What to put in a brand deal contract: a creator's checklist

Creator contracts are mostly reasonable and mostly boilerplate. The problem is that the boilerplate is written by the brand's lawyers, defaults in their favour, and contains two or three clauses that are worth real money to you.

You don't need a law degree to read one. You need to know which clauses matter. Here's the checklist.

This is general information, not legal advice. For anything large, unusual, or with terms you don't understand, get a lawyer to look at it. The cost of an hour of advice is trivial next to a perpetual licence you didn't mean to grant.

The eight clauses that matter most

1. Deliverables, described precisely

The contract should say exactly what you're making: how many pieces, on which platforms, in what format, and roughly how long.

Vague deliverables are the number one cause of scope creep. "Social content for the campaign" can mean one video or nine. Get numbers.

Also check whether it specifies things you might not have agreed to verbally: a specific posting time, required hashtags or disclosures, tagging requirements, or a minimum time the post must stay live.

2. Usage rights and duration

The single most valuable clause in the document.

Look for where the content can be used, how long for, which territories, and whether it's exclusive. If the contract says "in perpetuity", that means forever, and it's the standard opening position in most templates.

Ask for a term. Twelve or twenty-four months is frequently accepted with no argument, because the brand's campaign will be over long before then, and it means they come back to renew.

Watch for "all media now known or hereafter devised", which covers formats that don't exist yet, and "sublicensable" or "transferable", which lets them pass your content to a retailer or parent company.

3. Exclusivity

What you can't do, with whom, and for how long.

Three things to check: how broad is the category, how long does it last, and when does it start. "No competitor brands" is meaningless without a definition, and a broad category definition can block a surprising amount of work. If you make coffee content and the exclusivity covers "beverages", you've just lost tea, energy drinks and water for six months.

Exclusivity is the clause most worth pricing or removing, because it costs you deals you'll never even hear about.

4. Payment terms

Look for the amount, the trigger and the timeline.

The trigger matters more than people expect. "Payable on publication" is normal. "Payable on approval" hands them a reason to delay indefinitely by not approving. "Payable within 30 days of invoice, invoice to be submitted after publication" is clear and fine.

Net 30 is standard. Net 60 is common with large brands and worth pushing back on. Anything longer, ask for a deposit.

Also check: does it say what happens if they pay late? A late payment clause is unusual in creator contracts but you can ask for one.

5. Approvals and revisions

Look for a cap on revision rounds and a deadline for their feedback.

Without a cap, "one more small tweak" is unlimited free work. Two rounds included, further rounds billed, is a normal and defensible position.

Without a feedback deadline, your project can sit waiting for three weeks and then become urgent. Something like "brand to provide consolidated feedback within five business days" protects your schedule.

6. Kill fee and cancellation

What happens if they cancel.

If they pull the campaign after you've shot but before you've published, are you paid? A kill fee of 50% after production has started is a reasonable ask, and its absence is worth noticing before you block out a shoot day.

7. Content ownership

Distinct from usage rights, and often confused with them.

Usually you retain ownership and grant a licence. Some contracts include a work-for-hire or assignment clause, which transfers ownership outright. That means you no longer own your own video, may not be able to use it in your own portfolio, and cannot license it to anyone else.

If a contract assigns ownership, that should cost significantly more than a licence, and for most creator deals it isn't necessary at all.

8. Indemnity and liability

Boilerplate, but read the shape of it.

Indemnity clauses often ask you to cover the brand's costs if something goes wrong. Reasonable if it's limited to things you control, such as your content being original and your disclosures being compliant. Unreasonable if it's unlimited or covers the brand's own product claims.

Look for a liability cap, ideally limited to the fee you were paid. Uncapped liability on a $600 deal is a bad trade.

The quick pass

If you have five minutes, check these in order:

1. Does it say perpetual anywhere? Ask for a term.
2. Is there exclusivity, and how is the category defined?
3. Is payment triggered by publication or by approval?
4. Is there a cap on revisions?
5. Does it assign ownership rather than grant a licence?
6. Is liability capped?
7. Do the deliverables have numbers?
8. Is the fee the number you agreed, with the add-ons you agreed?

Six of those eight are worth money. All eight take five minutes.

What pushing back sounds like

Redlining a contract feels confrontational the first time. It isn't. Brands do this every week and expect it.

Thanks for sending this over. Two small things before I sign:

Could we change the usage term from perpetual to 12 months? Happy to discuss renewal after that if the campaign is still running.

And could we cap revisions at two rounds, with anything beyond that quoted separately? Just so we both know where we stand on timing.

Everything else looks good to me.

Short, specific, friendly, and it asks for two things rather than fifteen. In practice a large share of these requests are simply accepted, because the person you're emailing wants the campaign to go ahead.

Keeping the paperwork somewhere useful

The contract matters most twelve months after you sign it, which is exactly when it's hardest to find.

The questions that come back are always the same: is the licence still running, am I still under exclusivity in that category, and did they ever actually pay the second half. If your contracts live in an email thread and your invoices live in a spreadsheet, answering those takes an afternoon.

Vantr keeps the agreement, the deliverables and the invoice attached to the deal, and it can draft and send a contract for e-signature if you don't have one. It's free to start. A dedicated folder with consistent file names does the same job. Whichever you pick, the important part is that a year from now you can find it.