---
title: 'How Sponsorships Work: A Complete Walkthrough for Creators'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=onYMfyk7Y4E'
video_id: 'onYMfyk7Y4E'
date: 2026-07-13
duration_sec: 957
---

# How Sponsorships Work: A Complete Walkthrough for Creators

> Source: [How Sponsorships Work: A Complete Walkthrough for Creators](https://youtube.com/watch?v=onYMfyk7Y4E)

## Summary

This video provides a comprehensive, step-by-step guide on how sponsorship deals work for content creators, using a hypothetical partnership with Elgato as an example. The creator explains everything from initial outreach and rate negotiation to contract review, content creation, and invoicing.

### Key Points

- **Setting Up a Business Email** [00:00] — Creators should have a professional business email in their social media bios for companies to reach out.
- **Initial Outreach Email** [01:14] — Companies typically email from an influencer or partnership manager, expressing interest and asking for rates.
- **Rate Negotiation** [02:17] — Everything is negotiable. The creator suggests offering bundle packages (e.g., TikTok + Instagram repost) to upsell.
- **Whitelisting and Usage Rights** [03:40] — Whitelisting allows companies to run ads on the video for a limited time (30, 60, 365 days). Usage rights mean ownership of the video, also time-limited.
- **Contract and Deadlines** [05:20] — Always get a contract. Set a reasonable deadline (e.g., one week after receiving product). Charge a rush fee if needed.
- **Reading the Contract** [06:42] — Read every line. Companies may sneak in extra terms (e.g., usage rights). Redline (mark up) parts you disagree with.
- **Payment Terms (Net)** [08:27] — Net 15, 30, 45, or 90 days after invoice. Negotiate for shorter terms if possible.
- **Script and Shot List** [09:26] — Send a script with a shot list for approval to minimize reshoots. Include specific requirements from the brand.
- **Video Delivery and Watermarking** [11:36] — Send a draft for approval. Watermark the video to prevent theft before payment.
- **Invoicing** [12:47] — Send an invoice with unique number, payment terms, bank details. Use bank routing to avoid PayPal fees.

### Conclusion

Sponsorships involve multiple steps from outreach to payment, and every detail is negotiable. Creators should protect themselves with contracts, clear terms, and thorough review.

