How much should I charge for a product review video?

[Jungle Explorer]

My channel is mostly about outdoor sports related content. Occasionally, I have done product review videos and the equipment I purchase for my own use, just because like watching product review videos myself, but seldom find people that do them well. Anyway, this has attracted some attention from product sellers who contact me asking if I would be willing to do a video review of their product. If it is something within the genre of my channel I will normally do it.

Recently, I am getting three to five emails a day about this. I guess it is due to the season. Anyways, it is starting to turn into real work here. In the past, I have just done them in exchange for the product, mostly because it gave me more attractive video content for my channel. But I think maybe it might be time to start charging for all this work, since I seem to be so popular now.

So here is a list of aspects I do for each product video. If you were doing all these things for a video, what to you think would be a reasonable charge for all this work?

One Full Length Youtube Video of a product up to 20 minutes in length. Includes the following benefits:

1. Footage of unboxing and initial impressions.
2. Full testing of all main features of the product.
3. Footage of hands on product testing in a real world environment (may require travel to a lake or forest)
4. Footage of final thoughts about the product quality and performance.
5. Professional video editing and sequencing.
6. Uploading to youtube channel.
7. Custom unique video thumbnail.
8. Custom written SEO optimized video title.
9. Custom written SEO optimized description
10. Advanced keyword research for video TAGS for immediate high rank in youtube search listing.
11. Placement of product links in youtube video description.
12. Promotion of the video on my associated Facebook and twitter pages.
13. Creation of a unique page for the video on my associated website including product links.

Now I am going say that I understand that my channel only has 3,200 subs and that is not a lot. But many of my product review videos have gotten 50 thousand plus views. One I did last month already has over 13,000 views, and I know that dozens of that product have been bought as a result.

So what would you charge if it were you and you had my channel?

 

[Nicekid76]

Brands care about views but more than views they want to know that the views turn into purchases. Who cares if you get 10 million views on a product review if no one buys the product after watching it.

There's a youtube channel called Video Creator. They did a video a while ago where they help creators find out how much they should charge for brand deals.
They don't give you a solid number but give you some things to think about. Also they give you a tool that might help determine you channels base worth.
They also mention that channels between 1000 to 100,000 are worth a lot because they are large enough that there's an audience and small enough that the creator actually has a connection to the audience. Creators who are connected to the audience has more influences (as much as Hank Green might hate that word) on their audience

If that helps at all look the video up.

Video title - Determining How Much to Charge for a YouTube Sponsorship
Channel - Video Creators.

 

[601Travels]

Brands care about views but more than views they want to know that the views turn into purchases. Who cares if you get 10 million views on a product review if no one buys the product after watching it.

There's a youtube channel called Video Creator. They did a video a while ago where they help creators find out how much they should charge for brand deals.
They don't give you a solid number but give you some things to think about. Also they give you a tool that might help determine you channels base worth.
They also mention that channels between 1000 to 100,000 are worth a lot because they are large enough that there's an audience and small enough that the creator actually has a connection to the audience. Creators who are connected to the audience has more influences (as much as Hank Green might hate that word) on their audience

If that helps at all look the video up.

Video title - Determining How Much to Charge for a YouTube Sponsorship
Channel - Video Creators.

Solid advice!

 

[Jungle Explorer]

I agree with you that views do not mean much, but in the grand scheme of things, a view on a youtube product review video is worth way more then say a view on a TV commercial. People do not randomly look up products they have no interest in to watch videos about them. To an advertiser, what is the number most sought after piece of information about a consumer? They want to know what the consumer is interested in. Think about it like this. Would you rather spend a $1000 to buy a million ad impression to serve to a million random people that you have no idea whether or not they are interested in your product? Or, would you rather spend $1000 to show a commercial to 10,000 people that are specifically looking at your product? Just to illustrate my point. Just last night I got a comment on a review of a fishing pole. That review has over 20,000 views. The comment was asking for my recommendation for larger fishing rod then the one reviewed. I was busy and did not answer right away. When I finally did answer and gave my recommendation, the viewer responded back with this,

"Jungle Explorer I have to say.... that might be the worse timing ever... literally not even 2 minutes ago I just put together and ordered a $140 setup XD"

What does this statement tell us. It tells us, 1. That this person was watching my fishing rod review because he was in active pursuit of looking for a rod to buy. 2. It tells us that after watching my video, he felt that I could advise him on what would met his needs (I had influence with him). and 3. He was ready to spend good money if he found a worthy product.

