UGC rates and add-ons behind the calculator
Each input, the default it starts on and the 2026 market range it comes from. Choosing a creator level fills in the base rate; type over it if you have a real quote.
| Input | Calculator default | Typical 2026 range |
|---|---|---|
| Creator level and base rate | $110 new, $200 established, $400 ad-focused, $750 top tier | About $75 to $150, $150 to $300, $300 to $500 and $500 to $1,000+ per video, organic use only |
| Paid usage rights | +30% for 30 days, +40% for 90 days, +50% for 12 months, +100% perpetual | +30% to 50%; perpetual or all-platform rights can double the fee |
| Extra hooks | $50 each | About $50 per new opening on the same video |
| Videos to whitelist and months | 0 videos, 1 month; each whitelisted video adds 30% of its fee per month | About 30% of the base fee per month |
| Raw footage | +40% | +30% to 50% |
| Rush delivery | +35% | +25% to 50% |
| Bundle discount | 15% off creator fees on 5+ videos | 15% to 25% off for bundles of 5+ |
| Editing | $0 (you edit in-house) | About $200 to $500 per finished edit at agency rates |
Ranges from our UGC cost guide, which draws on Influee, FindClout, Later and Vidpros rate data for 2026. Product and shipping defaults to $30 a video; use your real landed cost.
How the UGC pricing calculator adds it up
Creator fees = number of videos × base rate. If the bundle box is ticked and you order 5 or more videos, that drops by 15%.
Usage rights, raw footage and rush are percentages of those discounted creator fees: rights at the term you pick, raw footage at 40% and rush at 35%. Whitelisting = videos to whitelist × base rate × bundle discount × 30% × months. So a 15% bundle discount also trims every add-on priced off the fee.
Extra hooks = videos × hooks per video × $50. Product, shipping and editing = videos × (product cost + editing cost). The total is the sum of every line, and cost per ad-ready video = total ÷ number of videos.
Whitelisting has its own input, "Videos to whitelist / run as Spark Ads", because you rarely whitelist a whole batch. You test every video from your own account first, then pay to run the two or three winners from the creator's handle. It starts at 0, so the default total has no whitelisting in it. Enter the number of winners and how many months they will run, and only those videos are charged.
Three UGC budgets, worked through
The calculator's defaults, a heavier paid-ads batch and a lean organic batch. All three have the bundle discount on.
| Line | Default batch | Paid scaling batch | Organic starter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup | 10 videos, established creators at $200, 90-day rights, 2 hooks each, $30 product | 6 videos, ad-focused creators at $400, 12-month rights, 3 hooks each, 2 of the 6 whitelisted for 2 months, $30 product, $200 editing | 5 videos, new creators at $110, no paid rights, no extra hooks, $30 product |
| Creator fees after 15% off | $1,700 | $2,040 | $468 |
| Usage rights | $680 | $1,020 | $0 |
| Extra hooks | $1,000 | $900 | $0 |
| Whitelisting | $0 | $408 | $0 |
| Product, shipping and editing | $300 | $1,380 | $150 |
| Total | $3,680 | $5,748 | $618 |
| Cost per video | $368 | $958 | $124 |
Default batch math: 10 × $200 × 0.85 = $1,700 in fees; 40% rights = $680; 10 × 2 × $50 = $1,000 in hooks; 10 × $30 = $300 in product. Whitelist the 3 best videos for one month and the default batch rises by $153 (3 × $200 × 0.85 × 30%) to $3,833.
How to read your UGC total
- Cost per video above $500? Look at which add-on is doing it. Whitelisting months and perpetual rights are the usual cause.
- Whitelisting scales with videos × months. Two winners for 2 months on the scaling batch cost $408. Whitelisting all 6 for the same 2 months would cost $1,224, more than the batch's usage rights.
- Perpetual rights double the creator fee. Buy them for videos you know you will run for months, and agree in writing what a later extension costs for the rest.
- Judge cost per winning ad, not cost per video. One $958 video that runs for a quarter can be cheaper than ten $124 videos that never beat your control.
- Put the total next to your media plan. If creative is more than your monthly ad spend, you may be making more videos than your budget can test.
Using these numbers for a real UGC budget
Creators can use the same tool as a UGC rates calculator: put in your base rate and send brands a quote with each add-on on its own line, so nobody argues about rights after the video is made. Brands can do the reverse and check a quote line by line before signing.
To see what a batch of videos needs to sell, plug the cost into the ad budget calculator alongside your media spend, and compare with the creative costs in our TikTok ads cost guide. If you are a creator selling your own product rather than making videos for brands, the creator income calculator estimates what a launch could earn.
When the hard part is knowing what to make rather than finding someone to film it, our UGC content creation team writes the angles and hooks, briefs creators, secures rights up front and cuts the videos into ads. For creators with an audience of their own, see our influencer and creator campaigns. Creator fees stay a separate line from our fee.