There are quite a few things to consider when you set the prices for your services. You might be an influencer with an established audience or a freelancer with the technical skills of content creation.
I myself have dealt with this issue a lot while I worked as a freelance content writer. Reels are a content type because they are particularly suited for our handheld devices.
Not only do most platforms support such a format, but the algorithms even tend to promote these short and engaging videos that lead to great organic growth.
Since it creates an awesome user experience, we can expect the Reel format to stick around for quite some time.
Let’s take a look at some standard rates that most people are charging in the space today.
Standard Charges For Instagram Reel Creation
The standard rate for collaboration follows a 1% rule based on your number of followers.
This means that an average account owner would charge a brand one dollar for every hundred followers for any kind of collaboration.
You should charge a minimum of $100 for a simple post and $350 for a Reel for every 10,000 followers you have, regardless of any other factor.
That is the standard for influencers that have an established audience. Reels tend to require audio, video, editing, and other factors that ramp up the price significantly.
Due to a Reel’s potential for organic growth, many people also charge a percentage-based additional reward for the views their Reel gets within a certain time frame.
A good strategy is to charge an additional $1 for every 100 views within a week. So if your content does go viral, everyone can profit equally.
| Followers | Cost For Reels | Views (>7 days) | Extra Charge |
| Under 10,000 | >$350 | 1,000-5,000 | $50 |
| 10,000-25,000 | $350-700 | 5,000-10,000 | $100 |
| 50,000-100,000 | $1000-1250 | 10,000-50,000 | $500 |
| 100,000-300,000 | $1250-3500 | 50,000-100,000 | $1000 |
| 300,000+ | $3500< | 100,000-500,000 | $5,000 |
***These prices are based on the US market. If you happen to be anywhere else, just take the same 1% rule, and instead of charging one dollar, charge something that’s equivalent.
A number that’s definitely above pocket change but below a considerable amount. (In India, that would be around 30-50 rupees for every 100 followers)
How To Set The Price For Creating Instagram Reels
The most important thing to remember when answering this question is that at the end of the day, there is one and only one person who can decide what your rates should be, and that’s YOU.
Negotiation is a crucial part of each collaboration opportunity, and you have to take a page out of the freelancer’s guidebook to get a fair deal.
The more aware you are of the following information, the better you can negotiate.
I’ve focused on the standard rates for influencers since most brands are looking to collaborate with them to make content on Instagram.
If you are a freelancer with the technical skills to create great Reels in a reasonable time, this next section should help you set your prices optimally.
Just combine the standard rates above with the following factors, and you should have a great rule of thumb to start negotiations on the right foot.
Things To Consider When Setting Your Rates
While you have full reign to decide your prices yourself, the important thing is that you need to really believe you are worth that amount. That’s why it can be helpful to consider some of the following factors.
Standard rates allow us to set an anchor for the bare minimum, but these factors let us increase our rate for additional things that can be justified in a negotiation.
Being transparent about the logic behind your prices makes you seem more reasonable, which is much better for negotiations than just saying, “Take it or leave it.”
1. Your Value Proposition
It’s easy to look at your follower count to put a basic value on your online presence, but there are many other metrics that make a difference.
Your rate of engagement (how many of your followers interact with your content actively) can be much more important than the number of followers.
Some other things you might bring to the table might include:
- The quality of your content.
- Ability to target people effectively.
- How professional and dependable you are.
- How compatible your personal brand is with the offering company.
If you have really high-production content that is well-planned out, and you can be confident about the results it will deliver, you can even charge up to $500-1000 per reel to established brands.
2. Compatibility
Whether you are a freelancer or an influencer, everyone has a personal brand. This will include what kind of things you are interested in, your values, and the kind of work you engage with.
Obviously, the niche you are in should be compatible with the niche of the brand you are looking to work with.
If you are a fashion influencer, you carry a certain level of risk when you promote an energy drink. If you want to do it anyway, you should consider increasing your charges in such a situation.
