I read 49 creator brand deal contracts. 6 had traps that take your accounts, your content or your other clients. The 4 words to search and how to spot a good deal.
Open the contract PDF, press Cmd+F (Ctrl+F on Windows) and search four words: exclusivity, transfer, sole property, liquidated damages. On Oct 11 2026 I read 49 creator contracts on one marketplace. Most were a clean two-page template. The 6 traps all hid behind those words: one bans content about any competing AI tool on your personal accounts for 6 months after you leave, two make the accounts you post on the brand's property, one charges you $5,000 if they decide you promoted a competitor. Any hit means read that whole section before you sign.
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Check who signs it
Read the first paragraph: is the other party the brand itself, or an agency running the program for the brand? In my 49, the short brand-direct contracts were clean. Every agency-run one was 8 to 14 pages and carried the worst clauses: account handover with your 2FA and recovery email, full ownership of your videos, a required course before any payout, termination at any time. Agency is not automatically bad, but it means read every page.
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Match the pay to the listing
The pay on the listing is marketing. The pay in the contract is the deal. Find the payment table and compare it line by line with the listing. One listing showed $30 at 1,000 views; its contract paid bonuses from 100,000 views. Also look for a trial scale (often $2 to $4 per 1,000 views until one video hits 10,000), a base payment versus CPM only, and any rule that removes you if most of your videos stay under a view count.
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Know the account rules
Check what the deal does to your accounts before you check the money. Can you post on your main account, or does the brief require a fresh one? How long must posts stay up (1 year is common, one said 24 months)? Do they ask you to connect your account to an auto-posting app? Is the video approved before or after it goes live? After posting means a rejected video stays on your feed, unpaid.
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Pick deals that fit you
A clean contract is not enough: the product has to be one your audience trusts. I skipped clean contracts for betting, crypto trading and copy-trading apps, because my face would run in their ads forever. The deals I joined pay a base from the first 1,000 views, have no exclusivity, and are tools I already use on camera. The full list of deals I joined, and why, is inside the community.
Copy · paste · check any contract
Read this creator brand deal contract for me. Quote the exact sentence for each item, or write NOT FOUND:
1. Exclusivity: what can I not post, on which accounts, for how long after I leave?
2. Accounts: do any of my accounts become theirs?
3. Content: who owns the videos, can they run them as ads, for how long?
4. Pay: the exact table, any trial scale, the view window, the minimum to get paid.
