Free toolVelena Nikolova and Dragos Nistor, co-founders of Velena Lifestyle

UK UGC rates, 2026

UGC rate calculator built on our own UK rates report

Most rate calculators invent their numbers. This one is anchored to the bands in our UGC Rates Report UK 2026, so the tool and the report cannot disagree, and every multiplier on top of the base rate traces to documented UK guidance rather than to a guess. Works for creators pricing their own time and for brands setting a budget.

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Filmed and edited by the two of us, with the rights included. Three video bundles from £480. 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.

26niches
10deliverable types
0invented numbers
Beginner, 50 to 150Established, 150 to 350Proven ad performance, 350 to 700Paid ads add 30 to 50 per centBundles discount 15 to 20 per centRaw footage pays less than editedBeginner, 50 to 150Established, 150 to 350Proven ad performance, 350 to 700Paid ads add 30 to 50 per centBundles discount 15 to 20 per centRaw footage pays less than edited
As featured inWomen's Health|Rated★★★★★ 5.0 on Google from 10 reviews
High Wycombe, BuckinghamshireWorldwide clientsAnchored to our own reportNothing leaves your browser

The calculator

Rights are the money. Everything else is the base rate

The single most expensive mistake in UGC is quoting one number for creation and rights together. Separate them and price the rights properly, because that is what the brand is actually buying when they put budget behind your face.

The part most quotes leave out, and the part worth the most.

Anything else involved

What you should be charging

Per video, before any bundle discount

How that is built

Your calculated rate against what we charge, per video
Per videoHiring a creator yourselfOur BasicOur StandardOur Premium
Price £250 £120 £180 £280
What that figure is Midpoint for your selection. One video, one concept, one revision One video, scripted, two revisions and the raw footage One video, full concept and script, unlimited revisions, raw footage and hook variations
Who films it A creator you find, brief and manage yourself Velena, on camera and editing Velena, on camera and editing Velena, on camera and editing
Usage rights Negotiated separately, and priced on top Included as standard Included as standard Included as standard
Coordination Yours: sourcing, briefing, chasing, shipping, revisions OursOursOurs
The comparison updates with the calculator. Change your niche, tier or rights above and the first column moves with them. Our prices are read live from the shop, so what you see here is what you would pay today. Category affects our price too: the figures above are the Testimonials range, and every category is on the UGC portfolio.

Three video bundles, which is where it gets cheaper

The calculator applies a bundle discount because that is what the market does. Ours are steeper than the market norm of 15 to 20 per cent, because a bundle is one brief, one shipment and one relationship rather than three of each.

Testimonials, 3 videos

£480

Our lowest entry

See the package

Beauty and skincare, 3 videos

£549

Saves 24 per cent

See the package

Fashion and clothing, 3 videos

£595

Saves 22 per cent

See the package
How the saving is worked out. Against three single videos of the same category, tier and length bought separately. Beauty is £549 against three at the Standard thirty second rate, and Fashion the same. Twelve categories have a three video bundle and all of them discount.
Ranges, not a single number, on purpose. Anyone handing you one figure for your rate is guessing with more confidence than the data supports. The low end is where you take the job when you want the client, the high end is where you take it when you do not need it, and the midpoint is what you quote first.

Where the numbers come from

Every band and every multiplier is traceable, which is unusual on this topic

UGC pricing is the most opaque line in most marketing budgets, and that opacity is why so many calculators can invent numbers without being challenged. Here is exactly what sits underneath this one.

  • 01The base bands come from our own report

    Beginner 50 to 150, established 150 to 350, proven ad performance 350 to 700 and above. Those are the bands in our UGC Rates Report UK 2026, and the calculator is anchored to them by construction, so the tool and the report cannot drift apart. Set the calculator to an established creator in e-commerce making a thirty second edited video with organic rights and it returns exactly 150 to 350.

  • 02Paid usage is a percentage of base, not a flat fee

    UK industry guidance puts paid media at an additional 30 to 50 per cent of base for each thirty day period, with extended and perpetual rights running considerably higher. The calculator uses the midpoint of those documented ranges rather than a number we liked the look of.

  • 03Bundle discounts follow the documented shape

    Five or more videos commonly discount by 15 to 20 per cent. The tool applies nothing at one video, a little at two or three, and reaches that band at five and above. It also checks that a larger order can never cost less in total, which is the sort of thing a hand written rate card gets wrong.

  • 04Raw footage is priced below edited, because it is

    Unedited footage pays meaningfully less than a finished video, which almost no calculator reflects. Ten deliverable types are covered, from a voiceover to a scripted demonstration, each priced against a standard edited vertical video.

  • 05Twenty six niches, weighted the way the market actually pays

    Regulated and high consideration categories pay a premium: finance and fintech, health and supplements, software. High volume consumer categories pay less: fast fashion, gaming, charity. That shape follows documented UK guidance rather than being flat across every industry.

  • 06It answers for brands as well as creators

    The same maths read from the other side. A brand switching the toggle sees what to budget rather than what to charge, which is the same number described honestly rather than a different tool with a different agenda.

The whole space was checked before this page shipped. There are 21,565,440 possible combinations of experience, niche, deliverable, rights, whitelisting, exclusivity, extras and quantity. A sweep of 336,960 of them, covering every combination except the extras permutations, returned zero non finite results, zero negative figures, zero cases where the low end exceeded the high end, zero implausible per video rates and zero cases where ordering more videos cost less in total.

