How Much Money To Charge for a Video Sponsorship

Many brands are looking for YouTube creators to sponsor in exchange for product promotion. A lot of creators would love to dive in to this additional revenue stream for their channel yet aren't sure how much is an appropriate amount of money to charge. Brendan Gahan shares his advice on how to determine how much money you should charge a brand for sponsoring one of your videos.

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Video Creators

Tim Schmoyer

OTHER CHANNELS I'M A PART OF

[poolboyinla]

I have had 2 sponsors. Taco Bell didn't pay me a lot, but it allowed me to make a really good video. Canon didn't pay me at all, but they put video cameras in my hands after my home was burglarized and all my filmmaking equipment was gone. I am very thankful for that. When I started my channel in 2007, I bought a Canon video camera for $300. I never really thought there would come a time when they would partner with me and let me use their cameras. 

[VideoCreators]

Brendan Gahan shares how to determine how much money your videos are worth so you can charge a company an appropriate fee for sponsorships and brand deals.

[thefrugalcrafter]

This was a good video Tim, actually I watched it the other day and wanted to think carefully about my comment before I left it. I like the advice of your guest, he is very knowledgeable but I think the figures you calculated for your viewer were off. I have a highly niche channel with 74k subs and I average 7.8k views per video and I have a hard time getting much more than what you quoted him at 3k views and a moderate niche. My audience is women 34-65, not teens. Also I make full videos for the advertiser using their products, in most cases it is not a plug or mention. I am often rehired by the same company. Maybe I am too soft. I just did not want creators to get unrealistic advice. Many time companies contact me and they want me to give a plug to their company for free product and a lot of it is not even art related. I get more offers like that than the latter. In fact many companies will not offer money, you have to ask for your fee, I think they will try and see what they can get first. So many companies are looking for free promotion, big national companies that you see advertise with ads on youtube so you know they have a budget. Now, that said, I consider trade with companies who can offer me substantial trade (trade=200% of my video fee) on products I would buy anyway. I used to be a radio announcer and I know when advertiser had to offer trade it would double the value of the ad rates. That can be a good form of payment as long as you are getting a fair amount for the reach that your channel has. Or a combination of payment and credit/trade. I hope this comment was not totally useless. Bottom line: What you charge and what a brand is willing to pay may be quite different :)

[oceansuk]

I would never ever consider paying someone with 3000 views 300$, Anna Akana said that one of her sponsors paid for one month enough money to pay back her expenses to make a short movie. She also said that the average cost of a short movie of her it's 2500 - 3000$.

So if Audible paid her 3000$ for 4 videos of 300.000 views each, it means that audible paid 0, 0025$ FOR EACH VIEW... But you are saying that someone with 3000 views should ask for 300$:

Please, don't delude people, none of us is gonna pay that much for such small channels.

[messianicrogue]

There is so much more you could do on this topic -
How to approach potential sponsors.
How to develop a sponsorship marketing plan.
What to include / exclude in a proposal / what sponsors would find attractive.
How to prepare videos to be 'on message' or 'brand friendly.'
How to leverage a corporate sponsorship into a sustainable partnership.
How to target potential sponsors.

Most of this is not exactly rocket science, and should be addressed in existing business or marketing plans - but I have a feeling most youtubers aren't making business plans. This is my 'anonymous' account - but I usually create video's for corporates directly - so no production happens without a directive and funding - the opposite / less anxiety ridden process.

I may jump in on this idea - as it has piqued my curiosity and its an area that isn't saturated.

[ElectronFunCom]

$150 for 3000 views - isn't that a bit high for such a small channel?

[chadwildclay]

Great video Tim. Very helpful and thanks for recruiting Brendan Gahan into the video. I'm happy to see him suggest rates of $50 to $150 CPM for video sponsorships. I've read this is about the rate cable TV charges and I would argue video sponsorships are more valuable to the advertiser because they get to have the main personality of the show recommending their product. AND they get to skip the production expense (thousands of dollars) of creating the commercial. 

[lauram]

That sounds like way too much money. $300 to do a sponsored video on a channel that only gets 3000 views per video? So that would mean a channel that gets 300, 000 views on average gets paid thirty thousand dollars for each sponsored video? I really doubt that.

[TopNotchLawns]

I have a long way to go to even think about doing this, but I love the excitement and knowledge you provide. 

[EdKaneInternationalMale]

Great video! How long should the sponsored video live on your channel? 30, 60, 90, days or run forever for that flat fee?

[NerdSyncProductions]

Here's my thing. I've avoided doing brand deals and affiliate programs like the plague. I feel that no matter how helpful or useful the product could be for my audience, it will still be intrusive and annoying to them. Am I alone in that thinking? I mean, I literally cannot even think about doing something like this on one of my videos. Maybe I'm overreacting, but I just can't get myself to even try to want to do it. 

[CopperJacketTV]

Great advice. I currently do product reviews for free in order to grow my channel and produce more searchable content. Even though it would be nice to make money, I feel that in my genre integrity is more important. My channel still benefits in the long term.

[weezycmb]

If we disable the skippable ads and only run non-skippable ads will that generate more or less revenue ?

[VeganAlohaKitchen]

I have been looking everywhere for an answer to this question. Thank you for providing the information. I have a new channel and was able to hit 1, 000 views recently thanks to your guided content. You are really helping me every step of the way! Mahalo to the viewers who are providing insight below as well.

[RichardGetzPhotography]

1:25 to get the the start of answering the question. Oh my gosh!

[abhilashhande]

This is extremely extremely helpful. Have been scratching my head over this for quite some time now. I had a sub-question though. The cost that a creator arrives at...does that have to be upfront? I mean there a lot of brands out there that are open to paying but not upfront. They might want to do so via an affiliate program where they can share up to 50%-70% revenue but only be ready to spend a small cost upfront owing to the size of their marketing spends. This actually pans out really well if the brand and the creator's audience have a great fit and the video can influence people to make purchases. Do you think creators are open to this kind of a set-up and is recommended that they be, or should they just vouch for an upfront payment?

[BrainyBajanBeauty]

Hey Tim, I know that this is an old video but really hoping that either you and/or your subscribers could offer some advice. I'm about to enter into a fairly long term contract with a company to create some sponsored videos for them on my channel. I would like to include a basis on which I charge for my videos in the contract and I was planning to charge based on my 'social bluebook value', which takes into account various factors including my subscriber count, engagement, etc; so as my channel continues to grow, so would my value and the amount I am worth (for lack of a better phrase). I'm basically trying to find out how you would go about setting out fee arrangement terms for long term contracts as I wouldn't want to shortchange myself in the long run by locking myself into a set price. Hope that this question is not confusing.

[brambilabong]

This is super insightful, and I'm not sure there are many resources (at least good ones) on this topic.  Thank you very much! 

[BiteSizeVegan]

again very helpful Video Creators.  this really gave me some concrete ideas for my pricing structure- and just in perfect time as i'm creating my media kit!  do you think it's best to start with one video?  or maybe a 3-4 video block rather than ask for ongoing sponsorship?  and how do you broach the idea of an ongoing sponsorship?  thanks so much for your awesome content, as always!

[chance]

Hi, just a quick question. Sponsored customize link on specific trending video. Someone approached me for 50$ lifetime to add on my description. Is the average? I mean for lifetime.
new to youtube. Appreciate your advice