For brands
Writing a brief that gets replies
A collaboration request is short by design. These are the five things it asks for, what belongs in each, and the four omissions that turn a good brief into an unanswered one.
The five fields
What the request asks, and what to put in it
This is the actual form. Nothing here is a template to download — it is the box you will be typing into.
Campaign name
Something a creator can recognise a month later — "Diwali launch — reels", not "Q4 activation". They may be weighing several requests at once, and the name is the only part they see before opening it.
What you want made
The deliverable, the platform and the number. "Three reels and five stories, on Instagram, over two weeks" is answerable. "Some content" is not, and the reply will be a question rather than a yes.
Where it runs
Say if it goes anywhere beyond their own feed — paid amplification, your own channels, a shop page. Usage is the thing most often left out of a brief and most often argued about afterwards.
Anything they need to know
Dates that cannot move, products that have to appear, things you cannot say for regulatory reasons. A constraint disclosed now is a constraint; disclosed after signing it is a change request.
Budget range
Optional, and worth including anyway. A creator whose rate is far outside your range will say so immediately instead of after three exchanges — which saves the time of whichever of you was going to be disappointed.
Avoid these
Four things that get a request ignored
None of them is rudeness. All four are a brief that costs the creator more effort to answer than to skip.
Asking what they charge when the listing says
Where a creator’s rate has been reviewed, their listing shows a starting price. Opening with a question that is already answered reads as not having looked.
Leaving usage out
Content used in paid media or on your own channels is a different job from a post on their feed. Deciding that after the fee is agreed means reopening the fee.
Sending the same brief to twenty people
A creator can tell. One specific request to five creators outperforms a generic one to fifty, and the shortlist is there so you can be specific.
Treating a request as a booking
Sending one starts a conversation and nothing else — nothing is reserved, held or charged. Plan on the creator being free to say no, because they are.
Not here yet
Why there are no benchmark figures on this page
A straight answer to something you may have come here for.
Median engagement by category, typical rates by follower band, expected reply rates — these are the numbers a resources page usually leads with, and we do not have the marketplace volume to compute them honestly.
Publishing plausible-looking figures that a brand then budgets against would be worse than publishing nothing, so they will appear here when the data behind them is real and not before. In the meantime, every listing shows that creator’s own audience figures and their own rates, which is the version of this that is actually true.
Write one and send it
Shortlist three creators, write one specific brief, and see what comes back. Nothing is charged for sending it.