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How to become a UGC creator

The four rungs from no audience to paid brand deals: what each one pays, where the deals are and how to climb. Written from the side that pays.

  1. 04InfluencerPer post at 100K followers~$5–10K
  2. 03UGCAds made for brands~$100–400
  3. 02Canvas UGCPosts on a new account~$20–25
  4. 01No audience yetA phone$0

Hey, it’s Vic. I’ve run Impact Origins, an influencer and UGC agency, for six years. I’m on the brand’s side of these deals. I find the creators, price them and pay them, so this is the view from that chair.

The ladder

  1. 01

    No audience yet

    $0
    You have
    A phone. For the next two rungs that’s all you need, because nobody there checks your follower count.

    Move upFilm three 20-second videos about an app you already use, the way you’d tell a friend about it. Skip the intro and open on the reason to care. Those three videos are your audition.

  2. 02

    Canvas UGC

    ~$20–25 / video
    What it is
    An app pays you to post about it on a brand-new TikTok or Instagram account, usually once a day. The account starts at zero followers. That’s normal, because the video decides how far it goes.
    Who pays
    Consumer apps. Most of them are AI, study and productivity apps.
    Where the deals are
    Apps run ads for these programs on TikTok and Instagram, so if you’ve seen one offering pay per video with no followers needed, that’s it. Some have their own page, like turbocreators.com. Others post the role as a paid marketing internship on campus job boards.
    What they check
    Whether you follow the brief. If it says no intro, don’t add one. They also want you to sound like someone talking, because anything that sounds like an ad gets scrolled.
    The math
    One video a day for one app comes to about $600–750 a month.

    Move upEvery video is paid practice on the first three seconds. Save your best ones for later.

  3. 03

    UGC

    ~$100–400 / video
    What it is
    You make the video and the brand posts it, usually as an ad. They’re buying the file. Your follower count never comes up.
    Who pays
    DTC brands, apps and SaaS companies that run ads on Meta and TikTok, plus the agencies running those ads for them.
    Where the deals are
    Marketplaces where brands post jobs (Billo, Insense and JoinBrands). Brands already running creator ads, which you can find in the ad libraries below; email whoever runs growth. And agencies like mine, which cast creators for brand campaigns.
    What moves the price
    How many versions of the opening you deliver, whether they get the raw footage, how fast you turn it around, and usage rights (whether the brand can run it as a paid ad, and for how long).

    Move upBuild a portfolio a brand can judge in 15 seconds (more on that below), then start posting on your own account.

  4. 04

    Influencer

    ~$5–10K / post
    What it is
    You post to your own audience. The brand is paying for the people who watch you now, on top of how well you film.
    What it pays
    About $5–10K a post once you reach 100K followers. That’s my benchmark from the buying side.
    Who pays
    The same brands, plus bigger ones with real influencer budgets.
    Where the deals are
    Agencies and brands reach out to you (I send those emails), TikTok’s and Instagram’s own creator marketplaces, and pitches you send with a media kit.
    What sets the price
    Your typical views, where your audience lives and whether people comment. Follower count matters less than most people think.

    Grow itBuild the audience. This is the hard rung, and I’m climbing it in public right now.

How a deal works

  1. The briefThe brand sends the product, the one point they want made and a few videos they like. Work out what they want the viewer to do and build the video around that.
  2. HooksBrands test the opening seconds against each other, so give them three versions of the first three seconds for every video. It takes you ten minutes and it’s the thing buyers ask for most.
  3. DeliverySend a captioned cut, a clean cut with no text, and the raw clips.
  4. UsageYour fee covers making the video. If they want to run it as an ad, that costs extra, priced by how long and where. Ask “organic or paid?” before you quote.
  5. Get it in writingBefore you film, the email thread should spell out the deliverables, revisions, usage and payment date.

What I check before I pay a creator

  • Do you look and sound like their customer?Niche fit beats audience size.
  • Can I find three good videos in 15 seconds?Put your best work first. Small numbers hurt more than none, so leave weak view counts off the page.
  • What do your views look like?For influencers I divide your price by your typical views. Followers barely enter into it.
  • Do people comment?I compare comments to views. When I see 164K views and 5 comments, I skip.
  • Where does your audience live?A US brand is paying for US viewers and will ask for a screenshot of your country split.

Portfolios to copy

Tech, AI and SaaS UGCEric Garciaericdoesugc.comCopy: His work grid (filtered by screen demo, talking head and B-roll, with each video marked client or spec), his short process section and his rates page, which lists usage add-ons.Layout to rebuildThe tech UGC Canva templatecanva.siteCopy: A dark page with a hero video in a phone frame, work sorted by style (walkthrough, problem/solution, testimonial), then services, process and contact. The name, stats and reviews on it are placeholders, so copy the layout only. You can build it yourself in Canva for free.

No clients yet? Make spec ads. Pick an ad a brand is already running, remake it for a product you own and label it “spec ad, not affiliated”. Six to nine of those across different formats makes a portfolio.

See which ads brands are running

Meta Ad Libraryfacebook.com/ads/libraryEvery active ad on Facebook and Instagram. It’s free and you don’t need an account. Search a brand, filter to video and check the start date. Brands turn off ads that don’t pay for themselves, so the ones that have run for months are the ones worth studying and remaking.TikTok Creative Center: Top Adsads.tiktok.comTikTok’s own list of top ads, which you can filter by region and objective.Google Ads Transparency Centeradstransparency.google.comSearch YouTube ads by advertiser.

Your pitch list: a brand with a dozen creator ads live is a brand that buys UGC.

The last rung is your own audience

Rungs 2 and 3 pay you for your camera work. Rung 4 pays you for an audience, about $5–10K a post once you reach 100K followers, and nobody can give you that audience. One creator opened a reel with “22 days ago I started a brand new Instagram account…” and it did 2.5M views. Followers tend to show up after a hit.

I’m building mine in public with an AI engine called Grows Itself, taking @vic.aigrowth from 3K to 100K in 90 days. It isn’t open yet. Once it has proven itself on my account, the waitlist hears first.