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What brands are paying, and what’s changing.
Rate breakdowns, pitch teardowns, and contract clauses worth arguing about. Every piece is free, and every figure in them names where it was published.
Rates & money
What the work is worth, and what it actually pays.
None of these is a teaser for something paid.
Rates & money
Most creator marketing money never reaches a creator
Of the $43.9 billion going into creator marketing this year, 55% buys ads amplifying the content. Not the content.
Rates & money
Spend is up. Creator pay is not.
Industry spend rose about 18%. 67% of creators still earn under $10,000 a year from content. Where the gap sits.
Rates & money
How much should I charge as a micro influencer?
Between 10K and 50K the band is $350 to $1,400 for a feed post. Plus five real fees I agreed myself.
Rates & money
Why fast fashion pays below every published rate card
A 552K creator on $2,000 against a published band of $7,000 to $20,000. She was not being cheated.
Contracts & rights
The clauses that decide what you keep.
Not legal advice. Written by somebody who negotiated these from the buying side for six years.
Contracts
Usage rights now have a published price
3% to 10% of the brand’s paid media budget, on a thirty day window, in almost every deal.
Contracts
Usage rights: the clause that costs creators thousands
“Perpetual, worldwide, all media” in plain English, and what every level of usage should add to your fee.
Contracts
The rules for using your likeness got written this year
European disclosure law came into force on 2 August 2026 and it reaches any content seen in Europe. Most contracts stayed silent.
Contracts
The morality clause is the exit brands built in
No court, no arbitration, no explanation required. One creator was terminated for crowd surfing at a concert.
Platforms
What changed underneath you recently.
Both of these are recent, and both of them move a number somebody is pricing you on.
Platforms
YouTube just made your view count bigger
From 24 August a view counts from playback start. Public numbers rose. Your audience did not, and monetisation still uses the old measure.
Platforms
Everyone says go live. The numbers say otherwise.
Twitch is down about 14% year on year, live is 8.2% of TikTok Shop sales, and sponsorships just opened to every Affiliate.
Pitching & the industry
Getting in front of the person who books.
Why this exists
Most writing about creator rates is guesswork.
Search “how much should I charge as an influencer” and you’ll get twenty articles quoting the same four numbers. Not one of them is written by anyone who has agreed a fee.
I ran a talent agency for six years. My job was the middle. I found the creator, wrote the pitch, agreed the fee, papered the contract and chased the invoice when it went late.
So every piece here names its source in a block at the bottom: my own records, a published benchmark with its date on it, or the contract in front of me. Where a source is thin, the page says so on the page rather than hiding it in a footnote.
The rules I write to
- Every figure names where it was published, and when.
- Where a number comes from one expert rather than a survey, the page says so.
- Brand names are not affiliations, and none of these brands endorse me.
- No earnings claims. Ever. Not on this site and not in the newsletter.
- If I got something wrong, I correct it on the page rather than quietly deleting it.
Something you want covered? Send it to me on Instagram at @ceo.rocks and I’ll put it in the queue.
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