Running your first UGC campaign
What to pay, how many videos to order, which model to use, and what a first campaign should cost before you know anything.
Two routes, and the first campaign is the same size either way: ten videos, one format, about a thousand dollars, two weeks. Order them from a marketplace at around a hundred each if you want assets this week, or message ten small creators directly on TikTok or Instagram and agree fifty to a hundred and fifty each if you would rather build a roster you keep. Then run the two that perform as paid ads. Do this at five thousand a month, not before, because the brief is the whole job and you cannot write it until you know what makes people say yes.
What does a first campaign look like?
Ten videos, one format, about a thousand dollars, two weeks. Small enough that a null result costs you nothing important, big enough that the result means something.
Pick one format, not a brief
Choose a format that already works for apps like yours and specify it exactly: talking head over a demo, or faceless with the use case as the hook. "Be creative" produces ten different mediocre videos and teaches you nothing.
Get ten videos, from a marketplace or by hand
Ten is enough to see whether the format lands and cheap enough to be a test. A marketplace selling single videos with no subscription is fastest. Messaging ten small creators yourself is cheaper, takes a few evenings, and leaves you with a roster instead of a receipt.
Write the hook yourself
Give creators the first line. You know which complaint your customers actually make, because you wrote it down when you were doing fifty conversations a week. They do not.
Run the best two as paid ads
Organic reach on ten creator videos is not the test. Putting a small budget behind the two best is, because it tells you cost per result rather than whether one video got lucky.
How much should I pay a creator?
About a hundred dollars a video through a marketplace for a first campaign, with usage rights included if you can get them. Published rate cards ask more: a hundred and fifty to three hundred for a beginner, four hundred to eight hundred for an established creator.
The extras are where quotes diverge. Standard asks are 50 to 100 percent on top of the base fee for a year of digital ad usage, and 50 to 100 percent again for whitelisting, which is running the ad from the creator’s own account. Bundles of five or more usually get 15 to 20 percent off. Some marketplaces fold usage rights into the headline price, so a hundred dollars there is not comparable to a hundred dollars from a rate card. Ask what is included before comparing.
Should I pay per video or per view?
Per deliverable for a first campaign, per verified view once a format works. Paying per view is better economics and a worse test, because it only pays out if the thing already performs.
Per deliverable · your first campaign
You get ten videos whether they work or not, which is the point: you are buying information about the format. Predictable cost, no negotiation.
Per verified view · once a format works
You pay for reach that actually happened, and creators post from their own accounts so it compounds. This is the model that scales, and it needs a proven format to attract creators.
Contests and prize pools · at real scale
Creators compete, you pay only for winners and keep the winning videos. Prize pools start around five thousand dollars, so this is a later-stage model rather than a first campaign.
Managed · when the constraint is your time
Hand over sourcing, briefs, review and payouts. A few hundred a month or more on top of creator costs, and worth it only once volume is the bottleneck.
Not yet
- Any of this before five thousand a month. The brief is the job and you cannot write it yet.
- A subscription for your first ten videos. Single-video marketplaces exist for exactly this.
- Whitelisting on a first campaign. Prove the creative before you pay 50 to 100 percent more to run it from someone else’s account.
Good to know
How much does a first UGC campaign cost?
About a thousand dollars: ten videos at roughly a hundred each through a marketplace, plus a small paid budget behind the best two. Two weeks end to end.
How many UGC videos do I need?
Ten for a first test. At volume, expect a very small share of videos to drive most of the views, so the answer past the first campaign is hundreds rather than dozens.
What should I put in the brief?
One named format, the exact first line, and what must appear on screen. Everything else is up to the creator. Open briefs produce variety, and variety is what stops you learning anything from ten videos.
When should I start UGC?
At five thousand a month. Both UGC and influencer work hand your message to other people, so you need to know what the message is first. Below that, make the content yourself.
This expands the Above the clouds camp on the climb, which lays out the stages either side of it. Tools by job are on the route index, the free ones are here, and the other answers are in insights. Updated 30 July 2026.