Guide
Influencer brief checklist
This page is not legal, tax, financial, or other professional advice. For a live deal, talk to a lawyer and a tax or finance specialist in your jurisdiction — BlueRateCard is not either.
The twelve items
Send this as a numbered list. Green = you can quote. Yellow = quote a range with the expensive assumption. Red = no number.
1. Legal payer
Company name that will pay, not the Instagram handle in DMs. Agency? Who owes the money if the client ghosts.
2. Product and claims
Exact SKU, talking points you accept, claims you refuse (medical, income, guaranteed results).
3. Deliverables
Count, format, length, platform, live date, how long it stays up. “Some content” is not a brief.
4. Posting window
First draft due date and go-live date. If they miss product shipping, the window moves — write that.
5. Usage
Organic only vs paid brand ads vs whitelist/Spark. Term and territory. One of those three, named.
6. Exclusivity
Category sentence + days, or “none”. Silence is not none — they will assume it later.
7. Revisions
How many, how fast they must send notes, what counts as a reshoot.
8. Product logistics
Who ships, tracking, whether you keep it, clock starts on delivery not on “shipped”.
9. Disclosure
Paid partnership label / #ad. They cannot ask you to hide it.
10. Filming constraints
Location, other people on camera, music licensing, their footage they want you to cut in.
11. Payment trigger
Platform hold / deposit / PO number / AP email. No trigger, no quote.
12. Kill / cancel
What they pay if they cancel after you started. If they will not say, assume you need a kill fee in the contract.
Yellow quotes (when they are in a hurry)
Usage TBD
Quote organic + the 90-day Brand-account ads cell. If they only needed organic, they can take the cheaper SKU. Do not quote organic and let them “add Brand-account ads or Creator Boost later” at zero.
Date TBD
Hold is 20% non-refundable or no hold. Calendars are inventory.
Script TBD
Price Native (you write the hook). If they later send a 4-page legal script, that is a new SKU, not a revision.
Cap rounds in the brief before you shoot — see influencer revision rounds on the rate card.
After they pay
- The veto window is for deal-breakers (claims, safety, category conflict), not for you to re-rate because you feel like it.
- A brief that arrives 46 hours in with new usage is a new checkout, not a veto abuse.
- If product never arrives, the clock never started. Do not eat a rush fee because their warehouse is slow.
If they later claim the Reel “isn’t on brand” after approving the cut, use the content-quality dispute checklist — acceptance criteria beat vibes.
Related guides
Rate cards & media kits
Brief questions before you quote
+What must be in a brief before I quote a number?
Who pays, what you post, when, usage, exclusivity, product arrival, revision cap, and the claim you are willing to say. If two of those are missing, you are guessing — and guesses get disputed.
+How long should I wait for a missing brief item?
Forty-eight hours after you send the checklist. Then you either quote a high “TBD usage” version or release the date. Do not hold a Saturday shoot for a brand that cannot name the SKU.
+Can I quote from a voice-note brief?
You can send a range. You cannot lock a fee. Transcribe the note into the twelve items, send it back, and price when they reply “yes, that’s the brief”. Voice notes evaporate in disputes.
+What if the brand sends the brief after I already priced?
The first price was for the first brief. A new brief is a new quote. If they added Spark, a second platform, or a 90-day exclusive, add the cells — do not “honour the old number to be nice”.
+How does a 48-hour veto window work?
They pay (or fund a platform payment hold) on the package. You read the full brief. If you decline, they are refunded and you owe no content. If you accept, the production clock starts. It is not extra time for them to rewrite the script for free.
Quote after the brief, get paid before the shoot
BlueRateCard packages are the SKU. The 48-hour brief veto is the checklist with teeth: decline and the brand is refunded. Free for creators.