This guide explains how to get brand deals as a small creator on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube: how brands find creators, which brand deal platforms are worth joining, how to pitch, and how much to charge. It uses Kolect's own data from thousands of creator deals, so you can see what brands actually agreed to pay creators your size, and how to find brand deals instead of waiting for them.
Can small creators get brand deals?
Yes. Brands are actively adding small creators: in Influencer Marketing Hub's 2026 benchmark survey, 51.43% of respondents planned to expand work with nano creators and 52.83% with micro creators4. In Kolect-run campaigns, 313 agreed deals were with nano creators (under 10,000 followers) at a median fee of $250, and 2,156 with micro creators (10,000–100,000) at a median $4001.
What small creators lack is not demand but visibility and a clear price. The seven steps below fix both.
What counts as a brand deal?
A brand deal is a paid agreement in which a brand pays you, in money or product, to create and post content about it on your own account. It sits next to four related arrangements that pay differently:
| Arrangement | What you do | How you are paid | Followers matter? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brand deal (sponsorship) | Create and post content to your audience | Flat fee, sometimes plus product | Yes, through your views |
| UGC deal | Create content the brand posts or runs as ads | Flat fee per video or photo | Little |
| Affiliate deal (incl. TikTok Shop) | Post with a link or product tag | Commission per sale | Through sales |
| Ambassador program | Post repeatedly over months | Retainer, commission or product | Yes |
| Gifting (PR) | Receive product, post if you choose | Product only | Yes |
Most creators combine them: gifting and affiliate deals early, paid brand deals and UGC once the numbers are steady. If you have almost no followers yet, UGC is the realistic first income; see what UGC creators charge.
Step 1: Make yourself easy to find and contact
Brands find creators through search tools, platform marketplaces and their own scrolling, and much of the first contact happens by email. In Kolect's managed campaigns, the team sent 346,738 outreach emails to 162,576 creator accounts between October 2025 and October 20262; a creator without a public email is invisible to that kind of outreach.
- Add a business email to your bio on every platform you post on, using an address you check daily. Creator search tools, including Kolect's, show the public contact emails of the creators they return18.
- Say your niche in the first line of your bio ("budget home espresso, UK"), in the words a brand would search.
- Post on a steady schedule in that niche. Brands judge you on your typical recent views; a steady median beats one viral video.
- Keep brand-safe. Brands scroll back several months before they contact you.
Step 2: Build a one-page media kit with the numbers brands check
A media kit is a one-page summary of who you are, who watches you and what you have done for brands. Keep it to the numbers a brand checks before replying:
- Platforms and handles, niche, and country.
- Typical (median) views of your last 12 posts, not your best post.
- Views as a share of followers, so a brand can compare you with others your size.
- Audience top countries, age and gender, from your platform analytics.
- Engagement per view.
- Past brand work, including gifted or unpaid collaborations, with results.
- Your rates or a "from" price, and what usage rights cost.
Brands compare you with creators your size. Median views as a share of followers in Kolect's creator database:
Median views ÷ followers by follower tier (Kolect creator database, refreshed Sep–Oct 20263)
| Tier | TikTok | YouTube | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nano (<10K) | 31.59%3 | 74.71%3 | 34.14%3 |
| Micro (10K–100K) | 17.47%3 | 29.44%3 | 19.23%3 |
| Mid-tier (100K–500K) | 10.89%3 | 20.80%3 | 9.73%3 |
If you are above the median for your tier, lead your pitch with it. If you are well below, brands' fake-follower screens may flag you: run your own numbers through Kolect's free fake follower checker to see what a brand will see. Kolect for Creators builds a media kit from verified numbers of your connected TikTok and YouTube accounts, so it stays current without manual updates17.
Step 3: Set your rate before a brand asks
Set your price from your average views, then check it against what creators your size agreed to. Many brands compare creators on price per view, and a number ready in your first reply closes faster than "what's your budget?".
Median agreed fee per collaboration, with the middle half of deals (Kolect-run campaigns, Aug 2025 – Oct 20261)
| Platform | Nano (<10K) | Micro (10K–100K) | Mid-tier (100K–500K) | Micro: fee per 1K average views |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TikTok | $138 ($50–$250)1 | $300 ($175–$500)1 | $500 ($300–$700)1 | $52.361 |
| $250 ($168–$386)1 | $400 ($250–$504)1 | $600 ($400–$1,120)1 | $21.691 | |
| YouTube | $300 ($150–$500)1 | $500 ($300–$800)1 | $800 ($488–$1,430)1 | $47.401 |
To set your own price:
- Take your median views over your last 12 posts.
- Multiply by the fee per 1,000 views for your platform and tier. A hypothetical TikTok creator with 40,000 followers and 8,000 typical views lands at about $419 (8 × $52.36, our arithmetic on the median1).
- Compare with the tier's middle half. That example sits inside the $175–$500 range for TikTok micro deals1, so it is a defensible ask.
- Price usage rights in from the start. 80.4% of single-post agreed deals in Kolect-run campaigns included paid-usage, whitelisting or ad-code rights1; brands expect to run your video as a Spark Ad or partnership ad, so your base rate should assume it, with a premium for long periods or exclusivity.
- Offer a bundle. 14.5% of agreed deals with written deliverables were multi-post bundles1; a three-post package is an easy upsell once a brand says yes.
Expect negotiation. The median micro creator asked $600 against a median agreed fee of $4001, and of 48,203 creator price quotes recorded in Kolect-run campaigns, 1,867 became closed deals2. High quotes were the ones that did not close, so a price tied to your views wins more deals than a high opening number. Kolect's free influencer rate calculator has a creator view: enter your platform, followers and average views to see your tier's typical fee.
