Brand Sponsorships for Creators: How to Get Paid Before You Post a Single Thing

In 2024 I signed up for a creator marketplace called PassionFroot. I heard it was a good platform to kind of “put yourself out there.” Get your profile up, make yourself findable to brands. So I filled in my details, uploaded a photo, wrote a short bio.

Then I forgot about it completely.

Honestly, I forgot it existed. I never checked my messages. I never updated my profile. Life went on and PassionFroot was just sitting there, quietly, doing nothing as far as I knew.

This week, two years later, three brands reached out through that same platform. All in seven days. Zero cold pitching from my side. I did not go into LinkedIn DMs to send anyone any message, I did not do cold emails. They just found me.

My first reaction was not excitement. It was that familiar stomach drop. The voice that says you’re not ready for this, don’t even try. I left the first message on read for a few days.

Then the second brand arrived. Then the third. And I thought, okay, something is happening here and I should probably figure out what.

I said yes to all three. I had no idea what I was doing. I still don’t, entirely. But in one week I figured out enough to get three sponsorship agreements signed and payment transferred to my account before I created a single post, image, or video.

This post walks you through exactly how that works, from setting up your profile to getting paid. If you have been curious about brand sponsorships but had no idea where to start, this is the honest beginner version.

Here’s what I made so far, just an icing bit, but seriously, you can make more and build this as a regular income if you like.

What Brand Sponsorships Actually Are

A brand sponsorship is when a company pays you to create content that features or mentions their product. They are looking for real creators with real audiences, not celebrities with millions of followers. They want someone whose readers or followers actually trust them.

The content could be a LinkedIn post, an Instagram story, a YouTube video, a blog post. The brand tells you what they want showcased, usually a specific feature of their product or app, and you create content around it in your own voice.

You are not writing an ad. You are sharing something you have been asked to try, in a way that feels natural to your usual content.

The brands that approached me this week were AI tools and creator productivity apps. They wanted me to showcase a particular feature on my LinkedIn. That was it. No long brief, no complicated script. Show the feature, publish the post, get paid.

The key thing most beginners do not realise is that you do not have to be famous. You have to be findable, and you have to have an audience that trusts you. Even a small engaged audience on LinkedIn or a blog with steady traffic is enough to start.

Step 1: Set Up Your PassionFroot Profile

PassionFroot is a creator marketplace where brands come to find creators for sponsorships. You create a profile, list your platforms and audience details, and brands can reach out to you directly. It is free to join as a creator.

Go to passionfroot.me and create your account.

Conversely, if you are into influencer marketer and would like to collaborate and sponsor creators, comment “sponsor” below, leave your email and I will come back to you on that.

What to include in your profile

Your profile is basically your sponsorship resume. PassionFroot calls it “Storefront” as of writing. It’s public when you publish. Brands will look at it before they message you, so put some thought into it even if you feel like you are starting from scratch.

Your platforms. List every platform where you have an active presence: LinkedIn, Instagram, a blog, YouTube, Pinterest, a newsletter. Include the link and your follower or subscriber count. Do not inflate the numbers. Brands can check.

Your niche. Be specific. “Content creator” is too vague. “I create content for designers and solopreneurs who want to sell digital products” is much clearer. Brands are looking for audiences that match their product, so the more specific you are, the more relevant the enquiries will be.

Your engagement. If your follower count is modest but your engagement is strong, say so. A LinkedIn post that regularly gets 50 meaningful comments from designers is worth more to a design tool than a 50,000-follower account where nobody clicks anything.

Your rates. PassionFroot allows you to list your pricing. If you have no idea what to charge yet, I’ll cover that in Step 4. For now, leave it as a range or mark it as “contact to discuss” and you can update it later.

A short bio in your own voice. Not a corporate summary. Something a brand could read and immediately understand who your audience is and why they would care about a product recommendation from you.

Then hit save. And honestly, you can mostly forget about it after that. (It worked for me sitting untouched for two years, so clearly the bar is lower than you think.)

Step 2: What Happens When a Brand Reaches Out

You will get an email notification from PassionFroot when a brand sends you a message. The message will usually introduce who they are, what their product does, and what kind of content they are looking for from you.