Do you see my point here? When I say my product review videos have tens of thousands of views, it is not the same thing as saying my funny cat video has a million views. People watch my product review videos because they are actively looking to buy a product in that category and are ready to spend money. That is Pin Point marketing right there, buddy. I tell you. Google would give up it's first born child (if it had one) to have that level of precision marketing.

If I could offer up a marketing service that promised that your ad would only be shown to people that are actively seeking to buy a product in the same category, how much do you think that would be worth? A lot!

 

[videoeditgr]

he felt that I could advise him on what would met his needs

a two sided knife. If they end up disapointed to the product they might also turn to you through comments...

Except this, numbering actions from 1 to 13 as you did in your post seem the best way, calculate time and assets spent on every action, just do a research what others charge and put separate price tags and do the sum. So you will have an estimation and also a really nice proposal ready. TBH this 1-13 list was impressive to my eyes. Good luck!

 

[GameVestment]

A good free tool you can use to answer your question is Social Bluebook, I really think it will make your life easier since a lot of people here will have different opinions.

This webpage pretty much gives you an estimate of your worth on social media, depending on your views and subscribers, It gives you a range of what you should charge a company for a direct upload/shoutout, is up to you if you want to go low or high. Take into account that they don't consider the work/time you put in the video but is still a great first step to know how much you should be asking for and if the company asks you why you are charging that, you will look more professional saying you use Social BlueBook than saying you don't know what you are doing.

And I believe you are wrong, views are what companies use to determine if they work with a YouTuber or not. Yes, purchases are the priority for a company but you can't buy that and no one can promise you that, that's why views are the best indicator. I see this everyday in famebit.com Companies there are paying you tubers from 100USD to 1000USD or even more per video, but pretty much all of them are asking that your videos have at least 10K views. That's like the minimum amount of views companies in famebit are asking for! They are paying you for Impressions/Views, it doesn't matter if people don't buy it (that's another issue related to marketing) what matters is that you are showing the video and if it's to a niche and to people that trust you is event better. Same happens here when people complain that they spent 20USD in Facebook campaign, FB showed their YT channel to thousands of users but they only got like 5-10 subscribers. That's how it works, you pay for the Impressions, running a successful campaign is another whole topic.

Good luck and hope it helps!

 

[UhoohExtra]

you could try to quantify value by using an example of a video with say 50k views. And reflect on how much that would have cost for the brand to buy instead if they had bought those as paid for views from youtube. A lot thats for sure. And the difference in watch time minutes would be 1000s times more in favour of organic targeted views vs micro views of skippable ads. i like that.. i'll write that down for my brand pitches.. oh already did

 

[Jungle Explorer]

A good free tool you can use to answer your question is Social Bluebook, I really think it will make your life easier since a lot of people here will have different opinions.

This webpage pretty much gives you an estimate of your worth on social media, depending on your views and subscribers, It gives you a range of what you should charge a company for a direct upload/shoutout, is up to you if you want to go low or high. Take into account that they don't consider the work/time you put in the video but is still a great first step to know how much you should be asking for and if the company asks you why you are charging that, you will look more professional saying you use Social BlueBook than saying you don't know what you are doing.

And I believe you are wrong, views are what companies use to determine if they work with a YouTuber or not. Yes, purchases are the priority for a company but you can't buy that and no one can promise you that, that's why views are the best indicator. I see this everyday in famebit.com Companies there are paying you tubers from 100USD to 1000USD or even more per video, but pretty much all of them are asking that your videos have at least 10K views. That's like the minimum amount of views companies in famebit are asking for! They are paying you for Impressions/Views, it doesn't matter if people don't buy it (that's another issue related to marketing) what matters is that you are showing the video and if it's to a niche and to people that trust you is event better. Same happens here when people complain that they spent 20USD in Facebook campaign, FB showed their YT channel to thousands of users but they only got like 5-10 subscribers. That's how it works, you pay for the Impressions, running a successful campaign is another whole topic.

