“What should we be paying per video?” is the question brands ask us most, and it's surprisingly hard to get a straight answer online. Most published rate guides are built on US numbers, or give a range so wide it's useless for budgeting.
So here are the numbers we actually see when sourcing UGC creators for brands. All prices are in AUD, per video.
UGC rates by creator tier
| Creator tier | Ad creative | Organic |
|---|---|---|
| New | $200 | ~$100 |
| Mid-level | $350 | ~$175 |
| Experienced | $500 | ~$250 |
The tier is about track record, not follower count. A newer creator is still building a portfolio of brand work. A mid-level creator has a body of work you can judge. An experienced creator has made content that has run as ads and performed, and understands what makes a video convert.
Why ad creative costs twice as much as organic
Organic UGC is usually priced at about half the ad creative rate, and the difference is fair. Ad creative has a harder job: it has to stop a cold audience scrolling, hold attention and drive a click, and it's licensed for you to put paid spend behind. Organic content is made for your own feed, where the audience already knows you.
If you plan to run a video as an ad, buy it as ad creative from the start. Upgrading organic content to paid use later usually costs more than getting it right the first time.
What changes the price
The base rate is only part of the cost. These are the add-ons that move the total:
- Usage rights. Rights are charged monthly, so the longer you run an ad, the more you pay. Work out how long you expect to run your winners before you negotiate, not after one takes off.
- Whitelisting. Running ads through the creator's own handle adds significant cost. It can be worth it for your best performers, but it's rarely worth buying across the board.
- Raw footage. An add-on fee. Useful if your team wants to re-edit or cut new versions in-house.
- Revisions. Most rates include one or two rounds. Additional revisions usually carry a small fee, which is another reason a clear brief pays for itself. Here's how we brief UGC creators.
- Hooks and variations. A small add-on fee, and often the best value on the list. The hook decides whether a video gets watched, so paying for two or three extra opening lines on one video gives you more to test for very little extra. More on that in five hooks that outperform on Meta.
When a quote is a red flag
More than $600 a video is too much for UGC ad creative, unless the creator is genuinely in the top 1%: someone who consistently makes content that converts and knows how to optimise for it. Those creators exist, but they're rare, and a high price on its own doesn't mean you've found one.
This only applies to UGC. Influencers who post to their own audience are priced on that audience, and may charge considerably more. That's a different product doing a different job; we break down the difference in UGC vs influencer marketing.
Budget for testing, not for one perfect video
The most common budgeting mistake is spending everything on a single expensive video and hoping it works. UGC pays off through volume and iteration: several creators, several angles, several hooks, then putting spend behind what wins. That's the logic behind the math of UGC economics, and it's why our UGC campaigns run on a monthly cadence instead of one-off orders.
