Sooner or later a brand you have never worked with will quote you a price you once gave to somebody else.
It will not feel like a leak. It will sound like a normal opening offer, and the person saying it will have no idea they are repeating you.
Why it travels here
Portugal is not a small market in ambition, but it is a small market in people.
The same marketing managers move between the same companies. The same agencies serve competing brands in one category. The same three or four names come up when anybody asks a peer who they used. A rate quoted in one conversation reaches the next one without anybody intending to pass it on.
The discount you gave once is now your rate
Nobody remembers the reason you gave it. They remember the number.
The context that justified it, a slow month, a brand you wanted in your portfolio, a friend of a friend, does not travel with the figure. Only the figure travels, and it arrives stripped of everything that made it reasonable.
Free product is the fastest version of this
Accepting product instead of payment does not read as generosity in a market where buyers talk. It reads as your price, and it is the easiest number of all to repeat.
| What you change | What the brand remembers | What it does to your next quote |
|---|---|---|
| Your price, once | The lower number | It becomes the opening offer |
| The number of videos | Nothing, it was a scope | Your rate per video holds |
| The usage window | Nothing, it was a term | You can charge again to extend |
| Payment timing | That you were easy to work with | No effect on price at all |
| Product instead of fee | That you work for product | It follows you across the category |
Every row except the first changes what you deliver rather than what you cost. That is the whole technique.
Lower the cost of yes, not the price
When a brand cannot reach your number, do not move the number. Move what sits around it.
Give them fewer videos for less, not the same videos for less. Give them a shorter usage window and price the extension separately. Offer a first piece with a fast turnaround and a decision point after it. All three let the buyer spend less today without teaching the market a smaller figure.
If you do decide to go lower, say what it is attached to and put it in writing: this price applies to this campaign, this month, this volume. It will still travel. At least it will travel with a condition on it.
Keep reading
- What to Charge for UGC in Portugal
- Working as a UGC Creator in Madeira and the Azores
- Turning One Job into a Recurring Client in Portugal
- The UGC Market in Portugal
- The complete UGC guide for Portugal
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Frequently asked questions
Should I ever discount at all?
Yes, when it buys you something specific: a case study you can show, a volume commitment, faster payment. Discounting to win a job that had no other advantage is the version that follows you.
What if a brand names a low budget first?
Answer with scope rather than with your rate. Tell them what that budget buys in videos and usage, and let them decide whether it is enough.
Does this apply outside Portugal?
The mechanism is everywhere, the speed is not. In a bigger market a leaked rate dilutes. Here it circulates in a group small enough that you will meet it again.