## Transcript

let me walk you through the a toz of how a sponsorship looks like so that you started doing sponsorships I literally had no idea how it worked I was like do hypothetically use this as an example this is not how my partnership with
this as an example because I need to show you a product to try to make it make sense okay so hypothetically let's talk about a partnership with Elgato typically what you would have is you would have a business email that you
would put in the bio of all of your social media platforms if you do not have a business email in the bio of your social media platforms go to Gmail or go to Hotmail or whatever email service you want to use make a business email okay
just make a new email account make it sound professional either just have your username at gmail.com if you can't get it do username business username official blah blah blah blah blah blah blah and then stick that email in the
primary way companies will reach out to you they will go look for your business email and reach out to you through there there are times where they will DM you it is not very frequent and typically companies want to use a more
email let's say you have your business email in your all of your social media bios and then now a email will pop up in your inbox it will probably look
something like this it will be from somebody with a specific role so it will be typically from the influencer manager or the partnership manager that works at Elgato they sometimes they have one sometimes they have multiple people they
will send you an email the bile will say something like partnership with Elgato potential partnership and in the body of the email it will they will reach out so they'll be like hi my name is I don't know so and so from Elgato I really like
your work I think you're cool I would love to go and partner with you for promoting the stream deck Neo they will tell you what they are looking for so typically they'll say hey we would like you to make a video about our stream
deck Neo what are your rates it will look some ways like that okay typically if they come out guns blazing they will immediately ask what are your rates and then this is where it gets very messy this is the email negotiation phase
agreement let me tell you this right now everything is negotiable everything to make a a Tik Tok video for the stream deck Neil what are your rates I would
would love to make a video promoting the stream deck Neil for this I charge $22,000 for one Tik Tok video you would tell them your rate there are some things that you need to clarify as well by the way I tell them my rate for one
Tik Tok video with no wh listing and no usage rights is $2,000 what Whit listing is is the usage to run ads on your video whitelisting has a time limit it is not
indefinite the standard time limits for Whit listing are 30 days 60 days and 365 days AKA one year so this will be something you will negotiate down the line and usage rights is ownership of your video so then I will send them the
file of the video and they will have it and they'll be able to use it there is also a time limit for ownership of your video typically again 30 days 60 days 1 year those are the standards but anything goes they can ask for two years
they also can ask for imp perpetuity usage what imp perpetuity means is forever I make it very clear that when they reach out to me I am like yes this is my rate $2,000 for no white listing no usage rights just straight video goes
email when they're asking for my rates I like to add bundle packages okay so just because Elgato emailed me and they asked me for one video promoting the stream
deck Neo I respond back with oh so my rate for one video without white listing without usage rights is $2,000 however I also have an Instagram page with 880,000 followers and I also have a YouTube channel with 30,000 followers I
can offer you a repost of this video to my Instagram and to my YouTube shorts and I will bundle this all together for $3,000 y don't want to upsell so I send will get responses during working business hours okay because at the end
of the day there is a human being emailing you back and um yeah they don't work on weekends so obviously if I send Elgato my response email on a Friday I will not get a response back from Elgato typically until Monday let's say
hypothetically Elgato emails me back and they're like hey Cat you know we actually really do like this bundle idea that you you said for the stream deck Neo but could you budge on the rate a little bit this is all negotiating again
fudge on the rate a little bit to make this cheaper for you I can offer you another bundle as well so I could offer you um I don't know I'm throwing it out there I could offer you $2500 to make one vertical video about
your stream deck Neo that I will then post on my Tik Tok and repost to my Instagram reals I send that email to Elgato Elgato will come back to me and they'll be like cool um we can lock in for this rate this looks great now I
have the verbal okay from Elgato that we're going to do a sponsorship for the stream deck Neo that will post onto my Tik Tok and onto my Instagram reals now I need the contract don't work without a contract guys you will get scammed
next step okay I will ask Elgato hey when do you want this video by by the later it's like hey by the way what's the deadline for this video just putting
make this video in 2 days you need to charge a rush fee on top of your original rates because they're asking for more work because it's so short of a and a half two weeks they will also by the way if you don't have the product
to you sometimes it gets a little bit messy because sometimes shipments don't arrive on time this that and the third right but I will tell aato I'll be like cool you want this video in two weeks I will give you a onewe window where I
will turn over this video the moment that I get this in hand I always try weeks let's be reasonable here okay if for some reason USPS Drop Kick this to Narnia I am not going to turn over this video in one day if the reshipment
whatever so like when I get this product in hand like within one week I will turn zero work unless I get the contract and I tell them I'm like hey by the way I
exception there's some companies that I've worked with that are reputable actually work on the video before I even sign the contract but I have worked a
lot with Adobe to this point where I trust them I typically do not work by email and then you have to read the contract this is where it also gets messy a lot of times you will agree to things in the email and then the company
will start scamming you in the contract they will sneak things in that you very messy I am not a legal attorney I am not a lawyer I have no professional
legal experience and reading contracts I just have my own experience as a content deliverables in the contract like there'll be a thing where like social media Creator and blank name you have to fill it in with your own name is
