UGC examples
What good UGC looks like, and how to judge it before you buy
Four videos we filmed, each with the brief it answered and the choice behind it. Read them against four criteria you can then apply to anybody's showreel, including ours.
★★★★★ 5.0 on Google from 10 reviews
Every category, every price, one page
Every category page carries its own six videos, and we will tell you when a cheaper tier does the job. Ask us which one.
Before the examples
Four things to look for, in this order
Most showreels are judged on how nice the footage is, which is the least predictive thing about it. A video that looks beautiful and opens badly will lose to a video shot on a phone that opens well. These are the four we brief against, in the order they matter.
- The first two secondsNot the first shot, the first idea. Ask what the video is asking the viewer to want before anything is explained. If you cannot answer that from the opening frame, neither can a stranger scrolling.
- Whether it belongs in the feedGood UGC is indistinguishable from the posts around it until the moment it is not. If the video announces itself as an advert in the first beat, the format has already failed regardless of what follows.
- Whether the product does somethingThe product should be handled, opened, worn, poured or walked through. A video where the product is only shown is a photograph with movement in it.
- Whether it can be cutOne shoot should yield more than one asset. Ask whether a 15 second version exists inside the 45. If it does not, you bought one placement rather than a set.
The work
Four examples, and the trade each one makes
Four videos, four different venue types. Click to load; nothing streams until you ask it to.
POV: you visit your wedding venue
21 seconds. Lifestyle embed, no voiceover.
Wedding venueMost entertaining restaurant, London
40 seconds. The longest cut of the four.
RestaurantSuper central, budget friendly, top notch quality
54 seconds. A claim made in the title itself.
Budget hotelStaying in a five star hotel in the Alps
9 seconds. The shortest, and the point of it.
Five star hotelBreadth is on the UGC portfolio, where each of the twelve categories carries its own six videos.
Read them back
The same four videos, against the four criteria
This is the part a showreel never shows you. Each video makes a different trade, and none of them is the right answer for every brief. Read the row for the venue closest to yours.
| Video | The first two seconds | The trade it makes | Order this shape when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wedding venue, 21s | A point of view walk in. The viewer is placed inside a decision they are already making. | No voiceover and no claim, so it carries atmosphere and nothing factual. | The space is the product and the buyer is emotional rather than comparative. |
| London restaurant, 40s | Opens on the entertainment rather than the food, which is the actual differentiator. | Length. Forty seconds needs a reason to keep watching at second twenty. | There is a genuine hook the competition does not have, and it is visible. |
| Budget hotel, 54s | A claim in the title, then the room evidencing it. | Claim first is the highest risk opening. It fails hard if the room disappoints. | You are confident the product beats the price expectation. |
| Five star Alpine hotel, 9s | One reveal, no build up. | Nine seconds cannot explain anything, so it works only when the image is enough. | You need volume for paid testing rather than one hero cut. |
All four are hospitality and venue work. The twelve category portfolios carry beauty, fashion, jewellery, food, e-commerce, tech, apps, lifestyle, wellness, unboxing, testimonials and paid ads, and they are linked individually below.
Every category
Twelve UGC categories, each with its own six videos
Every category below has its own portfolio page and its own price ladder. The figure is the entry point, a 15 second Basic video in that category.
| Category | From | See the work |
|---|---|---|
| Beauty and Skincare | £140 | Beauty portfolio |
| Fashion and Clothing | £150 | Fashion portfolio |
| Jewellery and Accessories | £150 | Jewellery portfolio |
| Food and Drink | £160 | Food and drink portfolio |
| E-commerce and DTC | £150 | E-commerce portfolio |
| Tech and Electronics | £165 | Tech portfolio |
| Apps and SaaS | £180 | Apps and SaaS portfolio |
| Lifestyle | £130 | Lifestyle portfolio |
| Wellness and Fitness | £150 | Wellness portfolio |
| Unboxing | £125 | Unboxing portfolio |
| Testimonials | £120 | Testimonials portfolio |
| Paid Ads Creatives | £155 | Paid ads portfolio |
Hotels, restaurants and destinations are priced as campaigns rather than as single videos, because they involve time on site. Those sit on the hospitality range and the travel packages. Prices are in pounds sterling and no VAT is added. If you are ordering from outside the UK your card issuer sets the exchange rate, and anything due in your own country is outside our invoice.
