Gifted vs Paid UGC: When to Say Yes and When to Walk Away
Gifted UGC brand deals aren’t always a bad thing. They can be helpful, harmful, or lie somewhere in that weird little grey area between the two.
The key difference is understanding how to leverage gifted UGC opportunities strategically.
If you’re new to UGC, gifted collaborations can be great for a little while as they can help you with building confidence, getting comfortable talking to brands and creating branded content for your portfolio. But careful! It can be very easy to stay in gifted collaboration territory for too long, and ultimately stall your growth as a UGC creator.
It’s all one big cycle, if you’re unsure how this fits into the bigger picture, check out this blog on How UGC Creators Get Paid by Brands (From Gifted to Paid Deals) connects all the dots for you!
When Do Gifted Brand Deals Make Sense?
Gifted deals can be useful when:
- You’re a brand new creator
- You want experience talking to the camera or testing new skills
- You need new portfolio examples
- The brand aligns with your niche
- It’s a product you REALLY want but might be too expensive for you to afford normally
The key with all of these listed above is they’re all intentional.
When Can Gifted Brand Deals Hurt You?
When you’re committing to collaborations without any intentions being set prior to signing the contract, gifted work can become a problem because:
- The brand is likely going to be running ads
- There’s a high chance the brand does have a marketing budget in place
- They might want perpetual usage rights
- They could even expect ongoing content depending on the details of the deliverables set in the contract
Always remember, if a brand is profiting from the work YOU created, payment should 100% be part of the conversation. It’s simply not fair to ask you to work for free, especially when if what you create performs well, they could easily be making 10’s to 1,000’s of dollars from your video alone. You should be compensated for that.
How to Confidently Transition to Paid Brand Deal Territory
Believe it or not, the shift from gifted to paid is 90% a mindset shift.
Yes you need skill, you need the right examples of work on your portfolio, and you need to be able to prove you can make high-performing content. But what people seem to forget is that those things are solely on you as the creator. There isn’t someone telling you “no, you cant do this”, you literally just need clarity and the right knowledge/understanding.
Once you fully comprehend the concepts of pricing, usage rights, and pitching, asking for payment almost instantly stops feeling scary.
One thing that’s super underrated is having a clean setup in your videos. This helps elevate your videos significantly, which instantly makes you look like you’re worth the money.
It doesn’t have to be anything crazy. A simple filming backdrop for shooting B-roll with your products is a super low budget way to enhance the quality of your content and make it feel more professional for paid opportunities.
You’re Allowed to Say No
Don’t feel guilty about saying no to unpaid work. It’s a major part of your growth as a creator and once you start signing multiple brand deals a week, you’ll feel so good that you’re not wasting your time creating content for a low reward gifted collab, especially when you could be using that time to do other things that help scale your business.
Turning a brand down does not mean you are difficult to work with. It does not mean your are ungrateful, nor does it mean the brand will never try to work with you again. It simply means you know your worth and you’re building a high profitable business as a content creator. GOOD FOR YOU!
I know it can feel scary, but lots of new things do, it’s okay! If you want help navigating this transition without second-guessing yourself, or feeling anxious my UGC Beginner’s Guide walks you through everything step by step.
It’s all about being intentional baby, you this!
Until next time,
xoxo,
Dru <3
