What to charge as a content creator

Oooooo this is a popular topic. I get asked this ALL the time what to charge as a content creator when I do social media consulting. And I get it, we all want to make sure we are charging enough for our services but also not over charging.

SO. How do we determine our rates? Let’s dive in.

• There are a lot of elements that come into play with a partnership otherwise known as your OVERHEAD. For example, buying supplies or props i.e. flowers, napkins etc. Finding a babysitter if you have kids. Hiring talent if you need models. Creating a DIY or a recipe. Gas money and accommodations if you are travelling somewhere. If you have to rent a space for a photo shoot or rent a kitchen if you’re making food of any sort. All the programs, systems, apps you have to purchase i.e. Later, Tailwind. If you have any employees you have to pay or anybody you outsource. The list goes on! All these things need to be factored into your cost.

• The next important piece you have to consider is your TIME. How long is it going to take you to produce the content? Does it take you an hour? 8 hours? If a brand is asking a lot from you, this could potentially lead to hours of work. This is one of the mistakes I notice a lot with my clients. They agree to SEVERAL deliverables for little to nothing for compensation. You want to make sure you are valuing your time and adjusting the budget to how many asks there are. This segways into the next bullet point.

• What are the deliverables and how many? How are they using their content? For example. A brand could hire you for one static post on your Instagram feed. Is the photo going to live on your feed only? Or is it going to be used on the brand’s social channels as well? Are they going to boost the post? Are they going to use that photo for other means, such as on their website? If a brand wants those usage rights, then your rates become higher.

• Another significant way to figure out your rates is self-auditing your social media channels. How “influential” are you? Meaning…does your Instagram have a huge audience with a super high engagement rate? I.e. if you talk about a product and that product sells to hundreds of people from your content specifically. Or, do you only sell to potentially 20 people? You can figure this out by analyzing your analytics. The rule of thumb for an engagement rate is anything less than 1% is low and anything higher than 3.5% is high. And to go hand and hand with this, is the quality of your content. Are you producing high quality photos that you used a photographer for? Or does your content look unprofessional and amateur. This is important information in creating your rates. You don’t want to be charging absurd amounts of money if a) your content isn’t of high quality or b) your content doesn’t perform.

• The last tip I will mention is having a rate card or media kit. This is something you can give to brands so they know what you charge for each of your services. If you don’t want to give out a rate card, you can create a fee schedule that you keep on hand for yourself. You don’t necessarily have to give this out but it’s something you can keep internally so when brands ask, you are prepared and are aware of what you charge.

So to summarize what to charge as a content creator….

It comes down to these important factors:

-considering your overhead

-protecting your time

-self-auditing

-creating a rate card

If you have any further questions or want to know how to specifically charge for YOU, contact me here and we can hop on a conference call!

Start owning your worth!

-Jenna xoxo