The situation that leads to this question
You have tried UGC with three or four one-off videos, something worked, and now you have to decide how to buy the next quarter. One creator offers to keep going with individual commissions. Another offers a monthly retainer with a fixed number of pieces. The two figures look similar on paper and mean nothing like the same thing.
The choice is not about price. It is about who carries the risk, and how many times a month you will have to explain your product again.
What you are actually buying in each model
Pay per video buys a delivery. A retainer buys availability. That distinction sounds abstract until the first month with a deadline.
Pay per video, piece by piece
You commission, you pay, you receive. The creator quotes each piece with its brief, its deadline and its licence. If the video does not convince you, you have lost the cost of one piece. If it performs well, you commission again at the market rate of that moment, which may have gone up.
What rarely gets counted is the cost of re-buying context. Every new commission starts with explaining the product, the tone, what cannot be said. In a brand with sector rules or a wide catalogue, that repeated briefing eats more internal hours than the production itself.
The retainer, month by month
You pay a fixed amount for a commitment: usually between three and eight pieces a month, an agreed response time and a standard licence. The creator plans their calendar around that income and, in exchange, absorbs part of the variability: a piece that comes out wrong is redone within the same month with no new invoice.
The risk flips. With one-off commissions, you carry the risk on every piece. With a retainer, the creator carries the risk that one month you need more work than planned, and you carry the risk of paying for a month in which you launch nothing.
The numbers, both sides
The ranges below reflect the open Spanish market in 2026. They are not official rates.
| Item | Pay per video | Monthly retainer |
|---|---|---|
| Observed unit cost | 90 € to 250 € | 60 € to 140 € |
| Minimum commitment | none | 1 to 3 months |
| Redoing a failed piece | new invoice | usually included |
| Response time | 4 to 7 days | 48 to 72 hours |
| Licence | negotiated each time | set in the master agreement |
| Internal briefing hours per month | 4 to 8 | 1 to 2 |
Unit cost drops between thirty and fifty per cent on a retainer. That discount is not generosity: it is what predictable income is worth to a self-employed worker, and it is the same mechanism by which a repeat client pays less than an occasional one in any trade.
Where the real cost of pay per video hides
In internal hours. Eight monthly hours of your team spent briefing, reviewing and renegotiating appear on no invoice, but they cost. If your marketing lead is worth the equivalent of 30 € an hour, those eight hours are 240 € you do not see, added to the price of every piece.
Where the real cost of a retainer hides
In empty months. A seasonal brand that bills sixty per cent in the last quarter pays the retainer in March exactly as in November. If it does not plan production ahead, it buys capacity it does not use. The usual fix is a retainer with a carry-over allowance, and you have to ask for it, because it does not come as standard.
Rights, which is where most money is lost
This point decides more budgets than it seems, and almost always through oversight.
With one-off commissions, the licence is negotiated piece by piece. It is common to buy the first video with owned-social rights, discover three weeks later that it works in paid advertising, and have to pay another forty to eighty per cent of the original amount to extend the licence. The creator is within their rights: you did not buy that use.
With a retainer, the master agreement sets the licence once for every piece in the period. That removes the renegotiation and, above all, removes the situation where a high-performing video sits idle while the extension is argued. Spanish intellectual property law requires an express assignment that defines format, scope and duration; a well-drafted master agreement does that once instead of monthly.
When pay per video is the right answer
When you do not yet know what works. If you are still testing hooks, formats and creator profiles, committing to one person for three months removes exactly the variety you need.
When your real volume is under three pieces a month. Below that threshold, the retainer discount does not offset the commitment.
And when the campaign is a one-off with a date: a launch, a trade fair, a season. There is nothing to retain afterwards.
When the retainer is the right answer
When you have already identified one or two creators whose material performs and you want them to stay available before another brand books them. It is the most common reason and the least declared.
When your product is hard to explain. A supplement with claim restrictions, a financial service, a technical product: the value of not training someone from scratch every month is real and large.
And when you need rhythm. Feeding paid advertising with fresh creative every fortnight is incompatible with a commission, quote, produce and review cycle that starts from zero each time.
How to move from one to the other without getting it wrong
The usual mistake is signing a retainer with a creator you have never worked with. The order that works is the reverse: two or three one-off commissions with two or three different creators, measure, and only then offer a retainer to the one who performed.
Always ask for three things in the master agreement: the minimum number of pieces, what happens to unused pieces, and the full licence in writing. If any of the three is missing, it is not a retainer, it is an advance with no defined consideration.
