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Usage rights
A brand wants to run your video as an "Ad Partnership". Should you charge?
The email says there is no cost to you. That part is true. It is also beside the point, because the cost was never going to be cash.
Last updated 7 September 2026
You made a video for a brand. A week later they ask whether they can run it through Ad Partnership, or Partnership Ads on Meta, or Spark Ads on TikTok. They mention increased visibility. They mention that your affiliate code might earn more. They say it costs you nothing.
Every one of those statements can be true while the offer is still worth money to you. Here is what is actually being asked for.
The short version. This is not permission to use your footage. It is permission to run paid advertising from your handle, with your name and your profile attached to their ad spend. That is a different product from "we repost your video on our page", and it is priced separately from the shoot.
Why "no cost to you" is true and irrelevant
There is no invoice coming to you. Nobody is asking you to pay for anything. The brand is being accurate.
What it obscures is that you are being asked to hand over an asset. Your handle is the asset. When an ad runs from your profile it borrows your name, your follower count, your comment history and whatever credibility you have built, and it points all of it at their product for as long as the campaign runs.
Brands pay for that. There is a whole category of the industry, usually called whitelisting, that exists because they pay for it. The phrase "no cost to you" is describing your bank account, not the transaction.
The distinction that actually matters: content level or account level
This is the part most creators do not know to ask about, and it is the difference between a small yes and a very large one.
| Permission | What it covers | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Content level | One specific post or video that you already made | They can run that asset as an ad. Nothing else. This is the narrow, normal version and it is what most creators assume they are agreeing to. |
| Account level | Your handle itself, inside their ad account | Considerably broader. Depending on the platform and the permission granted, a brand with account level access can build ads that appear to come from your profile without you approving each one first. |
Both are legitimate asks. They are not the same ask, and a brand email that says "ad partnership" without saying which one is not telling you the size of what it wants. Ask. It is one sentence and it changes the price.
The reassuring part: on the major platforms these permissions are granted for a defined period and can be revoked. You are not signing something permanent. That is exactly why it should be sold as a term rather than given away as a favour.
Affiliate commission is not a fee
The commission framing is the one to watch. When a brand offers you upside through your creator code instead of a usage fee, three things are quietly true:
- You are being paid in a number they control, through their ad budget, their targeting and their landing page.
- If the ad underperforms you earn nothing, on a video that sat in their ad account for months doing work.
- Commission pays you for sales. A usage fee pays you for the right to run it. Those are two different lines and a good deal has both.
Take the commission. Just do not let it replace the fee.
What to charge
Usage rights are priced as a percentage of the content fee, per period, not as a one-time add-on. A rough shape to start from:
- Whitelisting or Spark Ads: from 25% of the content fee as a floor, higher if you have a real following, since your handle is the thing being rented.
- Paid usage generally: commonly 30% to 50% of the base fee per 30 days of paid running time.
- Category exclusivity: priced per month, separately, so it never gets agreed to for free as a throwaway clause.
Two things matter more than the exact percentage. State a term, so the price is attached to 30 or 60 days rather than to forever. And name the platforms, so Meta does not quietly include TikTok and YouTube.
If they push back on the number, the answer is not a discount. It is a shorter term. Thirty days at your rate beats ninety days at a discount, and it puts them back in front of you with a renewal conversation while the ad is still working.
The four questions to ask before you reply
- Is this content level for the one video, or account level on my handle?
- Which platforms, named individually?
- How long, with a start date and an end date?
- Is there a usage fee separate from the affiliate commission?
You can send all four in about four lines.
Copy this
Happy to talk about it. Before I confirm, a few things so I can quote it properly:
Is this content level permission for the one video, or account level on my handle? Which platforms specifically? And how long do you want to run it, with an end date?
Ad usage is priced separately from the content fee on my end, so I will send a number once I know the scope. The affiliate commission is great as upside and I am keen to keep that running either way.
That reply does four things at once. It is a yes in principle, so you are not the difficult creator. It establishes that usage costs money, before any number is argued about. It asks for the scope you need in order to price it. And it keeps the commission on the table as a separate good thing.
Get the end date in writing
If you take one operational habit from this page, take this one. "Ad partnership" with no expiry is the clause that quietly becomes permanent. An asset with your face on it sits in an ad account, gets duplicated into a new campaign eight months later, and nobody ever comes back to you because nobody agreed that they had to.
A stated end date turns that into a renewal. Renewals are the part of this business that pays twice for work you already did.
If you remember nothing else. The brand coming back after seeing the video perform is not a favour being done for you. It is evidence that it worked, and it is leverage, and it is sitting in your inbox right now.
Price it before you reply
The free rate calculator prices the deliverable and the usage rights separately, then splits the 50% deposit and the balance. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere or stored. No sign-up and no email.
Open the calculatorWritten for UGC creators in the US. Market-informed starting points, not fixed prices, and not legal or financial advice. Your market, niche and results should move them.