It might feel formal. It might feel casual. It will probably feel a little unexpected the first time, even if you set up your profile specifically for this. That’s how I felt, especially when ElevenLabs contacted me. It’s my favorite app to help with voice and music on video.

Here is what I did with the first message: I panicked, left it on read, and came back to it three days later once I had calmed down enough to actually read it properly.

That is fine. You do not have to reply instantly, but do it as soon as you can because faster response time can help the algorithm push your profile more to brands.

Read the message carefully. What are they asking you to create? On which platform? By when? Are they a brand you have heard of or would genuinely use? Would your audience care about this product?

If the answers feel mostly yes, move to the next step. If something feels off, if the brand is in a completely different niche to your audience, the product seems sketchy, or the message feels generic, you are allowed to say no or just not reply. You do not owe anyone a yes.

Step 3: Ask These Questions Before You Say Yes

This is the step that nearly stopped me. My brain produced about fifteen questions the moment the first brand reached out.

But before spending time to come up with the questions, it’s most important to set boundaries for yourself and send it over to your prospect.

I don’t wait because I don’t want to spend time with back and forth questions ending up with them going for someone else or realising they are not the right fit with my boundaries.

Let them know what you can and can’t do right at the get go, you’d want to know as early as you can if they want to go with you or not.

Here’s what I did in one email:

Save this in your note-taking file to reuse for any brand that comes along, no need to reinvent the wheel.

While waiting for their response, I thought up of some questions I’d get ready to ask them:

What format do they want? Do I need to make a video? Do they give me any materials to work with? What if the content is not good enough?

What I should have done immediately, and what I am telling you to do, is write all those questions down and send them directly to the brand.

Brands expect questions from creators. It is normal. It signals that you are professional and that you are taking the brief seriously.

Here are the questions worth asking before you commit:

What exactly do you want me to showcase? Get specific. “Introduce our app” is too vague. “Show how to use the template feature to create a LinkedIn post in under five minutes” is something you can actually work with.

Which platform and what format? LinkedIn post, Instagram reel, blog post, newsletter mention? Do they want a specific word count or video length? Knowing this upfront saves a lot of back-and-forth.

Do you provide assets? Some brands will give you images, screenshots, a Canva template, video clips. Others expect you to create everything. Ask, because it affects how long the work will take.

What is the deadline? When do they need the content published?

What is the approval process? Do they want to review the content before it goes live? How long do they take to review? This matters for your timeline.

What is your budget for this? If they have not stated a rate, ask. More on this in the next step.

Once they are good with your boundaries, you can send these as a simple list in your reply. You are not being difficult. You are being a creator who knows what they need to do a good job.

Step 4: How to Negotiate (Even if You’ve Never Done It)

Pricing for sponsorships is one of those things nobody talks about clearly, and it makes beginners either undercharge wildly or freeze up and not reply at all.

Here is what I know after one week of figuring this out.

If the brand names a rate first

Read it, think about whether it feels reasonable for the work involved, and decide if you want to accept, counter, or ask for clarification. You are allowed to counter. Most brands expect some negotiation. If they come in with an offer that’s too low for you for a LinkedIn post that requires research, script writing, and two rounds of revisions, you can say:

“I appreciate the offer. Based on the scope of what you’re asking for, my rate for this would be $X.“

If they ask what your rate is

This is where most beginners get stuck. A rough starting point for a single LinkedIn post or Instagram post as a beginner creator is anywhere from $100 to $500, depending on your audience size and engagement. A blog post will generally be higher because of the word count and SEO value. A video typically commands more than static content.

You can also search “creator sponsorship rates” on forums like Reddit or in creator communities to get a sense of current ranges. The rates vary enormously by niche and platform.

If they ask for a discount

This happened to me with one of the three brands. My answer was to hold my rate but offer something extra instead, like a second mention in a future post, or adding them to a resource list I was already planning to write. You do not have to drop your price. You can offer added value instead.

Do not undercharge just because you feel like a beginner. Your audience is the thing they are paying for. If your audience trusts you, that has value regardless of how long you have been doing sponsorships.

