Brand deals are a great way to earn extra income as an artist and can be quite lucrative. When I received my first brand deal email, I honestly thought it was spam and almost deleted it. But after doing a bit of research, I found out it was actually legitimate.

Since then, I’ve been learning through trial and error, and I’m starting to figure things out. I’m still pretty new to this, but I’ve already learned a lot, and I feel like I'm in a great position to talk to you about how to get your first brand deal as an artist—even if you only have a very small following on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, or if you have a smaller YouTube channel.

In this blog post, I want to share my experience so far, explain how the whole process works—from reviewing contracts to creating content—and also help you figure out what to charge.

What Types of Brand Deals Are There?

There are typically two main types of brand deal you can get:

• inbound - when a brand reaches out to you (from my experience, this is the most common approach)

• outbound -when you contact a brand to ask if they’d like to work together.

Personally, I haven’t reached out to any brands yet—they’ve always contacted me first. I’ve found that the best way to attract them is by focusing on your content.

A Guide to Your First Brand Deal as an Artist

How to Attract Brands

Make sure your videos are high quality, upload consistently, and offer value to your audience. It also really helps for brands to see that you have a clear target audience. For example, my YouTube channel is mainly for artists and handmade sellers who are in the early stages of growing their creative business.

A great tip is to put your email in your bio or About sections. I don’t mean your personal email, but one for your business—or even one specifically for brands to reach out to you. If brands can’t easily contact you, they’ll probably move on to someone else. They often have a long list of content creators they're reaching out to, so make it as easy as possible for them to get in touch.

Also, if you’re an artist or handmade seller growing a business, you most likely have products and services you already use and love. A couple that come to mind for me are Skillshare and Hostinger. Tag brands in your content—they might not even know you exist, so tagging them in your great content will help get you on their radar.

Brand Requests I've Received

I'll give you a few examples of the kind of brand requests I’ve received so far. Some brands have offered to send me products in exchange for a feature in a video or an Instagram reel. I’ve actually turned down more offers than I’ve accepted.

Some cool things I’ve said yes to include the neon sign above my desk, art supplies like oil pastels and acrylic markers, and a thermal label printer. But I only say yes to things that fit my brand and are genuinely useful to me. I also only talk about products I actually enjoy using.

I’ve had offers for things like sunglasses and jewelry, but since that doesn’t really match my content, I didn’t accept them—I mean, I can’t really talk about sunglasses in an art video, right?

And just to be clear—I didn’t get paid for those brand deals, but I did get to keep the products, which is still a win!

Paid Brand Deals

Now, moving on to paid brand deals—if you're wondering how many followers you need, honestly, there's no set number. I got my first paid brand deal at around 3,000 subscribers on YouTube. Sometimes brands are more interested in your average views or how engaged your audience is, not just your follower count. They're often looking for smaller, niche creators just like us!

There are a couple of different types of paid brand deals. The first is integrations, where you mention a product or service in your video for around 60 to 120 seconds. These can be pre-roll (at the beginning), mid-roll (in the middle of the video) or post-roll (at the end).

In addition to integrations, you can also get dedicated videos, where the entire video is sponsored by the brand. This is usually in the form of a tutorial or review.

Is the Deal a Good Fit For You?

Once you’ve confirmed that the email is legit, take a close look at what the brand is asking for. Ask yourself: Does this fit well with my content and my business? If it doesn’t feel like a good match, it’s perfectly okay to say no.

Try to understand what the brand’s goals are. What are they actually trying to achieve with this partnership? Are they promoting a specific product or service? Or are they aiming to build overall brand awareness? The more you understand why they’re working with you, the better you can tailor your content to help them reach those goals.

It’s best to get clear on this from the start—either by asking questions over email or even setting up a quick call with the brand. Here are a few helpful questions to ask:

• What would success look like for this campaign?

• Is there a specific message you’d like me to highlight?

• Are you aiming for traffic, sales, brand exposure, or something else?

When you understand their goals, it helps you create content that’s a win for both of you.

How much should you charge?

Base Rate

Here’s my advice when it comes to figuring out what to charge: the first step is setting your base rate. This is the amount you charge for the content the brand is asking for—without any extras or add-ons. (I’ll explain add-ons in a second!)

When I got my first brand deal, I had no idea what to charge—and honestly, there’s not a lot of information out there, especially for small art channels like mine. My tip is to start a little higher than what you think you should charge. If the brand doesn’t try to negotiate down, your price might have been too low, and next time, you can confidently go a bit higher.

Sometimes the brand will offer a price first. They might say something like, “Based on your channel size and average views, we’d like to offer you this much.” It’s totally up to you if you’re happy with that, but keep in mind—they usually expect some negotiation. So don’t be afraid to ask for more and see how they respond. You’ll learn through trial and error, and over time, you’ll get a better sense of what to charge.

Some brands may base their offer on your past performance and calculate an average CPM (cost per 1,000 views). But if your video views vary a lot, it can be tricky to rely on that alone. It’s perfectly fine to factor in other things too, like engagement and content quality.

To give you a rough ballpark figure: at the moment, with my current follower count of 4,000 and average views 1k-5k per video, I typically start at $300–$400 per video.