3. Campaign Requirements (Licensing, Scope, Timeline, etc.)
This is an easy one to miss, but very important to consider. Digital marketing is becoming increasingly viable and quite affordable for big brands.
It allows for targeted campaigns that can actually give better results than traditional advertising mediums at a fraction of the price.
Influencers and freelancers tend to forget this and underestimate the value that they are giving to companies. All established brands tend to have huge marketing budgets and solid goals to meet.
That’s why you need to recognize the scale of the campaign, the spending power of the company, and what exactly you are doing for them when you decide on your price.
Watch out for the words “In-Perpetuity” when you sign any contract. Make sure you define the use of your content while negotiating.
Your average influencer or freelancer is just a regular person. They don’t think about contracts, copyrights, or licensing issues when they do such deals. This can lead to exploitation and regrets.
That’s why you have to insist on contracts and define your terms properly. If a contact says they can use your content In-Perpetuity, it means that they have full rights to it forever and can do whatever they want with it.
You can charge big brands for the rights to use your content on a monthly basis. A 30% monthly rate on top of your base rate is a good rule of thumb.
If you are a dedicated influencer, you will grow your following for the foreseeable future, and you should keep this commitment in mind when you are charging people.
4. Whitelisting
This is a strategy that many brands practice in order to capitalize on the trustworthiness of a creator using Instagram ads. Think of this as being a brand ambassador for the brand.
Brands often boost the reach of a piece of content by running ads as a joint collaboration between your page and their company’s account. This is called Whitelisting.
You can charge them extra for the use of your image in a paid advertisement campaign on your own, or you can set the price as a percentage of the total budget for that campaign.
5. Exclusivity
This might be one of the most obvious things you would consider while setting your price for a collaboration, but you don’t ever want to trap yourself in a contract without thinking about this practice.
The fact is, digital marketing is so lucrative because of the extreme level of competition you can find in pretty much every industry nowadays.
That’s why affiliate programs can be super useful for any brand and why so many of them are reaching out for collaborations.
It makes sense, then, that most brands also ask you to promote them exclusively while you are affiliated with them.
This means that you cannot work with their competitors within the duration of the collaboration.
So, if you are affiliated with Samsung (for example), you won’t be able to collaborate with Apple while you are still promoting them. You definitely need to consider that and increase your prices accordingly.
My Suggestions About The Charges
I’ve heard from dozens of professional influencers and freelancers as research for this article, and I have drawn my own conclusion based on my experience.
The first thing I want to emphasize is that you need to have a well-planned and structured payment plan when you deal with brand collaborations.
Of course, you might choose to collaborate with smaller brands and entrepreneurs for free if you choose to since they do not have the same spending power.
But if you are dealing with big brands, you need to be a little serious to avoid missing out on the opportunities that you can otherwise utilize.
I recommend creating a proper Influencer Rate Card so the brands can see your level of professionalism and commitment. This not only makes you more confident, but it also makes you more trustworthy.
A well-planned rate card shows that you are in this for the long run and that collaborating with you is more of a relationship rather than a transaction.
While transactions are often seen as expenses, relationships are viewed as investments. You should also have amounts that are above your actual base rates on your rate card, as it leaves room for negotiation.
Once you start seeing brand collaborations as opportunities for negotiation, you start to adopt the freelancer mindset, and you start treating your services as valuable as they deserve to be!
In Conclusion
Once again, I would end this article by emphasizing that these are some of the major industry trends and practices that you should consider while setting your rates as an Influencer or freelancer.
You are free to set your own rates, as nobody understands your audience and the level of work you put in more than yourself.
Just keep in mind that the information in this article is accessible by anyone with a simple Google search, so it’s a good place to start off the negotiating process.
Anirudh Gitai
Writer from the heart – whether it is affiliate marketing or fiction – and a proud member of Shivansh’s team! Big fan of combat sports, reading non-fiction, and watching the best of everything from anime and movies to TV and video games.
