What Should I Charge for a Sponsorship? Calculator
Enter your average views per video and your niche — get a defensible asking range for a sponsored integration, built on the CPM-style model brands themselves use.
How sponsorships are actually priced
Most brand deals are negotiated in a CPM-style frame: a rate per 1,000 expected views. What the calculator adds is the two adjustments brands actually make — niche tier (a finance audience is worth multiples of a gaming audience to most sponsors) and the fit band (the ±40% spread that covers how precisely your audience matches the brand's buyer). Use average views from your last 10 videos' first 30 days, not your best video and not lifetime numbers — brands check, and quoting from your outlier reads as either naive or dishonest.
Why small channels out-price big ones more often than you'd think
Brands don't buy views; they buy customers. A 10,000-view channel where every viewer is a woodworker out-prices a 100,000-view generalist channel for a saw brand, because conversion — not reach — is what the sponsor's spreadsheet measures. This is why the calculator's range is a floor to negotiate from, and why the strongest single word in your pitch is specificity: who exactly watches you, and why exactly they'd buy.
Running the negotiation
Quote the midpoint of your range first — opening at your floor means finishing below it. Price the formats separately: a 60-second integration is the base unit; a dedicated video runs 2–4×; usage rights (the brand running your clip as an ad) is a separate line item that many creators give away for free without noticing. Get deliverables in writing: length, placement (early integrations cost more than end-of-video), revisions included, exclusivity window. And disclose every deal on-platform and in-video — it's the law in most markets (FTC rules in the US), and audiences punish hidden ads far harder than declared ones.
Track your accepted rates over time. Your real market rate is what brands actually pay you, and after three deals you'll have a private benchmark better than any public calculator — including this one.
Frequently asked questions
How much should I charge for a YouTube sponsorship?
The common negotiating frame is a rate per 1,000 expected views, tiered by niche: entertainment audiences at the low tier, finance/business at the top (several times higher). This calculator applies those tiers to your average views. Dedicated videos price 2–4× a 60-second integration.
How many subscribers do you need for sponsorships?
There's no threshold — brands buy average views and audience fit, not subscriber counts. Channels under 10,000 subscribers land deals constantly in specific niches, because a small, precisely-matched audience converts better than a large general one.
Should I charge per video or per view?
Quote a flat fee per video, calculated from expected views — that's this calculator's output. Pure per-view (performance) deals shift all risk onto you; accept them only with a guaranteed minimum, and price the upside accordingly.
What's the difference between an integration and a dedicated video?
An integration is a 30–90 second sponsored segment inside your normal content; a dedicated video is entirely about the brand. Dedicated videos typically price 2–4× an integration, cost more audience goodwill, and deserve stricter brand-fit filtering — a bad dedicated video spends trust you can't buy back.
Do I have to disclose sponsorships?
Yes — legally in most markets (FTC endorsement rules in the US) and by YouTube policy, which has a paid-promotion checkbox for exactly this. Disclose verbally in-video and in the description. It also converts better: declared partnership reads as credibility; discovered partnership reads as betrayal.
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