FOR INFLUENCERS & PUBLIC FIGURES
How to design YouTube thumbnails that look like you
YouTube thumbnail design for UK creators: the official specs, a recognisable template system, faces, type and colour, and how to test thumbnails properly.
What really sets the price of a brand deal for UK creators: deliverables, usage rights, paid ads and exclusivity, plus the tax and invoicing basics.
How much to charge for brand deals depends less on follower count than on what the brand is buying: the number and type of deliverables, the time and production behind them, how well your audience fits, and above all how the brand will use the content afterwards. Work out a baseline from your own time and costs, then add for usage rights, paid ads, exclusivity and tight deadlines. Get every term in writing and invoice promptly.
Imagine replying to a brand’s “what are your rates?” email in five minutes, without the knot in your stomach. Your rate card is designed and up to date, you know what usage and exclusivity are worth, and when the brand comes back with a counter-offer you can adjust the scope calmly instead of quietly dropping your price.
Rate tables online promise a figure per thousand followers, but they rarely match what UK brands pay. We won’t give you a number, because an honest one doesn’t exist. What we can do is explain what drives the price, so you can build a quote you can defend.
No. There is no official or industry-wide rate card, and the fees creators charge vary widely even at similar sizes. Two creators with the same following can reasonably quote very different prices, because one has a highly engaged niche audience a brand badly wants to reach and the other has a broad audience that is cheaper to reach in other ways.
Treat published rate calculators as a rough sense check at best. Your price should come from your own costs, your audience’s value to that brand and the rights you hand over.
| Factor | Pushes the price up when… |
|---|---|
| Deliverables | There are more pieces, longer videos or several platforms |
| Production | It needs locations, props, other people, scripting or heavy editing |
| Audience fit | Your audience closely matches the brand’s customers and engages well |
| Usage rights | The brand wants to reuse the content on its own channels, website or ads |
| Exclusivity | You must turn down competitors for a period |
| Timing and revisions | Deadlines are short or approval involves several rounds of changes |
Most underpricing happens because creators quote for the post and forget everything else on this list.
Build your quote in two layers.
Estimate the real hours involved: reading the brief, planning, scripting, shooting, editing, captions, the approval process, posting and reporting back. Add direct costs such as props, travel, a location or help on the day. Decide on a day rate you need to make the work sustainable, and price the hours accordingly. This is the figure below which a deal costs you money.
Then add for what makes this deal worth more to the brand: an audience that matches its customers closely, results from similar work you can show, and the rights and restrictions covered below. This is where two quotes for the same reel can differ a great deal.
Write both layers down for every quote, so you can see which deals pay well for the effort.
Usage is what the brand may do with your content beyond your own post. It is often the biggest hidden part of a deal. Before quoting, ask:
Price each extra right separately and put limits on it, as our guide to usage rights for influencers explains. If a brand wants everything forever, that should cost substantially more than a single post, and you should understand that you may see your face in its ads long after the partnership has ended.
Brands increasingly want to run your content as paid ads that show your account as well as theirs. On Instagram and Facebook these are called partnership ads, and Instagram says they use signals from both accounts to improve ranking and performance. Instagram says that for newly created branded content, the “Allow brand partner to boost” toggle turns on automatically for 28 days after your last branded post, and that you can’t edit content while it is running as a partnership ad.
On TikTok, the equivalent is Spark Ads, which let advertisers boost a creator’s organic post with the creator’s authorisation, using a code whose duration can be set.
Both mean your content is working as paid advertising for the brand, often reaching far more people than your organic post. Agree how long ad access lasts, which posts are covered and the fee for it, and check your settings so permissions don’t run longer than you agreed. Our guide to influencer whitelisting covers the permissions in detail.
Exclusivity stops you working with competitors, so it costs you future income. Price it by asking what you would realistically turn down. A narrow clause (no other trainer brands for 30 days) costs you little. A broad one (no sportswear of any kind for a year) could cost you a lot and should be priced, or negotiated down, accordingly. Make sure the category and the dates are written down precisely.
Sometimes, if it is a brand you genuinely want in your portfolio and the content would be worth making anyway. But be clear-eyed. A gifted deal still takes your time, it still needs an “Ad” label, and HMRC’s tax rules for content creators say the value of gifts you receive for promoting products counts towards your income, alongside any cash. If a brand wants detailed deliverables, approval rights or usage, it should be paying a fee.
Yes, once income passes certain thresholds. HMRC says that if your total side-hustle income in a tax year (6 April to 5 April), including the value of gifts, is more than £1,000, you need to tell HMRC, usually by registering for Self Assessment as a sole trader by 5 October following the end of that tax year. The £1,000 is measured before expenses, and it is one allowance across all your side income, not one per platform. Keep records of every payment, gift and expense from the start.
Tax depends on your wider circumstances, so this is general information rather than advice. Once brand work becomes regular, an accountant who works with creators will usually save you more than they cost.
Rates rise when brands can see the value. Report back after every campaign with reach, saves, clicks or codes used. Collect short testimonials from brand contacts. And invest in the quality of what you make: content that is well lit, well framed and on-brand is worth more to a brand that wants to reuse it, which strengthens your hand in exactly the usage negotiations above. Update your media kit and rate card as results build, and review your prices every few months. A rate card that looks as considered as your content, the kind our graphic design for influencers service produces, makes those prices easier to hold, especially as part of a wider plan for marketing for influencers.
We want you to send your rates with the quiet confidence of someone who knows what their work is worth. We began as the in-house team of co-founder Jack Cartwright, designing his covers and running his ads, so we understand both sides of a usage deal. Through graphic design for influencers we design media kits and rate cards that set out deliverables, usage and exclusivity clearly and are easy to update. A clear brief, scope and fee are agreed before any creative work begins.
Either works, but quote in a way that shows what is included. Many creators price individual deliverables, then offer a package for a campaign with several pieces and a set usage period. Whatever the structure, list every deliverable, the usage, any exclusivity and the payment terms, so both sides know exactly what the fee covers.
Some creators do, to filter out brands with very small budgets. Others say “rates on request”, because usage, exclusivity and production change the price so much. If you publish rates, make clear they cover your own post only and that usage and paid ads are quoted separately.
It is the informal name for letting a brand run ads using your account’s name and content, through partnership ads on Instagram and Facebook or Spark Ads on TikTok. Because your content becomes paid advertising, price it as a separate right, with a fixed duration.
Often, yes, by changing the scope rather than the fee. Offer fewer deliverables, shorter usage, a narrower exclusivity clause or fewer revision rounds so the work fits the budget. That keeps your rate intact for the next brand, rather than quietly lowering it.
Most creators starting out aren’t VAT registered, so they don’t. VAT registration becomes compulsory once your taxable turnover passes the threshold set by HMRC, and some register voluntarily. As your income grows, ask an accountant whether and when you should register.
YouTube thumbnail design for UK creators: the official specs, a recognisable template system, faces, type and colour, and how to test thumbnails properly.
When ads for influencers are worth paying for in the UK: launching your own product, growing a newsletter, and when boosting a post is a waste…
What influencer whitelisting means for UK creators: how partnership ads work on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, what access you give and what to agree first.
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