The median brief in this part of the UGC Editing job board budgets $20 to $34, asks for 6 cuts, and draws 7 applications. Every number comes from briefs brands actually posted. Here is how brands set budgets, choose a pricing model and write a brief that fills.
The short answer
- Median budget: $20 to $34
- Median cuts per brief: 6
- Median delivery window: 14 days
- Median applications per brief: 7
How to write the brief
Most of a project's cost is decided in the brief. The briefs that fill fastest on the board share the same handful of answers:
- What the footage is. Raw clips, a creator's selects, or a previous cut to rework.
- Where it will run. The platform and placement set the frame, the length and the safe zones.
- What a finished cut includes. Captions, music, sound design, a call to action card.
- How many cuts and how many rounds. Volume and revisions are what move the price.
- What good looks like. One reference ad you wish you had made is worth a page of adjectives.
Browse open briefs to see how other brands word theirs before you post your own.
What briefs on the board budget
There are 49 briefs in this slice of the job board. The median budget runs from $20 at the low end to $34 at the high end, with a median delivery window of 14 days and 2 rounds of revisions. The median brief asks for 6 cuts and draws 7 applications.
Posting a range rather than a fixed figure tends to widen the pool of editors who apply. It tells editors where the job sits without forcing the strongest ones to undercut themselves, and it leaves room to pay more for the editor whose portfolio is the closest match.
The pricing models brands use
Of the 49 briefs posted to the board, here is how they split by pricing model, with the median top of each budget:
| Model | Briefs | Median top budget |
|---|---|---|
| Per video | 15 | $11 |
| Fixed | 13 | $78 |
| Retainer | 8 | $321 |
| Hourly | 7 | $17 |
| CPM | 6 | $56 |
Per video and fixed pricing suit a defined batch. A retainer suits a brand with a steady weekly volume that wants the same hands on every cut. Hourly is the least common choice for short form, because it rewards slow editing and makes the final bill hard to predict.
CPM briefs pay per thousand views instead of per cut. Across the CPM briefs on the board the median rate is $0.80 per thousand views, from $0.50 to $3, and capped briefs set a median ceiling of $100. A cap protects the brand from a runaway hit; for the editor, it is the most the job can ever pay.
What moves the price up or down
Two briefs with the same word count can cost very different amounts. These are the things that move a quote, roughly in the order editors weigh them:
- The state of the footage. Organized selects with clean audio cut quickly. A folder of unlabeled phone clips means hours of logging before the first decision.
- How many cuts you need. Variations of one ad share most of the work, so a batch usually costs less per cut than ordering them one at a time.
- Finishing. Captions, sound design, a color pass and motion graphics are each a separate skill, and each adds time.
- The delivery window. A rush job displaces other work, and editors price that in.
- Revision rounds. Every round included up front is time the editor has to reserve.
When a quote surprises you, the useful question is which of these it is pricing in. Trimming finishing you do not need is usually a better saving than hunting for a cheaper editor.
Mistakes that cost time and money
The expensive mistakes are made early and paid for late.
- Hiring on the showreel alone. A reel shows an editor's best work; the delivery record shows their usual work.
- Leaving the brief open. Every decision the brief does not make, a revision round makes instead.
- Sending notes one at a time. Batched notes in one round are faster for everyone than a trickle of messages.
- Changing direction mid round. A new idea after the first cut is a new brief, and it should be priced as one.
- Skipping escrow. Paying off platform removes the one mechanism that settles a disagreement fairly.
Each of these is easier to avoid than to fix.
What the fees add
The editor's price is not the whole bill. Clients pay a service fee of 5% on top of the subtotal, and editors pay a commission of 10% out of it. On a job at the median starting price, that is $0.25 in client fees for a total of $5.25, while the editor keeps $4.50 after a $0.50 commission.
Both figures come from one quote, so what the client is charged and what the editor is paid always reconcile. Editors withdraw once they hold at least $25, and each withdrawal carries a flat $1 payout fee. Applying to jobs and listing a profile cost nothing.
Where to go from here
The fastest way to use these numbers is against real profiles. See live brand briefs, filter to the format you need, and shortlist editors whose package already covers your brief. Funding an order through escrow means you only pay once you approve the cut.
How we worked this out
Every figure on this page was computed from UGC Editing marketplace data as of Oct 15, 2026. The editor figures cover 64 profiles in scope out of 64 on the platform. Medians are lower medians, so each one is a value an editor or a brief actually listed rather than an average of two. Fees come from our own published fee schedule.
Nothing here comes from a survey, a study or an industry estimate. If our data cannot answer something, this page leaves it unanswered rather than guessing.