Step 5: Connect PassionFroot to Wise and Get Paid First

This is the part I did not know was possible until it happened to me, and it is the part I most want beginners to know.

With PassionFroot, brands pay through the platform before the content goes live. You do not create anything and then chase an invoice. The money comes first. You just have to click a button to request for payment and once the brand makes the payment, you can go ahead to draft your content.

To receive that payment, you need to connect a payment account to your PassionFroot profile. I use Wise, which works particularly well if you are receiving payments from brands in other countries because the currency conversion fees are low compared to traditional bank transfers.

How to set this up

Create a Wise account if you do not already have one. Go to wise.com and sign up. You will need to verify your identity, which takes a day or two the first time.

Get your Wise account details. Once verified, go to your Wise account and find your “account details” for the currency you want to receive payment in. Wise gives you local bank details in multiple currencies (USD, GBP, EUR, SGD, and others) so you can receive payments as if you have a local bank account in those countries.

Connect Wise to PassionFroot. In your PassionFroot settings, go to the payments section, in the “Bank transfer” section, click “Edit”. It will go to a window with a form for you to fill in your bank details. Enter your Wise account details. Once this is connected, when a brand completes payment through PassionFroot, the money lands in your Wise account.

Alternatively, you can connect your Stripe account for brands to pay you with credit card.

The payment flow

Once you and the brand agree on the terms, PassionFroot handles the transaction. Have the brand pay you through the platform and you will receive the payment in about 3 to 5 days time.

For me, this was genuinely the most reassuring part of the whole process. The money was in my Wise account before I had opened Canva or drafted a single word.

If you do your own marketing work and secure your sponsors on your own, PassionFroot takes 0% of your earnings. If you got your sponsors through PassionFroot, they will take 15% commission from per sponsor revenue.

Step 6: Create the Sponsored Content

You have agreed on the brief, the rate, and the deadline and you’ve got your payment. Now you actually make the thing.

Read the brief again, properly

Before you start creating, read through everything the brand sent you one more time. What feature do they want highlighted? What tone do they prefer? Are there any words or phrases they specifically want included or avoided?

Some brands will send a short creative brief. Others will just say “showcase this feature in your own voice” and leave you to it.

If anything is unclear, ask before you start, not after you have created a full draft.

Create in your own voice

The whole reason the brand approached you is because of your audience and your voice. Do not abandon that to write something that sounds like a press release.

Your followers will notice immediately if a post sounds like it was written by someone else, and it will erode the trust that makes your recommendations worth anything.

Show the feature the way you would show a tool you genuinely found useful. Be honest about what it does. If there is something about it you particularly liked, say that. If there is a specific use case that fits your audience, lead with that.

For my LinkedIn posts, I was asked to showcase a specific feature of an AI tool. I wrote about how I used that feature in my own workflow and what it saved me time on. That felt real because it was real. I actually tried the tool before writing about it.

Here’s one of my sponsored posts:

Check the disclosure requirements

In most countries, you are legally required to disclose when a post is sponsored. On LinkedIn, adding “paid partnership” or “#ad” is the standard.

Check the platform’s guidelines and your local regulations. PassionFroot will sometimes include guidance on this, and the brand may also specify how they want the disclosure handled.

Submit for review if required

If the brand wants to review the content before it goes live, send it to them via PassionFroot’s messaging. Give them enough time to review before your agreed publish date. Most brands turn around feedback within a day or two.

Once approved, publish and let the brand know it is live.

Building a System So It Gets Easier Every Time

Three sponsorships in one week felt overwhelming. Then I realised the process for each one was basically the same.

The questions I asked. The information I needed from them. The way I structured the content. The deadline I set. Once I had done it once, I had a rough system. Once I had a rough system, the second and third felt manageable instead of terrifying.

Here is what I am keeping track of now for every sponsorship, so I do not have to figure it out from scratch each time.

A simple brief template. Every time a brand reaches out, I send the same set of questions from Step 3. I have saved them as a template I can copy and paste. It takes two minutes instead of twenty.

