What are you actually selling when you accept an exclusivity clause? Not the video, you already sold that. What you are selling is your right to work with others, for a period, in a given category.
It is the only clause in a UGC contract that does not describe the delivered piece but what you will do afterwards. Which is why it is priced differently, and why it is the clause that leaves the most money on the table when it gets signed unread.
The distinction that organises the whole negotiation
A creator contract mixes two things worth separating with a line down the middle.
On one side is the licence of use: what the brand may do with the material you delivered, on which media, for how long, in which territory. That is what gets negotiated in UGC rights and contracts, and its price depends on the scope of use.
On the other side is exclusivity: what you may not do in the meantime. It does not refer to the delivered material, it refers to your future activity, and its price depends on how much work it takes away from you.
They are two separate lines in a quote. When they show up merged into one, what usually happens is that the licence gets paid for and the exclusivity gets given away.
The variables that set its price
The category, which is almost never properly defined
"You cannot work with the competition" is a sentence, not a clause. A coffee brand's competition may be another coffee brand, or the whole hot drinks category, or anything drunk in the morning.
The version you can accept names the category precisely and, better still, names the specific brands. The version you cannot accept uses a broad category, because nobody knows where it ends and the one paying for the ambiguity is you.
The term, measured in months of your calendar
Exclusivity does not cost the same if it lasts as long as the campaign or if it continues afterwards. What matters is not the abstract duration but how many real opportunities it takes off the table in that period.
A category where you get offers all year is expensive to block. A category you have worked in twice in your life is cheap, and there it pays to accept and invoice calmly.
Territory and channel
Exclusivity applying worldwide and to every channel is one thing; exclusivity applying to the Argentine market and to social media is a much smaller one. Most contracts ask for the first because that is the template that arrived, and accept the second without argument when you offer it.
It is the variable where the cost drops fastest without the brand losing anything it actually cared about.
What gets mistaken for exclusivity and is not
Three clauses sit nearby and do something else, and it is worth not paying for them as though they were the same.
A right of first refusal does not stop you working with others: it gives the brand the chance to match an offer before you accept. It costs far less and gets in the way far less.
Confidentiality is not exclusivity either: it stops you telling, not working. It is accepted almost always and not charged separately.
And a non disparagement clause, asking you not to speak badly of the product, is reasonable as long as it is mutual and has a term. What is not reasonable is a version stopping you from telling the truth about a later experience as a customer.
The brand that asks for it without paying for it
It is the most common situation and almost never bad faith: the clause came in a template somebody copied, nobody read it and the quote was built without counting it.
Which is why the answer that works is not to refuse it but to separate it. Returning the quote with two lines, one for the licence and one for the exclusivity, turns an argument about fees into a decision about scope. Very often the brand looks at the second number, realises it did not need it, and drops it.
When it does need it, the conversation has already changed axis: you discuss the term and the category, which are the variables where you can concede without losing money, instead of discussing the whole fee.
And there is a third way out, rarely used, that works well for small cases: accept the exclusivity and ask for a guaranteed minimum number of pieces in the period. The brand does not pay more to block, it pays more to buy, which is a conversation it finds much easier to approve internally.
How to price it without inventing a number
There is no table, and anybody giving you a fixed percentage is guessing. What there is, is a method you can defend in a conversation.
- List how many jobs in that category you had last year. That is the hard fact, and it is usually lower than you think.
- Estimate how many you would lose over the requested term. With the previous figure, the arithmetic is direct.
- Multiply by your usual rate in that category. That is the floor of what the exclusivity costs you.
- Add a share for what you cannot foresee. A growing category is worth more to block than a flat one.
The interesting thing about this method is that it sometimes produces a small number, and then it pays to accept without drama. Exclusivity is not bad by definition: it is bad when it is given away.
The objection to pricing it this way is that it feels like charging for work you will not do. That is exactly what it is, and it is what every exclusivity in every trade is paid for: not for effort, but for the options you agree to close. A brand that finds the idea strange usually has not thought about what it is asking for, and the four lines above are the fastest way to explain it without an argument.