Add Ons

Now, let’s talk add-ons—these are extra things you can charge for and it’s well worth knowing from the beginning:

• Exclusivity: If a brand says you can’t work with any similar companies for a certain time (like 30 days), make sure to charge more. You could miss out on a better opportunity that comes during that time period.

• Usage rights: This means the brand wants to use your content in their own ads or marketing. If they ask for this—or include it in the contract—make sure there’s a time limit, like 12 months. Otherwise, they could keep using your video forever, even if your channel grows a lot later on.

• Link in bio: If they want you to include a product or website link in your bio or video description, that’s an add-on too. Don’t forget to charge extra for that!

Also, keep in mind: not all brands have big budgets. Sometimes the larger companies offer lower rates because they have so many creators wanting to work with them. Every brand deal is different, and you’ll learn more with each one you do.

Most brands are great to work with, but sometimes you’ll come across ones that might try to take advantage—especially if you’re new or still building confidence in standing up for yourself.

That’s why it’s important to know your worth and be prepared to walk away if a deal doesn’t feel right or isn’t offering fair value. Don’t be afraid to send a counter offer with what you are willing to do.

If they say no, you can simply reply with something like:
‘No problem—this isn’t the right fit for me at the moment, but feel free to reach out again if anything changes.’

Sometimes, they do come back later with a better offer. And remember—if you pass on a deal that doesn’t feel right, something better usually comes along!

Signing A Contract

Once a brand agrees to work with you, they’ll usually send over a contract for you to read and sign. My advice? Don’t sign it right away—take the time to read through it carefully. Contracts can be a few pages long, so give yourself a little time to go over everything.

If it’s your first or second brand deal, you might even consider having a lawyer look it over—just to be safe. After you’ve done a few deals, you’ll start to get more familiar with what to look for.

A handy tip: you can copy and paste the contract into ChatGPT and ask it to flag any areas of concern. Another trick is to use Ctrl + F (or Command + F on a Mac) to search the contract for key terms like:

• Exclusivity / Exclusive

• Usage

• Ownership

• Perpetuity

If you see any of those, pause and check exactly what they mean. Like I mentioned earlier, things like exclusivity or usage rights are often considered add-ons—so if they’re included, it might be worth asking for more money.

Also, make sure you check the payment terms. In one of my deals, the contract said I wouldn’t be paid until after posting three videos over several months. I didn’t feel great about that, so I asked them to change it so I’d be paid after each video went live—which they agreed to.

Another thing to watch out for is long payment windows. If the contract says something like “payment within 120 days,” that’s a really long wait. Try to negotiate that down to 30 days if you can.

And finally, once everything looks good and you’ve signed the contract, make sure the brand sends you back a signed copy for your records. It’s important to have proof of the agreement on both sides.

Reading contracts might not be the most exciting part of the process, but it’s really important. It protects you and ensures you’re being treated fairly.

The purpose of a Media Kit

It’s a good idea to have a media kit prepared that you can send when needed. This should include information the brand can’t find just by looking at your YouTube channel or social media accounts. Consider adding details like:

• Your audience demographics (age, location, gender)

• Your engagement rate

• Total reach across all platforms - for example, you could calculate your total reach across YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok for the past month and include that number.

Start your media kit with a short intro paragraph that explains who you are, what your business is about, and what your target audience is interested in. You should also include links to example content—especially videos where you've worked with brands before. This gives potential partners a feel for what it's like to collaborate with you.

It’s worth considering including tiered packages in your media kit. For example:

• £500 – One YouTube video integration

• £1,000 – One 90-second YouTube integration + one Instagram reel

• £3,000 – One dedicated YouTube video + one Instagram reel + 12-month usage rights

This gives the brand options, so they can choose a package that fits their goals and budget.

If you’ve worked with brands before, mention the successes of those campaigns. For instance, I had a 10% conversion rate for one brand campaign last month—that means 1 in 10 people who clicked the link actually made a purchase. That’s a great stat to share!

Also, include any positive comments or feedback you’ve received on sponsored content.

You can offer extra incentives too, like newsletter mentions or Instagram stories. Highlight any metric that shows a positive impact—brands love that.

Long Term Relationships with Brands

Try to build long-term relationships with brands. If you think a brand might want to work with you regularly, consider not negotiating too aggressively on the first deal. You could even offer a discount for a longer-term partnership—these often perform better over time than one-off collaborations and are usually much more beneficial for you in the long run.

Also, don’t underestimate the value of evergreen content, like educational or tutorial videos. These can keep generating views (and value for the brand) long after they’re published.

I hope you found this blog post helpful. If there’s one thing I want you to take away, it’s this: you don’t need a huge following to land your first brand deal. Many brands are actively looking for smaller, highly engaged channels to partner with. So keep focusing on creating high-quality content and building a real connection with your audience.

If you haven’t thought about brand deals before, I hope this video gave you a bit of inspiration. It’s a fantastic way to earn some extra income as an artist and can become a valuable stream of support for your creative work.

As always, if you have any questions or suggestions for future blog posts, feel free to drop me an email! I'd love to hear from you!