2 hours for marketing/SEO/promotion and I am going to charge my $12 an hour for this. I will give a breakdown of these charges in an invoice as well; that way if they want to change the amount of time I spend editing or filming etc I can do so and they know exactly the work that is going into their creation. So in this circumstance I am planning for the video to cost me 11 hours and I am charging my $12 per hour... that equals $132 for their video.
These numbers might not sound amazing... but you need to be honest with yourself about the quality of work you can provide as well as your ability to get that work in front of the eyeballs these brands are expecting. Take a solid look at these numbers through the brand's point of view; they are paying you $132 for a video. If that video is going to get 100 views how many of the people watching that video are going to buy something? Is the brand even going to be able to recoup their $132? It is imperative that you can provide value. If you can not give them a return on their $132 investment then your video is not even worth $132.
Don't Sell Yourself Out
You are walking a fine line as a creator. There are a lot of predatory 'companies' out there who are going to want to convince you to give them free advertising for 'exposure' and nonsense like that. You need to value your time and be confident in turning down deals that are not worth your effort. At the same time, you need to be realistic about what you can produce, about the value that you provide and the return these brands are going to get from working with you. There is nothing wrong with giving a deal to get your foot in the door for future opportunities but you should not be taken advantage of. Be fair, be valuable and be a solid partner.
Who Are You Selling To?
Before we figure this out though let's take a moment to look at how we should maximize our value. The success of your ad integrations is based largely on your ability to provide their product to a fresh, new audience. Most of the time that means your subscribers... and yes they have value but honestly if you are good at YouTube then you know that ~90% of your views come from Non-Subscribers. This is where TubeBuddy and proper SEO can really provide some value. Making a video rank not only for a product but for the things people type when they are searching for the thing this product resolves is critical. As an example; here is my process from a recent video that I did targeting affiliate sales (the same mindset applies to sponsored videos):
Commission Rates
I was provided a series of discount codes for select items from a store on Amazon. Mostly outdoors, camping stuff. So I created a 2 minute video about the best outdoors gifts for husband on Father's Day. I did my keyword research to determine what people had been searching for on Father's Day the previous year and applied it to my optimization for the video this year. This video got about 1,000 views. Not great... but not bad. But it was my conversion rate that made me stand out. Of those 1,000 views I had over 60 sales... a 6.5% conversion rate that resulted in over $1,000 in affiliate sales. That is the numbers that I am going to pitch to brands when we talk about video sponsorships. These are excellent numbers for sponsors but as a creator you need to be aware that you are being paid a commission for these sales. Typically this is a rate that falls somewhere between 8% - 30% of the total revenue earned. I ask for 15% as this number is what I took in prior jobs. By that standard I can pitch that a video like this is worth about $150.
For Introductory Rates
Because I want to foster more long-term working relationships with brands I will often give introductory quotes that reflect my Adsense CPM's. As an example, in 2021 my average CPM was $8.45 and I earned 125,000 views with 50 videos. That means that I averaged 2,500 views per video and at a rate of $8.45 per 1,000 views my videos are worth on average about $21. But this is the rate that YouTube pays the creator and not the amount that they charge the advertiser. YouTubers collect 55% of the ad revenue from their videos, so that means that they are taking 45% and charging more than that. So I will double that number... and this gives us a figure of $42. Round that up to an even $50 and this is a very fair introductory rate for an ad integration.
Sponsored Content
But what if someone literally wants you to make a video for them. That means you must script, film, edit, promote and market a video with the specific intent of getting their product in front of eyes. This is actually very simple; I charged an hourly rate and I do so knowing that A) I work very fast and I am not going to over charge for my time and B) I know how much I have collected as an hourly rate in my regular jobs that I work. If I earned $10 an hour at my current job and I want to make a living doing YouTube I might charge an hourly rate of $12, give myself a raise over what I am currently earning. What I am not going to do is take my 500 subscriber channel with it's 100,000 views and think that for some reason my time is worth $40 an hour while I half-*** the editing of a video I would never had made if someone hadn't offered to paid me to do it. I am going to plan 1 hour for scripting, 4 hours for filming, 4 hours for editing and 2 hours for marketing/SEO/promotion and I am going to charge my $12 an hour for this. I will give a breakdown of these charges in an invoice as well; that way if they want to change the amount of time I spend editing or filming etc I can do so and they know exactly the work that is going into their creation. So in this circumstance I am planning for the video to cost me 11 hours and I am charging my $12 per hour... that equals $132 for their video.
These numbers might not sound amazing... but you need to be honest with yourself about the quality of work you can provide as well as your ability to get that work in front of the eyeballs these brands are expecting. Take a solid look at these numbers through the brand's point of view; they are paying you $132 for a video. If that video is going to get 100 views how many of the people watching that video are going to buy something? Is the brand even going to be able to recoup their $132? It is imperative that you can provide value. If you can not give them a return on their $132 investment then your video is not even worth $132.
Don't Sell Yourself Out
You are walking a fine line as a creator. There are a lot of predatory 'companies' out there who are going to want to convince you to give them free advertising for 'exposure' and nonsense like that. You need to value your time and be confident in turning down deals that are not worth your effort. At the same time, you need to be realistic about what you can produce, about the value that you provide and the return these brands are going to get from working with you. There is nothing wrong with giving a deal to get your foot in the door for future opportunities but you should not be taken advantage of. Be fair, be valuable and be a solid partner.
