Know your floor before a brand emails you
Calculate your minimum viable brand deal rate from your hours, production costs, and usage rights with a one-page agreement brief.
What it does
- Writes out the four formulas, total cost, exclusivity cost, usage cost and the minimum viable rate, so you can work them in any order on a spreadsheet.
- Makes you count post-production hours, comment replies and reporting, not just the shoot, which is where creator hours usually go missing.
- Prices the four rights the twelve month pro-rating cannot honestly cover: whitelisting, raw files, perpetual usage and category exclusivity in a field you already work in.
- Ships a one page deal brief with exclusivity defined in words, usage with an end date, and revisions as a number, plus a terms checklist in negotiation order.
Resource Teaser Preview
total cost = (hours x hourly rate) + production costs
exclusivity cost = total cost x (exclusivity months / 12)
usage cost = total cost x (usage rights months / 12)
minimum viable rate = (total cost + exclusivity cost + usage cost) x (1 + target margin)To unlock the full kit, complete prompt set, and automated workflow, request access below.
What you need
- Your own minimum hourly rate. A number you would be happy to be seen quoting.
- An honest count of the hours a package takes, including the days after it goes live.
- Nothing to install. Four markdown files.
Setup
- Open rate-floor-worksheet.md and fill in the hours table for the whole package, including revisions, publishing, comment replies and reporting.
- Work sections 2 and 3 for base cost, exclusivity and usage, then price the four rights the formula does not cover in section 3 yourself.
- Calculate your floor in section 4, then write the number you will actually send in section 5 before you open their email.
- Copy deal-brief-template.md, fill it in and send it with your number so exclusivity, usage and revisions are agreed on paper.
- Work terms-to-negotiate.md in order when they come back with a counter, and recalculate your floor twice a year.
On a real store
A fictional Melbourne lifestyle creator with a 60 dollar hourly floor prices a three post package, adds three months of category exclusivity and six months of usage, and arrives at a floor before opening the email. The brand offers 900, and the worksheet forces the question of whether the whitelisting term is worth extra or is a refusal. Invented numbers, no client, no market benchmark claimed.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a fair rate for my follower count?
We do not have a reliable figure for that and we are not going to invent one. This kit builds a floor from your own hours, your own hourly rate, your own production costs and the margin you decided you want. It is your floor, not a market rate.
Is pro-rating exclusivity over twelve months fair?
It is a convention, not a fact about value. It spreads the cost of losing a category evenly across a year, which is defensible, and it under-prices category exclusivity in a field you already work in. The worksheet asks you to price that one yourself.
What if they want my raw files?
That is licensing your process rather than your output, and the formula has no honest way to fold it in. Either price it as a separate flat fee or decline. Whitelisting and perpetual usage are treated the same way.
Want this done for you instead?
We'll take a free look at your store and tell you what we'd fix first, no pitch attached.
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