Good luck and hope it helps!

I have tried Social Bluebook. It is a great concept, but it just is not what it is supposed to be. It is supposed to be a standard, like the NADA Blue Book or the Kelly Blue Book. A standard is only a standard, if everyone agrees that it is a standard and respects it. Launching a website and calling it a Blue Book, does not automatically make it a standard. I have tried to use my Social Bluebook values in proposals and I either get laughed at or ignored. Nobody knows what it is. Nobody respects it. Every business I have presented my Social Bluebook values to is like, "What the heck is this, and why should I give it any attention." So, Social Bluebook has not become the standard that it wants to be in the Internet Influencer industry. Maybe one day it will be, but it is not anywhere near that right now. There are several problems with it.

1. Their website is a joke. It is not at all user friendly.
2. Their system is not transparent. They present a value, without giving any reason behind how they arrived at that value.
3. They are a paid site. The Kelly Blue Book is FREE to use. Social Bluebook is not. They offer a bare minimum free account but any serious tools, they charge a steep monthly subscription for.
4. They recently reduced their free tools and made a lot of their free tools part of their paid service. SB is now even more useless then ever.

If you want to be a standard, you have to give your main product away until people become dependent on it. That is how Bill Gates made Windows OS the standard for PCs back in the early days of personal computing when you bought a personal computer for thousands and then had to spend hundreds more to buy an OS for it. Social Bluebook wants to be standard that business respect to judge how much money they should pay out influencers. It will never become that until it is widely used. It will never become widely used as long as it is a paid service, Transparent and it is EASY to use. None of which it is right now. Like I said, it is great concept, but it is not what it is supposed to be. It is not a Standard that people respect.

"And I believe you are wrong, views are what companies use to determine if they work with a YouTuber or not"

I am not the one that said views were not important. I made the case that they are very important, especially when those view are on a product review video. Not sure how you misunderstood that.

 

[Crown]

(moved to the monetization forum)

I think the RPM would need to be higher than you could get from adsense to justify the fact that you're giving publicity to a brand for the full duration of the video and it's your image / reputation / brand being used to do that. Honestly if it were me, I'd be looking at $7-8 per thousand views with a guaranteed minimum fee of whatever you feel your time is worth to make the video (in case the video doesn't get enough views to meet that number)

 

[Jungle Explorer]

you could try to quantify value by using an example of a video with say 50k views. And reflect on how much that would have cost for the brand to buy instead if they had bought those as paid for views from youtube. A lot thats for sure. And the difference in watch time minutes would be 1000s times more in favour of organic targeted views vs micro views of skippable ads. i like that.. i'll write that down for my brand pitches.. oh already did

In my real proposals, I quantify every item with a link to a sample. Each item is followed by some sort of link. Take item 7 for example. That would be followed by a thumbnail sample page on my website showing real thumbnails that are currently active on my youtube videos, like these.

[DOUBLEPOST=1542301038,1542300017][/DOUBLEPOST]

(moved to the monetization forum)

I think the RPM would need to be higher than you could get from adsense to justify the fact that you're giving publicity to a brand for the full duration of the video and it's your image / reputation / brand being used to do that. Honestly if it were me, I'd be looking at $7-8 per thousand views with a guaranteed minimum fee of whatever you feel your time is worth to make the video (in case the video doesn't get enough views to meet that number)

That is a good idea. What you are suggesting is to establish a commission based value system, where they pay me commission based on how many views my video gets. That is actually an extremely good idea. This way, they are not spending money upfront for an untested product, and I my earning depends on the performance of the product. I LIke it! It is fair.

The problem is, I am dealing mostly with Chinese companies right now. Well, actually I am dealing with Sellers of Chinese products. Our communication is strictly by email, and I doubt very seriously that any of them are using their real name. I love your idea of them paying me based on performance, but how do I make them uphold their end of the agreement and pay me at the end of the month for the views. What is to keep them from copying my video and using it and never paying me a dime? Do you have any ideas about how I can do that?