Step 4: Join the platforms' own creator marketplaces
Every major platform runs a free marketplace where brands search for creators who opted in. Join every one you qualify for; each has its own entry rules.
| Marketplace | Who can join | What helps you show up |
|---|---|---|
| TikTok One | 18+, at least 1,000 followers for brand projects, in a country where TikTok One has launched5 | Brands filter by follower count, country, language, median video views and engagement rate6 |
| Instagram creator marketplace | Professional accounts join from the professional dashboard, listing brands and interests and building a portfolio9 | Brand offers arrive in a Partnership Messages folder; Meta's 2026 hub adds filters for creators already featuring a brand's products10 |
| YouTube Creator Partnerships (formerly BrandConnect) | 18+, in the YouTube Partner Program, in an available country, no active Community Guidelines strikes12 | Creators who shared channel insights were surfaced 60% more in search results11 |
| TikTok Shop affiliate | Creators eligible for TikTok Shop in their market | Sellers invite creators to target collaborations with a commission of 1%–80% of GMV and optional free samples7 |
Two settings are worth changing today. On YouTube, channel insights sharing is off by default; once you are in the Partner Program, turn it on in YouTube Studio on desktop under Settings, Channel, Advanced settings13. The YouTube Partner Program itself needs 1,000 subscribers plus 4,000 watch hours in 12 months or 10 million Shorts views in 90 days14. On Facebook, creators are now joining Instagram creators in Meta's Creator Marketplace API, so brands can find both through one integration10.
Step 5: Use brand deal platforms that send you briefs
A brand deal platform is a service where brands post campaigns and creators receive invitations or apply. Use them alongside the native marketplaces, because they include brands that never search TikTok One or Instagram.
What to look for before you join one:
- Briefs that state deliverables, deadline and pay before you reply.
- No fee to apply and clear payment terms.
- You keep control: you approve every deal and every message sent in your name.
Kolect for Creators keeps its essential features free for creators: campaign invitations arrive as a brief with deliverables, deadline and pay spelled out; every deal sits on one board from new lead to payment; and Richi, an inbox assistant with read-only Gmail access, flags brand emails that need a reply and drafts answers that go out only when you press Send17. Opt-in marketplaces such as Collabstr and Insense work differently: you list packages or apply to briefs, and the platform handles payment.
Step 6: Pitch brands directly
Direct pitches work best with brands that already pay creators your size, because they have a budget and a process. Find them by looking for posts labelled as paid partnerships or #ad in your niche, and by checking who sponsors creators slightly bigger than you.
Pitch template (keep it near 150 words):
Subject: [Your niche] creator idea for [Brand] — [one-line hook]
Hi [name], I'm [name], I make [niche] videos on [platform] for [audience, country]. My last 12 videos averaged [median views], and [top country] makes up most of my audience.
Idea: [one specific video concept that shows their product solving a real problem].
My rate for one [format] with 30 days of ad usage is [price]. Media kit: [link].
Would you like to try one video this month?
Send it to a named person in marketing or partnerships, not a general inbox, in batches of 10 to 20 so you can follow up properly. Follow up once after a week, then move on.
Step 7: Negotiate, sign and disclose
Agree on the scope before the price: deliverables, posting dates, revisions, usage rights (where, how long), exclusivity, and payment terms. Put it in writing, even a short email that both sides confirm.
Then disclose every paid or gifted post. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission treats free or discounted products as a material connection that must be disclosed, and warns not to rely on a platform's disclosure tool alone16. On TikTok, the Branded Content Policy requires you to turn on the commercial content disclosure toggle when you post8. On YouTube, select the paid promotion option in the video details, which adds a disclosure label to the video15. On Instagram, tag the brand with the paid partnership label. Add a plain "#ad" or "Paid partnership with [brand]" as well.
How to get brand deals on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube
The steps are the same everywhere, but each platform rewards a different kind of proof. Sponsored posts in Kolect-run campaigns reached different shares of creators' followers in their first month:
| Platform | Native route | Median first-month views of sponsored posts ÷ followers |
|---|---|---|
| TikTok | TikTok One, TikTok Shop affiliate | 26.1%2 |
| Instagram creator marketplace | 28.2%2 | |
| YouTube | YouTube Creator Partnerships | 7.6%2 |
- TikTok: brands filter on median video views, so steady views per post matter most6. Join TikTok Shop's affiliate program only if commission-based deals suit your content.
- Instagram: Reels views and saves carry your media kit; Meta's 2026 hub surfaces creators who already post a brand's products10, so post honestly about products you already use.
- YouTube: the 7.6% figure reflects first-month capture only; YouTube says 40% of a video's views happen more than a month after it goes live11, so show brands 90-day views of past integrations.
Keep deals organised and on-brand
Once deals start, the risk shifts from finding them to dropping them. Keep one list of every deal with its stage, deliverables, posting date and invoice status, and plan sponsored posts into your normal content calendar so no more than one in a few posts is paid; your audience stays because your content still sounds like you.
Report results to the brand a week after posting (views, watch time, clicks, comments) and propose a second post or a three-post bundle while the numbers are fresh. Repeat clients are cheaper to win than new ones.
To get brand invitations and manage deals in one place, join Kolect for Creators free. For more on pricing, read the full influencer rates guide, or browse more guides for creators.
Methodology
Kolect's figures come from three first-party datasets. Fee data covers creator-campaign partnerships in Kolect-run campaigns created between 19 August 2025 and 15 October 2026, excluding test campaigns and creators; fees are what the creator was paid, converted to USD at one reference rate. Operations data counts creator price quotes, closed deals, outreach emails and first-month views of published sponsored posts over the same period. Views-per-follower benchmarks come from creator accounts in Kolect's operating creator database, refreshed September–October 2026. Tiers use each creator's current follower count. No brand or creator is identified. Full definitions are in the sources below and in the influencer rates methodology.