UNDER·STUDY
The Model What We Do The Playbook The Benchmark Insights Pricing About Apply
03Brand Deals, Done

Brand deals, done — start to finish.

Sponsorships should be the easy money. Too often they're a second job — chasing replies, guessing at rates, juggling contracts and deliverables between the work you actually want to make. We take the whole thing off your plate: sourced to fit you, negotiated for proper value, and fulfilled end to end, with the paperwork handled.

03·1The problem

Most creators are under-charging and over-working.

Brand deals are the most common income line for creators and also the most fragile — they're one-off, they're cyclical, and they swallow hours of admin that never show up in the cheque. Without someone running them, you take the deals that come to you rather than the ones that fit, you accept the first number on the table, and you wear the contract risk yourself. A brand deal handled badly costs you time, money and credibility with your audience. Done properly, it pays more, fits your brand, and barely touches your week.

03·2How we run it

Three moves, run for you.

STEP 01

Source partners that fit

We go after brands that match your audience and your standards rather than waiting on the inbox — the partnerships your audience will actually welcome, not the ones that make them switch off.

STEP 02

Negotiate and paper it

We hold out for proper value and put the terms in writing — scope, usage, exclusivity, payment. The contract protects you, and you never have to be the one haggling over your own worth.

STEP 03

Manage delivery

We run the deal to completion — briefs, deadlines, approvals, invoicing and chasing payment — so all you do is the part only you can: the work in front of the camera.

03·3Where deals sit in the mix

A bonus stream,
not the base.

For the typical creator, brand deals make up roughly 59% of income — one fragile line carrying the whole business. We don't kill the deals; we run them better and build owned revenue underneath, so a quiet sponsorship month stops being a broke one. Deals become the cream on top, not the foundation.

Income mix · share of totalBefore → with Understudy
Before — one line carrying it
With us — owned revenue underneath
Brand dealsOwned & recurring
Illustrative income mix. Brand-deal share figure: Understudy Creator Monetisation Benchmark, 2026 (public-data synthesis). Read the report →
What it earns

Better deals,
none of the admin.

Handled well, brand deals fund the rest of the build while it grows — and because we run them properly, they tend to pay more for less of your time. The relationships, the rates and the reputation stay yours. We work on the same terms as everything we do: no upfront cost and no retainer, and we only take a share of the brand revenue we actually bring in and deliver.

The Run-SheetThe other four

The rest of what
we run.