parentheses like C page whatever C line or section 14 for deliverables on this day and will receive a payment of $2,500 scroll to where you see the
deliverables read it make sure it is what you guys agree to one TI Tok video reposted to Instagram reals if they start putting Whit listing usage rights own owns the likeness to your face and Brands and Lincoln bio all that other
stuff that you didn't agree to then we go back to negotiating then it's called redlining which is you mark up the parts in the contract you don't agree with you Redline it you send it back and you're like hey by the way we didn't agree to
um let's say hypothetically they snuck in 30 days usage I'll be like hey Elgato we did not agree to 30 days usage of my videos um could you admit this in the contract and then I will sign it even the contract I'm saying is negotiable
always read every single contract it is a legal binding document by the way we will pay you net 15 30 45 60 90 whatever so what net payment net is is
it is the amount of time they have to pay you from receiving the invoice so if it's net 30 by the time they get my invoice they have 30 days to pay me 15 30 45 is standard they do any longer than that it's quite a long time you can
negotiate that too you can be like hey so I see you have your net 60 for payment can we get this down to a net 30 everything is negotiable I want to say Elgato gives it back they're like whoops totally forgot that we had this
contract and then you send it back to them they will sign it on their ends binding document once you receive the contract in hand that is signed by them
that they also signed so with both signatures on it you can make the video what the company is looking for I will ask for clarity so this is my proc I do stream deck Neo is there anything specifically you want me to cover Etc my
craps like Elgato trust me I trust them they know that I'll make good videos so hypothetically Elgato is like hey I trust that you'll make a good video can
you just specifically mention that we use 100% plastic free packaging and that it's made of 60% recyclable materials so then I'll be like cool story bro sounds great then I will go to Google Drive I will write my little script okay the way
I write my script I use two columns I use a table the left column I will have script the right column I call it shot list so I will say the script and then I will write in the shot list how I plan on filming it so the script side will
say okay let me let me just demo this for you this is how I would send the script over so I'll do like script shot list like this so I'm not a videographer just my method so I'll I'll write something like this I will send a script
though over to the company so that they can approve the script the reason why I do it this way is because I want the least re-shoot possible and if you do it you have never worked before so they know exactly how I'm going to film this
video so therefore they can go come back with revisions to the script they could notes like I want you to change this I want you to change that and I'll be like sometimes they're picky they're like hey we want you to show a shot of our
emailing but they will mention it when they see the shot list so that's as I so once you see this you will know how I'm going to film the video and then I
will go and film the video so I will sit done with my little camera I film most of my sponsored videos on this C camera which is a Sony zv E10 and then I record using the Elgato Wave 3 and then I will edit everything together and then I will
careful though cuz sometimes when you do that companies will steal your video is sometimes I will watermarket as an out just put a big words that say cat
lente make it like 30% transparency just slap it across the entire video and I'll reasons then once you finish filming your video you're going to send the video back over to them for approval because you're not going to immediately
you're emailing you're going to ask them or they will ask you what are you going you can you use hash Elgato partner and # Elgato and any other #s fit they will
use the term copy for this so they will say hey can you provide me the copy or same thing I'll tell them like okay here's my caption # ad check out the new Elgato stream deck Neo it's an amazing cop for the price and then # Elgato
partner # Elgato # cat lante # twitch whatever I send it over to them and then they they see and they will approve the copy and they will come back to me post tomorrow anytime the next day I will post the video on both my Tik Tok
reach out to them and or they'll reach out to me one way or the other but it invoice you or they will say hey here is the platform you have to onboard on for
invoicing you will make an invoice and you will send it to the company there's receipt essentially there's a lot of information you need to keep though you need to have your name or your business name if you do file under an LLC at es
Corp then your address or your business address and then a contact so your phone their business name their address their contact number all on the invoice and
then you're going to need an invoice number number it has to be unique so invoice one invoice 2 invoice 3 invoice four you cannot have multiple invoice fours for instance you also need to put the net so net 15 net 30 net 45 put that
on the invoice put what it is and what you're getting paid for I like to put like one Tik Tok video promoting the Elgato stream deck Neo $22,000 next line
one instagram real repost of the Tik Tok video of the elato stream deck Neo $500 and then you total it up like a receipt on the bottom it'll be $2,000 $500 bank routing you may have to put your bank information on the invoice as well
electronic one don't use the wiring number for it that's typically how the afterwards there's also like invoice templates online you can yoink you can
will pay you in PayPal if they pay you in PayPal PayPal will take a cut so ideally use the bank routing method if they offer it rather than you going lot of tools for creators beacons also has an invoicing option in beacons as
well that you can go check out but these are all ways to send invoice essentially that I did pay me bro and here's how long you have to pay me so yeah you have unfortunately if the company didn't budge and you signed the contract
stating that it's going to be net 45 it will be net 45 you send the invoice back them that one gets really tricky there's been instances where companies like
would not pay you can then legally hold them accountable because you signed a and then ding you're good that is how a sponsorship on average will look like from start to finish it is extremely Case by case so I am only speaking on a
very hypothetical again this is not how my partnership with Elgato looked like it came out a very different way Etc I'm just using it as an example so I can have a product in hand to show you but this is how it would potentially look
like cuz there is a lot of um Hush Hush gray area in how it looks like because if you've never done one you might not know how it looks like [Music]