One company, two numbers
JoinBrands, a UGC marketplace, lists a UGC video on its pricing page from $25.
The same company's rate guide, published in August 2026, says a beginner should charge $150 to $400, and puts the middle of the market at $500 to $1,200.
Sideshift's guide from March is lower: $100 to $300 for a beginner, $300 to $800 once you have some work behind you, and around $175 for a typical video.
Neither of them is lying.
A marketplace floor is what a brand pays when it posts a job and lets creators compete for it.
A rate guide is written about creators who set their own price and get hired anyway.
Those are different markets, and they pay differently.
Where you sell sets the price
Roughly, from cheapest to dearest:
- A marketplace job board, where brands come for the price and plenty of jobs sit close to the floor.
- A freelance site like Fiverr, where you set the price and Fiverr keeps 20% of every order, extras and tips included.
- A brand you reached yourself, or one that found your page - no middleman, and nobody underbidding you in the next tab.
The job board is a fine place to get your first three pieces of real work.
It is a poor place to stay.
The higher numbers in every guide belong to the third line, and the way onto it is a page that shows your work and says what you charge.
Your first number
Look at where the two guides agree.
Sideshift's beginners charge $100 to $300, and JoinBrands' charge $150 to $400.
The overlap is $150 to $300.
Our advice: start at $150 for one video up to 30 seconds long, and stop agonizing over it.
A first price is not a verdict on your talent.
It is a starting point you are going to raise.
Raise it on evidence, not on a calendar.
If every brand says yes without a single question, the number is too low.
If half of them push back and the other half book anyway, you are about right.
What the base rate buys, and what it doesn't
Your base rate pays for the video, and for the brand posting it on its own account for a while.
JoinBrands' guide calls that one platform for three months.
Everything past that is a line of its own, added on top:
- Running it as a paid ad: 25% to 40% more for six to twelve months across their ad channels by JoinBrands' figures, and Sideshift's range goes up to double your rate.
- Keeping it forever: 50% to 100% on top, and some guides ask for far more.
- Exclusivity in their category: 30% to 50% more, and always with an end date.
- A rush job delivered within 48 hours: 25% to 50% more.
- Each extra round of changes past the ones you included: $50 to $200.
Add those up and the base rate is often the smallest number in the deal.
Which is why "usage included" in a brand's brief deserves a second read.
Bundles
Brands often order three or five videos at once, and they will ask for a discount.
10% to 15% off each video is the usual give, going by JoinBrands' guide.
Give it when the videos are filmed in one session, because then the work really is cheaper.
Don't give it for one video a month across half a year.
That is six separate jobs with a bulk price stuck on them.
Write it on your page
A price on your page is a price.
A price typed into a DM is an opening bid, and the brand knows it.
Put the base rate, the extras and the bundle price somewhere a brand can read them before writing to you.
The ones who still write have already agreed to the shape of the deal, and the conversation is about dates instead of money.