What you get
The same specification in every category
- Lengths priced separately15, 30, 45 or 60 seconds. You buy the length you need rather than a standard length you then have to cut down.
- Aspect ratios9:16, 4:5 and 1:1 on Standard and above, so one shoot covers Reels, feed and square placements. Basic is one ratio.
- Rights, stated before you buyOrganic use on your own channels plus paid media rights for 12 months from delivery. Basic is different: Organic only. No paid media rights at this tier.
- Hooks, which is where the testing happensStandard carries 2 hook variations and Premium 3. Same body, different openings, run as separate ads.
- RevisionsBasic 1 minor round, Standard 1 full round, Premium 2 full rounds. Named rather than implied, so nobody argues about it later.
- The brief and the shoot never pass between strangersThe person who takes your brief is the person filming it, which is the reason a brief survives contact with the shoot instead of arriving back as something adjacent.
The mistake worth avoiding
Buy hooks, not videos
One video, one opening
A single finished video with a single first two seconds. It either works or it does not, and there is no way to find out which without spending the media budget to discover it.
- One asset, one placement
- No comparison, so no learning
- A weak opening cannot be isolated from a weak product
- The next brief is written from an opinion
One body, several openings
The same video body cut with 3 different openings on Premium. Run them together on a small budget and the winner is a fact rather than a preference.
- Three files, one shoot, one fee
- The variable under test is the opening alone
- The result carries into every future brief
- Not a substitute for a product people want
Where the breadth is
Four category portfolios to start with
Every category is on the UGC portfolio hub.
How it works
Order to delivery in four steps
- Pick the category and the lengthFrom the table above, or from the main shop if you want to see every range at once. No call is needed before you buy.
- Send the briefThe product, the audience, the opening you want tested and anything that must be said. We reply within one business day. Send it through the contact page.
- Send the productWhere the video needs one in hand. Delivery to High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. Nothing is filmed until the brief is agreed.
- Receive and run itFiles by shared Google Drive, in every ratio your tier includes, with the rights written down rather than assumed.
Turnaround runs 5 working days on Basic, 7 working days on Standard and 10 working days on Premium, counted from the day the brief and the product are both with us rather than from the order. We film in and around High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom and travel is free within 90 minutes of High Wycombe. International brands order the same way: post the product to the same address, brief by email, and the files come back over Google Drive, so nothing about the process changes outside the UK. Prices are quoted in pounds and your card issuer sets the exchange rate.
Client reviews
What clients say, word for word
“If you want a self-starter with the ability to think strategically and minimize the time between ideation and creation, Velena is your go-to. She has done a phenomenal job with managing our UGC portfolio, curating and creating our content.”
Naila Abbasova, Enara Wellness. Google review, 5.0.“Velena was a pleasure to work with, she worked solely with the brief provided and was even ahead of her deadline. The content produced was clean, professional and on brand. We would love to work with Velena again in the very near future.”
Lauryn Middleton, Social Media Manager, Smirk. Client testimonial, October 2023.“Velena is truly one of our standout creators at Picsart. She consistently brings fresh, innovative ideas to the table and is always tapped into the latest trends. What we especially love is how seamlessly she incorporates AI into her content in a way that feels natural and engaging.”
Kaline Tchamitchian, Senior Social Media Manager, Picsart. Google review, 5.0.Every review is reproduced word for word. Read them all on the reviews page.
Who you work with
Who films it
Velena Nikolova
Co-Founder and Creative Director
Velena leads the filming and the edit on every video, so the brief and the shoot never pass between strangers. A lifestyle creator featured in Women's Health. More on the about page.