What the rate buys

Three pieces at the standard this calculator is pricing

A rate is only meaningful against a level of work. This is what we deliver, for brands including Headmasters and the Snaptrip Group travel portfolio. Click any to play, nothing loads until you do.

Ice cream, close up

45 seconds, built for the feed

Food and drink

A salon visit

Filmed at Headmasters

Beauty

A daily routine

Supplement brand, 44 seconds

Wellness

All three were filmed and edited by the two of us. The full library is in the UGC portfolio.

How to use the number you just got

Quote the midpoint, not the low end. The range exists so you know how far you can move, not so you can open at the bottom of it. Creators who open low almost never recover the difference on the same client, because the first number you say becomes the number that client expects forever.

Separate creation from rights, always

This is the single change that raises a creator's income most, and it costs nothing. Quote the creation fee and the usage fee as two lines. When a brand says the budget is tight, you then have something to remove other than your own day rate: drop from twelve months of paid usage to three, and the price comes down without the value of your time coming down with it. A single blended number gives you nowhere to go except down.

Whitelisting is not a small extra

Running ads from your handle means the brand is using your name and your credibility, not only your video. If they want account access as well, that is the largest single thing you can be asked for and it should be priced like it. Agree an end date in writing, because access quietly left open for two years is the most common complaint we hear from creators.

For brands, the honest comparison

Add up what a comparable set of videos costs across several creators once you have included rights, revisions, shipping and the time spent briefing and chasing each of them. Then compare it with a bundle where filming, editing and rights arrive together. Our own UGC packages start at £120 for a single video and £480 for three, which lands below the established creator midpoint this calculator returns, because the coordination is not a separate cost. If you want the full market picture first, the UGC Rates Report UK 2026 is the data behind all of it, and UGC rates in the UK is the practical guide for creators.

Featured UGC portfolio

Twelve UGC categories, one standard

  • Beauty and Skincare UGC videos by Velena Lifestyle

    Beauty and Skincare

    Real client work, filmed and edited in house.

    View the work
  • Food and Drink UGC videos by Velena Lifestyle

    Food and Drink

    Real client work, filmed and edited in house.

    View the work
  • Lifestyle UGC videos by Velena Lifestyle

    Lifestyle

    Real client work, filmed and edited in house.

    View the work
  • Hotels and Restaurants UGC videos by Velena Lifestyle

    Hotels and Restaurants

    Real client work, filmed and edited in house.

    View the work

Every category is on the UGC portfolio hub.

Frequently asked questions

Our channels

If you would rather watch than read

  • Velena and Dragos

    Travel, food and influencer content from the two of us, and the channel where the long form work lives.

    Open the channel
  • Velena Lifestyle

    The agency channel. UGC examples, client work and finished campaign videos.

    Open the channel

Methodology, and what this calculator cannot know

The base bands. Taken from our own UGC Rates Report UK 2026: beginner 50 to 150, established 150 to 350, proven ad performance 350 to 700 and above, per video with organic rights. The calculator is anchored to those figures rather than holding a separate set, so the two can never drift apart. Verified: an established creator in e-commerce making a thirty second edited video with organic rights returns exactly 150 to 350.

The multipliers. Paid usage at 30 to 50 per cent of base per thirty day period, extended and perpetual rights considerably higher, bundles of five or more at 15 to 20 per cent off, and unedited footage 20 to 30 per cent below a finished video, all from documented UK and international guidance. Where a source gives a range, the calculator uses the midpoint.

The niche weighting. Our own judgement of the shape that guidance describes, with regulated and high consideration categories above the median and high volume consumer categories below it. Stated as judgement rather than as research, which is why the weighting is visible in the breakdown rather than buried in one number.

How it was checked. All 21,565,440 combinations exist in the model. A sweep of 336,960, covering every combination other than the extras permutations, confirmed no non finite or negative results, no case where the low end exceeded the high end, no implausible per video rate, and no case where ordering more videos cost less in total.

What it cannot know. Your relationship with the client, how badly they need it, what they paid the last creator, or what your work actually converts at. Those move a real quote more than any multiplier here. Treat the output as a defensible opening position, not a ceiling.

The rest of the free tools

Ten tools, all built for the UK market, all free with no sign up and no email capture. Nothing here is a trial.

Client reviews

What clients say, word for word

★★★★★

“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.
★★★★★

“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 Lifestyle have been a breath of fresh air for our social media accounts. Their professionalism and knowledge have supported us massively.”

Sean Thompson, Head of Marketing, Snaptrip Group. Google review, 5.0.

Every review is reproduced word for word. Read them all on the reviews page.

The two of us

Who set these bands

Velena Nikolova, Co-Founder and Creative Director of Velena Lifestyle

Velena Nikolova

Co-Founder and Creative Director

Velena Nikolova is Creative Director and the person on camera. A lifestyle creator featured in Women's Health, she films and edits every UGC deliverable we sell. More on the about page.

Dragos Nistor, Co-Founder and Business Strategist at Velena Lifestyle

Dragos Nistor

Co-Founder and Business Strategist

Dragos Nistor handles pricing, rights and reporting, and wrote the UGC Rates Report this calculator is anchored to. Named a LinkedIn Top Entrepreneurship Voice in 2024. More on the case studies.

Knowing the rate is the easy half

Whether you are pricing your own work or budgeting a campaign, the number is the start of the conversation rather than the end of it. We have worked with 100+ brands since 2022 and film and edit every deliverable ourselves. We reply within one business day, and nothing is filmed until the brief is agreed in writing.