the short version
- Pay for a counted job: how many videos, how many hooks, who edits, and what you’re allowed to do with the files.
- A day rate with none of that attached is not a price you can compare to another price.
- Rights change the number. Organic posting and paid ads are different jobs. Agree them before anyone films.
- We won’t quote a made-up average rate. Our batch is 10–20 videos from £1,500, and a video that misses 10k views in 2 weeks is refunded.
In this post6 sections
Pay for a counted job. How many videos, how many different openings, who edits them, and what you’re allowed to do with the files afterwards. A number with none of that attached isn’t a price. It’s a mood, and you can’t compare two moods.
We won’t quote an “average creator rate”. Threads on the internet disagree with each other, and we don’t have a study we’d be willing to pretend is one. What we can tell you is which lines on a quote actually change the fee, and what we charge for a batch.
How to brief the video itself (the one-page brief, what to send, the five hook formats) is UGC for apps. This post is only the money. Our team has done marketing for Cluely and Replit. That is not a stack of Ignura client launches. We haven’t run one. The guarantee below is the promise we’re willing to make instead of a case study.
What the fee has to say
Before you talk about a number, the quote has to be able to answer six questions. If it can’t, you don’t know what you’re buying.
| Line | What it decides |
|---|---|
| Videos | How many finished pieces, not how many hours on a call |
| Hooks | How many different openings on those pieces. Openings are what you test |
| Edit | Raw clips only, or a cut you can post, with captions |
| Usage | Organic only, or paid ads too, for how long, in which countries |
| Whitelisting | Whether you can run the ad from the creator’s account |
| Revisions | How many rounds, and what counts as a new video |
“£400 for some UGC” fails all six. So does “a half day”. A half day might be one video or four, and you will only find out when the invoice arrives, which is a bad time to find out.
The useful split, for an app, is bodies and hooks. A body is the middle and the end: the app doing the thing. A hook is the first one to three seconds. You want a few strong bodies and several hooks each, not twenty unrelated ideas. When one does better, you learn it was the opening. The briefing post has the testing habit. The fee should name the split, or you’ll pay for twenty middles and one opening.
Rights change the number
This is the line people leave until a video does well, which is the most expensive moment to negotiate it.
Organic means the creator posts it, or you post it on your account, and you don’t put money behind it. Paid means you can run it as an ad. Those are different uses, and a creator who quotes one number for “a video” has not priced the second one. Whitelisting (running the ad from their handle, so it still looks like them) is a third use. Say which of the three you want, for how long, and in which countries.
Write it down before the shoot. A sentence in the brief is enough: “Organic and paid, worldwide, 6 months, whitelisting included” or “Organic only, your account, 30 days.” The brief already has a rights line. Fill it in. A blank rights line is how a launch video becomes a video you’re not allowed to boost on the day you most want to.
Music sits in the same conversation. A trending sound that’s fine in an organic post may not be cleared for an ad. If the video might ever be paid, say “commercial library or no music” in the brief. Finding out later means muting the cut or paying again.
Where you can use them
Decide the destinations before you compare quotes, because a video cut for one of them is the wrong shape for another.
- Your account, organic, on TikTok, Reels or Shorts.
- Their account, organic, which only helps if their audience is the person your app is for.
- Paid, from you, which needs the rights and a cut that still makes sense with the sound off. The stop-scrolling test is how you check the opening.
- Paid from their handle, which needs whitelisting, not just a file in your camera roll.
A quote that says “posted on TikTok” and nothing else has priced the first bullet. If your plan was the fourth, you are about to have a second conversation at a worse time.
Also decide who posts on launch day, and when. Five videos in one hour compete with each other. The run sheet spreads them. Put the posting plan in the same note as the fee, so “delivery” means files on a date you can actually use.
What a vague quote is hiding
Three patterns, when you ask a creator or a small studio what a launch batch costs:
The day rate. You pay for time. You might get one beautiful video or a folder of clips you now have to edit at midnight. Ask how many finished, captioned videos are in the day.
The package with no rights. The number looks low because paid use is “extra, if it does well”. That extra arrives as a second invoice, priced when you have no leverage. Ask for paid use in the first number, even if you only might need it.
The package with no hooks. Ten videos, ten unrelated scripts, one opening each. You learn almost nothing, because you changed everything at once. Ask how many of the ten share a body. If the answer is none, you’re paying for variety you can’t read.
A fair quote can still be a number you don’t want to pay. That’s a different problem, and an honest one. You can do fewer videos. You can’t do a fuzzy video.
What we charge
A UGC batch from us is 10–20 videos, scripted, filmed, edited and ready to post, in one to two weeks, from £1,500. That’s the number on the UGC page and on the pricing page. It is not a survey of what freelancers charge. It is our price, for that scope.
The guarantee, in the words we use everywhere else: if a video doesn’t hit 10k views within 2 weeks, you get your UGC money back. That’s the whole promise. It is not a promise about installs, revenue, or Product of the Day. A quiet video costs you the time, not the fee.
If you want videos every month after launch, that’s Burn: 20, 30 or 40 videos a month, at £6,000, £8,000 or £10,000, paid monthly in advance. One month’s notice to stop. You keep what we made.
Under £3,000 is paid upfront. £3,000 and up is 50% upfront and 50% on delivery. Never hourly. Our first 3 clients get up to 50% off, in exchange for a testimonial, permission to post the before and after, and one intro to another founder.
VIDEOS how many finished cuts
HOOKS how many openings, on how many bodies
EDIT captioned, or raw
RIGHTS organic / paid / whitelist, how long, where
REVISIONS how many rounds
DATE files in hand, before the day you post them
IF QUIET what happens. ours: under 10k views in 2 weeks, the UGC fee backQuestions
How much should I pay a UGC creator?
Pay for the lines above, not for a number you saw in a thread. We charge from £1,500 for 10–20 finished videos. Anyone else’s number is comparable only if it names the videos, the hooks, the edit and the rights. If it doesn’t, ask them to rewrite the quote before you compare it.
Do I pay more if I want to run ads?
Yes, if the first price was organic only. Paid use and whitelisting are extra rights. Put them in the first conversation. Our batch price is the one on the site. Ask us, on the call, if you need the usage spelled out for a media buyer.
What if a video gets no views?
If it’s one of ours and it doesn’t hit 10k views within 2 weeks, you get your UGC money back. That is a refund of the fee, not a promise that the next one will travel, and not a promise about downloads.
Should I hire one creator or a batch?
For a launch, a batch. One video can be brilliant and still teach you nothing, because you have no second opening to compare it with. The briefing post is how the batch gets made. This one is so you know what the invoice should list.
If you have a quote in front of you and you can’t tell whether the rights are in it, book a free 15-minute call and read it to us. We’ll tell you which line is missing.