Dragos Nistor
Co-Founder and Business Strategist
Dragos runs the brief, the schedule and the delivery, and is on camera for couple and male led work. Named a LinkedIn Top Entrepreneurship Voice in 2024. More on the case studies.
Questions
Before you order
One, in the category closest to your product, at the length you actually need. Judge it against the four criteria at the top of this page rather than against how it feels, and you will know whether the format suits your product for the price of a single video. Ordering three across three categories teaches you three unrelated things and costs five times as much to learn them.
Distribution. UGC is filmed for you and published by you, on your channels and in your ads, under the rights your tier grants. An influencer post is published to the creator's own audience and stays on their profile. This page is about the first. The second is priced on the influencer packages page, where both accounts and all six packages are listed.
From Standard upwards, yes. Organic use on your own channels plus paid media rights for 12 months from delivery. The platforms covered are Meta, meaning Facebook and Instagram, plus TikTok and Google including YouTube. Basic is the exception and is deliberately cheaper for it: Organic only. No paid media rights at this tier. If you already know the video is going into an ad account, order Standard rather than Basic and save yourself a re-licence.
Available lengths are 15, 30, 45 or 60 seconds and they are priced separately. Fifteen seconds is for paid placements where you are buying attention by the second. Thirty to forty five suits organic feed and a product that needs a moment to explain itself. Sixty is for a product with a genuine sequence to it, such as an unboxing or a routine. If you are unsure, order shorter: a long video cut down loses its opening, and the opening is the part that works.
For anything held, worn, opened or applied, yes, to High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. For a venue, an app or a service we come to you or work on screen instead. Nothing is filmed until the brief is agreed, so the product arriving is not the point of no return.
Velena leads the filming and the edit on every video in every category, so there is no handover between the person who had the idea and the person executing it. Dragos runs the brief and the delivery and is on camera for couple and male led work. Nothing is generated, and that consistency across twelve categories is the thing a roster of freelancers cannot promise you.
Top Rated on Upwork with 100 per cent Job Success, and 5 star rated on Fiverr. Both founders guest lecture at the University of Greenwich on social media and content strategy. Velena Lifestyle has been filming since 2022 and has worked with 100+ brands. Our own press is Women's Health. Where you see Vogue, Conde Nast or TimeOut mentioned on this site, that is a client's coverage rather than ours, and it is always labelled that way.
Yes, and you should. Every category in the table above links to a portfolio page carrying six videos in that category. If your category is not listed, or the brief spans several, tell us what you sell through the contact page and we will point you at the nearest work rather than guess.
In practice
How brands actually use this page
The judgement you are really making
Nobody arrives at a page like this wanting to watch videos. They arrive wanting to know whether the standard is good enough to risk a budget on, and whether the person behind it will understand a brief. A reel answers the first question badly and the second not at all, which is why there are four videos here and a great deal about the decisions inside them.
Start in one category, then widen
The pattern that works is to order one video in the category closest to your product, at the length you actually need, and judge the result against the four criteria at the top of this page rather than against how it feels. If the opening earns attention and the product does something, the format suits you and the next order is a bundle. If it does not, you have learned that for the price of one video rather than a campaign.
The thing worth spending on is the opening
Most of the difference between a video that performs and one that does not sits in the first two seconds, and that is the cheapest part of the shoot to vary. Ordering one body with several openings costs a fraction of ordering several videos, and it produces the only piece of information that carries into every brief you write afterwards. It is the single recommendation we make to every client regardless of category or budget.
Where to go next
Pick your category from the table above, or see everything at once in the main shop. If you want the work published to an existing audience rather than filmed for your own channels, that is the influencer packages page. If you want somebody running the accounts as well as filling them, that is social media management. Longer client stories are on the case studies, and every review we hold is on the reviews page.
Four videos told you the standard. Your category tells you the price.
Pick the category closest to your product and the entry figure is on the table above, or send us the brief and we will name the tier, including when the cheapest one is the right one.