A rate card. I know what I charge for a single LinkedIn post, a blog post mention, and a newsletter feature. Having that written down means I am not guessing every time.

A content checklist. Before I submit anything to a brand, I check: Does it include the feature they asked for? Does it sound like me? Is the disclosure included? Is it within the agreed word count or length?

A delivery record. A simple spreadsheet with brand name, platform, rate agreed, deadline, payment status, and published link. Nothing fancy. Just somewhere I can check what is in progress and what is done.

You do not need to have all of this sorted before you start. Build it as you go. The first sponsorship teaches you what you need for the second.

Check out my profile here if you want a reference that works: PassionFroot Creator

Common Mistakes Beginners Make

Waiting until you feel ready. You will not feel ready. Nobody does the first time. The readiness comes after, not before.

Not asking enough questions upfront. The brief might sound clear and then turn out to be vague when you sit down to actually create something. Ask more than you think you need to. It saves everyone time.

Undercharging because of imposter syndrome. Your audience’s trust is the product, not your follower count. Charge accordingly.

Creating the content before payment is secured. With PassionFroot, payment goes into escrow before you start. Use that process. Do not create content on the promise of payment later.

Agreeing to something that does not fit your audience. If you write about Canva and design tools, and a brand selling something completely unrelated approaches you, that mismatch will feel awkward to your readers and the conversion will be low for the brand. It is okay to say no if the fit is not right.

Forgetting the disclosure. #ad, #sponsored, “paid partnership.” Whatever the platform requires. This is not optional, and skipping it can get your account flagged.

FAQ

Do I need a large following to get brand sponsorships?

No. Brands increasingly prefer smaller creators with engaged, niche audiences over large accounts with low engagement. If your audience is specific (designers, solopreneurs, Canva users) and they actively engage with your content, that is genuinely valuable. I had a modest LinkedIn following when my first sponsorship came in. The niche mattered more than the number.

What is PassionFroot and is it free?

PassionFroot is a creator marketplace where brands discover creators for sponsorships and paid collaborations. It is free to join as a creator. You create a profile, list your platforms and audience information, and brands can contact you directly through the platform. PassionFroot takes a small commission when a deal is completed.

How do I know what to charge?

There is no universal rate card, which is frustrating when you are starting out. A rough guide: a single LinkedIn post or Instagram post for a beginner creator with a small engaged audience might start at $100 to $300. A blog post typically commands more because of the word count and ongoing SEO value. As your audience grows and you have completed sponsorships to point to, your rates go up. Look at creator rate discussions on Reddit or in LinkedIn creator communities to get a current feel for your niche.

What is Wise and do I need it?

Wise (formerly TransferWise) is an international money transfer and account service. It gives you local bank account details in multiple currencies, which is useful when receiving payments from brands in other countries. You can also use PayPal or your regular bank account, depending on what PassionFroot supports and what works for your situation. I use Wise because the fees on international transfers are lower than my regular bank and the conversion rates are better.

What if the brand wants me to change the content significantly?

This is worth clarifying before you start. Most brands will request minor edits, like a word change or adding a specific phrase. Major changes that require you to redo the whole thing are less common but can happen. If the changes requested are substantial and outside what was originally agreed, you are within your rights to discuss whether the scope (and the rate) needs to be adjusted. Having the original brief in writing protects you in this situation.

Can I do sponsorships on platforms other than LinkedIn?

Yes, and this is exactly why I wrote this guide the way I did. The process I described works for any platform: Instagram, YouTube, a blog, a newsletter, Pinterest. The specific content format changes depending on the platform, but the steps are the same: set up your profile, respond to enquiries, ask the right questions, agree on terms, get paid through escrow, create and publish. I started with LinkedIn because that is where my first three came in. As I do sponsorships on other platforms, I will update this post with what I learn.

What if I say yes and then feel totally out of my depth?

That is exactly how I felt. Write down every question you have, then start finding answers one at a time. Ask the brand directly. Search for other creators in your niche who have done sponsorships and see how they talk about it. Join a creator community where people share this kind of experience. You do not have to know everything before you start. You just have to be willing to figure it out as you go.

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