How Much to Charge for UGC in 2023

Whether you’re a creator or a brand, you might wonder about the cost of UGC content. As a creator, how much should you charge? As a brand, what’s a reasonable rate to pay? Does the price vary by content? In other words, is a video worth more than a 600-word blog post? 

To answer these questions, we’ll break down how much to charge for UGC. 

What is UGC?

Before we talk numbers, what does UGC stand for? 

UGC is user-generated content. A creator produces a piece of content for the brand to publish on the company’s site, blog or social channels. The type of content can vary. It could be a video, blog, or even a picture.

What’s the difference between UGC and IGC?

User-generated content is different from influencer-generated content, or IGC. The biggest difference lies in who publishes the content. With UGC, the brand publishes it on its channels. With IGC, influencers share the content with their audience on their channels. 

Why are brands interested in UGC?

UGC is valuable to brands for many different reasons. Brands are drawn to this type of content because it’s:

Authentic

In many cases, UGC is from a personal point of view. It could be a testimonial, for example, that explains the benefits of a certain product from a customer’s perspective. While it is shared by the brand and not the creator, it still offers an authentic snapshot of the brand’s product. Customers are drawn to that. 

Effective

Research shows 70% of consumers consider UGC content before making a decision. Consumers have always researched products before buying, but with today’s technology, the results are almost instant. 

While many consumers Google products, new research shows shoppers are using social channels to learn about products. As this trend grows, UGC will become that much more important. Brands will need shareable, educational content to sway customers. 

Cheaper than IGC

UGC is more affordable than IGC. Why? With UGC, brands pay for the piece of content. With IGC, brands must pay for the piece of content and to promote the content to the influencer’s audience. An influencer’s audience has monetary value. 

With UGC content, brands aren’t paying for access to an audience, so brands can save a little money.

UGC pricing: How much to charge?

You can spend a lot of time online trying to research how much to charge for UGC. There are Twitter threads and countless videos by creators with advice on the topic, but it’s best to come up with a fee structure for your UGC creator jobs.  

Price for static pieces 

As a creator, you should have a standard price for each piece of content. For example, set a flat fee for a blog, a five-minute video, and a product-endorsing social photo. 

To come up with that set price, some creators consider the amount of time needed to create the content. If a video takes you three hours to shoot, edit, and polish, and you want to make $50 an hour, you’ll charge $150 for the content. 

In The Creator Marketplace®, you can create listings for your work, including UGC content. The minimum price is $50, and you can set your own price.

Create a content bundle

Brands that are interested in UGC are often interested in buying more than one piece of content. So, consider bundling content together with a small discount. You can combine content types, like offering two videos and a blog post for a certain amount of money, or keep it simple and offer 3-5 pieces of the same content for one price. 

To arrive at the price for a content bundle, start with the flat rates you set. If you plan to charge $200 for a video, the cost for three is $600, but you can take it down to $550 as an incentive to buy in bulk. 

Set a price based on your following

Some creators set their pricing based on their audience size. Yes, we did say that UGC creators aren’t compensated for their social audiences. However, if you do have a following, it can help you set your UGC rates. How? Some creators charge 4% of their audience size for an image and 6% of their audience size for a video. 

For example, if you’re a nano-influencer with 8K followers, you’d charge $320 (8,000 x 0.04%) for an Instagram photo and $480 (8,000 x 0.06%) for a video.  

Even though brands aren’t working with you to gain access to your audience, there are perks to having one.

• Brands looking for UGC creators often believe that a creator with a social audience has more experience creating relatable content, which means they’re willing to pay more for UGC. 
• If a brand decides to change gears and run an influencer marketing campaign, they’ve already worked with a reputable creator and may return later for an IGC.

If you’re trying to figure out how much to charge for UGC content, it can be tough to settle on a price. When you’re starting, your rates will likely be lower to gain experience and exposure. As you build a portfolio of work, you can increase your content offerings and prices. 

Check The State of Influencer Earnings®

You can also gain insights about pricing from The State of Influencer Earnings for 2023. In it, you can see how much creators in IZEA’s platforms earned over the past eight years and use that to gauge how to much to charge for sponsored posts. UGC is not posted on an influencer’s social media channels, so you can adjust your pricing accordingly.