Can UGC Really Pay $1,000 a Month?

By Tamra Fakhoorian

UGC stands for user-generated content. In this case, it means making short videos or photos that a company can use to promote its products.

If you are thinking about trying it, the important thing to understand is that you do not necessarily need followers or an audience. You may never post the video on your own social media at all.

The company is paying for the content, not for access to your audience.

That got my attention because I have tried the other version.

Years ago, I experimented with promoting products on TikTok. I had built up a few thousand followers, mostly around my travel and the unusual places I went and things I did. People followed me because they liked that content. Then companies would send me products, I would make little promotional posts or videos, and presumably everybody would live happily ever after when my followers bought the stuff.

I hated it.

It felt like I was using a relationship I had already built with my followers to sell them things they had never asked me about. I never got comfortable with it, so I stopped.

UGC is different. If a skincare company wants a video from a woman my age using its face cream, I can make the video for the company and hand it over. My own followers may never see it.

That changes things considerably for me.

So can an ordinary beginner actually make $1,000 a month doing this?

First, What Does It Pay?

The rates are all over the place.

JoinBrands, one of the larger UGC marketplaces, lists a basic UGC video at a standard rate of $60, although brands can offer less. Creators using its free plan also pay a platform fee, so you are not necessarily keeping the full amount.

Billo says beginner UGC creators generally earn somewhere around $50 to $150 per video across the market, while experienced creators can charge considerably more.

Then there is the Wild West.

I recently found a beginner on Reddit asking other UGC creators whether $4 per video was reasonable.

Four dollars!

And that included three versions of the video.

No way. At that rate, I would find something else to do.

At the other end, the UGC Creators community on Reddit requires brands posting jobs in its weekly opportunity thread to offer at least $150 per finished video. That certainly does not mean every beginner can command $150, but it shows how wide the spread is.

So let’s use some simple arithmetic.

At $50 per video, you need 20 paid videos to gross $1,000. At $100, you need 10. At $150, you need about seven.

That sounds pretty reasonable until you remember that making the video is not the whole job.

You have to find the work.

The Hidden Work

This is the part that interests me most.

A company may want a 30-second video, but first you have to find the opportunity, apply for it, read the instructions, figure out what they want, set up the shot, film it, edit it and send it in. Sometimes they want another opening line, another angle or a reshoot.

Then you go looking for the next company.

So I would not judge UGC by what somebody earns per video. I would want to know what they earn per hour after all the unpaid work around it is included.

I would also pay attention to usage rights. If a company wants to use my face in advertising for six months, that has more value than a video it uses once on its Instagram page. Raw footage, extra versions and extended advertising rights may also be worth additional money.

This is one of those areas where a beginner could easily leave money on the table simply because they do not yet know exactly what they are selling.

The good news is that startup costs can be very low. If you have a decent smartphone, somewhere reasonably pleasant to film and good natural light, you already have most of what you need. A cheap tripod would probably be my first purchase.

I would not buy a fancy camera and studio lights before somebody had paid me a dime.

What If You’re Over 50?

My first assumption was that brands probably wanted a parade of beautiful 23-year-olds holding bottles in front of perfect bathroom mirrors.

But that does not make much sense when you think about who actually buys things.

Companies sell skincare, household products, travel services, clothing, health products and plenty of other things to people in their 50s, 60s and beyond. Those companies need people in their advertising who look like the customers buying those products.

Who is going to be more believable talking about a product aimed at a 65-year-old woman, another 65-year-old woman or somebody who looks like she just finished college?

Age may actually be useful here.

That does not mean brands will suddenly line up at your door because you turned 60. You still have to be reasonably comfortable on camera and learn how to make a useful little video.

But I certainly would not eliminate UGC because I thought I was too old for it.

How I Would Test It

I would not buy a UGC course right off the bat.

I would first take three products already sitting around my house and make three sample videos: one simple demonstration, one where I talk directly to the camera and one showing the product being used.

Nothing fancy. At this point, I am simply trying to find out whether I have any aptitude for it, whether I enjoy it and whether I can get through the filming and editing without wanting to throw my phone across the room.

Then I would put those samples into a simple portfolio and sign up for a couple of marketplaces such as JoinBrands or Billo.

After that, I would give myself a real two-week test. I would track how many jobs I applied for, how many companies responded, what they offered, how many jobs I actually landed and how much time I spent doing all of it.

If I land several paid jobs, I have information.

If I apply for 75 jobs and earn $50, I have information too.

Either result is a lot cheaper than finding out after buying another $997 course.

The Bottom Line

UGC has my attention because it is flexible, home-based and inexpensive to test. It does not require a huge following, and it does not require turning your own audience into customers.

The arithmetic says $1,000 a month is possible. What the arithmetic cannot tell me is how consistently a beginner can find enough decent-paying work to get there, or what that $1,000 looks like once all the searching, applying, filming, editing and revisions are counted.

That is why I like the idea of a two-week test.

Unlike some income ideas I have explored over the years, you can learn quite a bit about UGC without risking much more than your time.

That moves it pretty high on my list.

How about yours?