Calculating the price floor below which a brand deal loses you money

Calculating the price floor below which a brand deal loses you money

Thesis: creators evaluate offers against a vague sense of "worth it." Replace it with a computed floor.

The calculation:
— Estimate total production hours: scripting, filming, editing, revisions, approvals. Brand approval cycles are the hidden time sink, often doubling editing hours.
— Assign your target hourly rate — what your time earns on your own monetized content.
— Add the opportunity cost: the post slot a sponsorship occupies can't run your highest-converting affiliate or product content.
— Add a friction premium for exclusivity, usage, and revision rounds.
— The floor is the sum. Any offer below it is a net loss, however flattering the brand.

Caveat: opportunity cost is an estimate built on your own variable returns, so treat the floor as a range, not a hard line.

Implication: knowing the floor lets you decline confidently and counter precisely.

What we still don't know: how often creators accept below-floor deals unknowingly, since almost none track production hours rigorously enough to compute it.