"What's your rate for a Reel?" is the question every creator eventually gets, and most of us answer it with a nervous guess. Guessing leads to undercharging, inconsistent prices between brands, and the uncomfortable feeling that you left money on the table.
A rate card fixes that. It's a simple list of your prices for each type of content, built on reasoning you can explain. This guide shows you how to build one.
Why follower-count formulas fall short
You'll see rules of thumb online like "charge 100 dollars per 10,000 followers". They're a starting point at best. They ignore how much work a piece takes, how engaged your audience is, and the market you work in. A creator with 15,000 highly engaged followers in a specific niche can be worth more to the right brand than a general account with 80,000.
Instead, build your price from three things: your time and costs, the value of your audience, and what the brand is getting.
Step 1: Work out your cost floor
Start with the minimum you need to charge so the work isn't losing you money.
- Estimate the hours a typical Reel takes you: concept, scripting, shooting, editing, captions, revisions and communication with the brand. For many creators, a polished branded Reel is 6 to 12 hours of work.
- Decide on an hourly rate that reflects your skill. If you'd charge LKR 3,000 an hour for editing work, use that.
- Add direct costs: props, travel, location fees, paid music, an assistant or a makeup artist.
For example: 8 hours × LKR 3,000 = LKR 24,000, plus LKR 4,000 in costs, gives a floor of LKR 28,000. You should rarely go below this number.
Step 2: Adjust for your audience
Now look at what your audience brings. Useful signals are:
- Average views per Reel over the last month, not your best-ever Reel.
- Engagement rate: likes, comments, shares and saves divided by views.
- Audience location. A brand selling in one country cares how much of your audience lives there.
- Niche. Beauty, tech, finance and parenting creators often command higher rates because their audiences buy.
If your average Reel reaches 20,000 people with strong engagement, a brand paying LKR 40,000 is paying LKR 2 per view, which compares well with running ads. Use that comparison when you negotiate.
Step 3: Price the extras separately
Many creators give away the most valuable parts of a deal. Price these as their own lines on your rate card:
- Usage rights: the brand runs your Reel as a paid ad or uses it on their own channels. Charge extra for each month of usage, often 20 to 50 percent of the base fee per period.
- Whitelisting or partnership ads: the brand runs ads through your account.
- Exclusivity: you agree not to work with competitors for a period. This costs you future income, so charge for it.
- Rush delivery: content needed in less than a week.
- Extra revisions beyond the one or two included.
- Raw footage: handing over unedited clips for the brand to cut themselves.
Separating these makes your base price look reasonable while protecting the value of your work.
Step 4: Build the card
Put it together in a simple table. A starting rate card might look like this:
- Instagram Reel (up to 60 seconds): LKR 35,000
- Instagram Story set (3 frames): LKR 15,000
- Static feed post: LKR 20,000
- TikTok video: LKR 30,000
- YouTube dedicated video: LKR 120,000
- Usage rights, paid social, per month: LKR 10,000
- Exclusivity, per category per month: LKR 15,000
- Rush delivery (under 5 days): 25 percent of the deliverable
These numbers are only an illustration. Yours depend on your costs, your audience and your niche.
Step 5: Offer packages
Brands love a package, and packages raise your average deal size. Combine deliverables at a small discount, for example "2 Reels + 1 Story set + 1 month usage" priced 10 percent below the individual total. The discount feels generous, and you get a bigger deal with one negotiation.
How to share your rates
You don't have to send your full rate card to every brand. Many creators send a short quote tailored to the brief, based on the card. When a brand asks for your rates without a brief, ask what they have in mind first: platforms, number of pieces, timing and usage. Then quote from your card.
If a brand says your price is too high, don't discount straight away. Offer to change the scope instead: fewer deliverables, no usage rights, or a longer deadline.
Review your rates every few months
Your rate card is not permanent. Review it every three to six months, or whenever your audience grows noticeably or brands start accepting your quotes without pushback. If everyone says yes immediately, your prices are probably too low.
Turn your rate card into budgets automatically
Once you have a rate card, use it every time. In PlanBrix, you add your rates once, and every new project prices its deliverables from the card: pick "Instagram Reel × 2" and the budget fills itself in. When the work is done, the same lines become your invoice.