The UGC glossary
Plain-English definitions of the pricing, licensing, and workflow terms every brand runs into when buying UGC — so a quote reads the same to you as it does to the vendor.
Researched by Gan Liu · Founder & lead researcher
- UGC (user-generated content)
- In the marketing sense, authentic-looking content — usually short video — commissioned to feel like a real customer post, then used by the brand in its own ads and pages. Distinct from the spontaneous, unpaid content actual users share on their own.
- UGC creator
- A paid content producer who films authentic-style videos for a brand to use in the brand’s own marketing. Unlike an influencer, they are hired for the content itself, not for access to their audience.
- Usage rights
- The licence terms defining how, where, and for how long a brand may use a piece of content — which channels, organic or paid, and for what duration. Narrow rights are cheaper; broad or all-channel rights cost more.
- Exclusivity
- A clause barring a creator from producing content for competing brands, usually within a category and for a set window. Often sold as a paid add-on rather than included by default.
- Whitelisting / allowlisting
- When a creator grants a brand permission to run paid ads through the creator’s own social handle, so the ad appears to come from the creator rather than the brand. Also called allowlisting.
- Spark Ads
- A TikTok ad format that promotes an existing organic post — the creator’s or the brand’s — as a paid ad, keeping the original post’s likes, comments, and handle. It needs an authorisation code from the account that owns the post.
- Partnership Ads
- TikTok’s ad format for running creator content as paid ads with proper disclosure — the successor to Branded Content and Spark Ads. The brand promotes a creator’s post, existing or custom-made, once the creator authorises it.
- Per-video pricing
- A flat fee charged for each finished video or deliverable. Simple to reason about per asset, but usage rights, revisions, and raw footage may be priced separately on top.
- Subscription pricing
- A recurring monthly or annual fee that grants a set volume of videos or ongoing access over the billing period. Unused volume often does not roll over.
- Credit-based pricing
- A model where you pre-purchase credits and redeem them for deliverables, with different asset types costing different numbers of credits. Watch for credits that expire or are forfeited on downgrade.
- Marketplace fee
- A commission or service charge a platform adds on top of the creator’s own rate for matching, payments, and dispute handling. It can be charged to the buyer, the creator, or both.
- Minimum spend
- The smallest order or contract value a platform or creator will accept. A low per-video rate paired with a high minimum can raise the real cost of a first order sharply.
- Turnaround
- The elapsed time from an approved brief to delivery of the finished asset. Rush turnaround is sometimes offered at a premium; product shipping time is often excluded from the quoted figure.
- Raw footage
- The unedited source clips a creator captured, delivered without post-production. Useful for re-editing in-house, but frequently an add-on rather than part of the standard deliverable.
- Licensing term / perpetual license
- The length of time granted usage rights stay valid. A fixed term expires and must be renewed to keep running the content; a perpetual licence grants indefinite use with no expiry.
- Organic vs paid usage
- The distinction between posting content in unpaid feed posts (organic) and running it behind ad spend (paid). The two are commonly licensed and priced separately, and paid usage is the more expensive right.
- AI UGC / AI avatar
- Videos built with a synthetic on-screen presenter and generated voice rather than filmed by a human creator. Faster and cheaper to produce, with different disclosure and likeness considerations.
- Creator marketplace
- A platform where brands browse creator profiles and hire, brief, and pay individual creators directly for content, typically with the platform taking a fee on each transaction.
- Influencer platform
- Software that connects brands with influencers for sponsored posts to the influencer’s own audience. Distinct from UGC: the deliverable is a post on the influencer’s channel, not footage the brand owns and distributes itself.
- Managed service
- A done-for-you model where the platform sources creators, writes briefs, and handles quality control on the brand’s behalf, usually at a premium over self-serve ordering.
- Creative brief
- The document that tells a creator what to make — hook, script or talking points, format, do’s and don’ts, and any legal or claim restrictions. A tight brief is the main lever on whether the first cut is usable.
- Revision
- A requested round of changes to a delivered asset. Contracts usually cap how many revisions are included before extra rounds are billed, so the revision count is a real cost line.
- Deliverable
- A single finished asset the brand receives — for example one edited video in a specified aspect ratio and length. Orders are counted and priced in deliverables.
- Rights transfer
- Assignment of ownership — the copyright itself — from creator to brand, which goes further than a licence to use. Full transfer lets the brand treat the content as its own indefinitely, and commands a higher price.