What a real brief contains
The brief tells you more about how the campaign will go than the fee does, and you get to see it before you commit.
A good one is short and gives you material: what the product does, the specific thing they most want understood, the numbers you are allowed to cite, and the constraints. Legal restrictions, claims they cannot support, comparisons they would rather not invite. Those get flagged once, at the start.
What a good brief does not contain is sentences for you to publish. If it arrives with finished copy, the company has misunderstood what they are buying, and the post will read as a campaign to anybody paying attention.
Two things worth asking for that most creators never request. Access to the product properly, meaning a real account for long enough to form an opinion. And a technical contact you can message on the day when somebody asks a question in the replies that you cannot answer.
A brand that provides neither is planning for you to post rather than to endorse. Ours come with the go-live time and the payout, so you can read the brief before you agree to anything.
Usage rights, the expensive one
This is the single most under-negotiated term in creator agreements, and it is given away in one sentence.
Usage rights decide what the brand can do with your post afterwards: run it as a paid advertisement, put it on a landing page, cut it into a video, use it on another platform, keep using it forever.
Each of those turns a post into a media asset worth a multiple of what you charged for the post.
| Grant | What it means |
|---|---|
| Organic only | The post exists on your account and nowhere else. The default you should assume. |
| Paid amplification | They can put budget behind your post. Common, reasonable, and it costs extra. |
| Whitelisting | They run ads from your handle. A significantly bigger ask than a post and should never be bundled into a post fee. |
| Repurposing | Your words or face on their site, in their deck, in other campaigns. Grant narrowly or not at all. |
| Perpetuity | Forever. Push for a defined window instead: 30, 60 or 90 days covers a launch. |
The practical move is to grant the narrowest thing that lets the campaign work, for a defined period, and price anything beyond it separately. How to price the extras.
Approvals and revisions
Agree the shape of this before you write anything, because it is where campaigns turn unpleasant.
The workable arrangement is one round, on facts rather than on tone. A brand should be able to tell you that a number is wrong or that a feature does not work the way you described. They should not be redlining your phrasing.
Unlimited revisions, or approval rights over voice, produce the supplied-copy problem the sponsorship was meant to avoid. It is also the clearest early signal that the campaign will underperform, because a post that has been through four rounds of marketing review no longer sounds like a person.
Put a turnaround on it in writing. Approval within 24 hours or it is deemed approved, otherwise a launch date arrives with your post still sitting in somebody's inbox.
The rest of the terms
- Exclusivity. Agreeing not to work with competitors is a real cost. Define the category narrowly, cap the window, and price it. An open-ended exclusivity across a broad category is a job you are taking for the price of a post.
- Takedown. Two directions, and you want both. Can they force you to delete it, and can you delete it if the product turns out badly? Keep the second. Why that clause matters more than it looks.
- Timing. The date and window, and what happens if their launch slips. A campaign moved twice should be re-scoped rather than absorbed.
- Reply engagement. If they expect you in the replies for six hours, that is part of the work and it belongs in the fee. If they do not mention it, you should, because it is the part that makes the campaign work.
- Disclosure. Stated explicitly, so nobody suggests otherwise later. The label, and who is liable.
Getting paid
Unglamorous and the most common place goodwill collapses.
Agree the amount, the currency, the payment window and what triggers it. The cleanest trigger is publication rather than performance, since publication is the thing you control. For a first engagement with a company you do not know, half up front is a normal ask and a refusal tells you something.
Get the terms in writing even when the relationship is friendly. Not because you expect a dispute, but because the person you agreed it with may not be there in six weeks, and an email thread is what survives them leaving.
Invoice on the day you post, with the post link on the invoice. It shortens every payment conversation that follows.
Four clauses to refuse
- Guaranteed performance. Nobody controls the algorithm. Committing to a view count means committing to buy engagement when the post falls short, which ends accounts. Offer an estimate from your median with the working shown, and agree to post again or extend if it badly underdelivers. That is a real remedy and it costs you nothing dishonest.
- No disclosure, or "keep it organic-looking". They are asking you to carry their regulatory exposure for free. It is also the clearest possible signal about how they will behave later.
- A permanent bar on criticising the product. A clause binding your future opinion has bought the asset you are trying to protect. Time-limited confidentiality about unreleased features is reasonable; a forever gag on your own experience is not.
- Copy you cannot change. Publishing somebody else's paragraph under your name is the trade that costs the most and gets negotiated the least.
None of these require a confrontation. Each has a version that works: an estimate instead of a guarantee, a defined window instead of perpetuity, factual approval instead of tonal control.
Brands that have run good campaigns before will recognise every one of these and agree quickly. The ones that argue are telling you how the rest of it will go.
Questions we get asked
Do creators have to use the paid partnership label on a Doomers launch?
Yes, on every compensated post. It is an FTC requirement and X's own rule, it is written into every creator brief, and a creator who will not tag does not run in our launches. There are no exceptions, for any client or any creator.
What are usage rights and why do they matter so much?
Usage rights decide whether a brand can take your post and run it as paid advertising, put it on a landing page or use it beyond the platform. That converts a post into a media asset with a much larger value, and it is routinely handed over in a single sentence nobody negotiates. Grant it narrowly, for a defined period, and price it separately.
How many rounds of approval should a brand get on a sponsored post?
One, on facts rather than tone. A brand should be able to correct anything untrue about their product. Unlimited revisions, or approval over phrasing, produces the supplied-copy problem the sponsorship was supposed to avoid, and it is the clearest early signal that the campaign will underperform.
Should I accept a performance guarantee in a creator contract?
No. Nobody controls the algorithm, so committing to a view count means committing to buy engagement when the post falls short. That ends accounts.
Offer an estimate from your own median with the working shown, and agree to post again or extend if it badly underdelivers, which is a real remedy that costs you nothing dishonest.