Frequently asked questions

A marketplace for creator content. Brands license short clips that creators have already filmed, or brief creators to film something new. Creators apply once, and approved creators sell what they make.

How it works walks through both sides, step by step.

Anyone can browse and preview clips. Brands can open a free account and save clips into collections. Creators can apply, and once approved they can upload clips and put them on sale.

Checkout, paid briefs and payouts are not open yet. They open once payments are switched on, and until then nobody is charged anything.

No. The whole catalog is open without one. We ask you to sign up only when you do something that needs an account, like saving a clip, and then bring you back to where you were.

As a brand if you want to license clips or hire creators, and as a creator if you want to sell what you film. A brand account opens a workspace for your company. A creator account starts with the application, and you can sell once we approve it.

Use the form on the Help page. A person reads every message and replies by email. The same page explains every term we use.

Standard is for social: run the clip in paid social ads, post it on any channel you own and edit it freely, for one brand. Extended adds broadcast and connected TV, out-of-home, print, in-store and merch. Exclusive is a buyout: everything in Extended, plus full ownership you can transfer, and the clip comes off SourceUGC so no other brand can license it.

Compare the three side by side, or read the full terms on the Licensing page.

Ask where the clip will run. Social only, paid or organic, is Standard. TV, billboards or packaging is Extended. If you need to be the only brand ever to use it, that is an Exclusive buyout.

Forever. Every license on SourceUGC is perpetual and worldwide: you pay once, and there is no rental, renewal or expiry.

Yes, under Standard and Extended. The creator keeps the clip and can license it to other brands too. Only an Exclusive buyout stops that, because it takes the clip off SourceUGC.

It makes you the only brand that can ever use the clip. It is offered only while no other brand holds a license on that clip, the sale is final, and the creator keeps nothing but a portfolio credit.

Yes, within 30 days of buying. Move from Standard to Extended, or to Exclusive, and pay only the difference. Exclusive is possible only while no other brand holds a license on the clip, so an upgrade to it is never guaranteed.

Every license carries rights claim cover. If a clip you licensed is challenged for infringing someone else's rights, we cover you up to a cap that rises with the tier. The cap is written into your license and never changes for that purchase, and each clip's page shows it for every tier.

Search in plain words, like “skincare unboxing”, or browse by category. Filters narrow the shelf by Real or AI, price, duration, aspect ratio, language and the license tiers on offer. Every clip plays as a watermarked preview, so you see exactly what you would license.

Yes. The heart on a clip saves it to your workspace, and collections group saved clips by campaign or product. Saving a clip does not license it or hold it for you.

Not yet. Checkout opens once payments are switched on. Until then you can browse, preview and save clips, so your shortlist is ready when it does.

At checkout you pick a tier on the clip's page and pay once, by card. The full-quality file and your license document are then yours, and both stay in your library to download again at any time.

A brief says what to film, how many creators you want, the budget per creator, the deadline and the license tier, which is locked once the brief is posted. Each creator fills one seat, so one brief can hire one creator or many. Matched creators apply or you invite the ones you want, and each creator delivers and is approved on their own.

Briefs open once payments are switched on.

With one creator, the amount is held on your card and charged only when you approve the delivery. With several, the budget is charged up front and held, each creator is paid as you approve their work, and anything unfilled or unapproved comes back to you.

Ask for a revision. Each creator sets how many rounds of changes their price includes and what an extra round costs, and that policy is fixed the moment you award them the seat.

Apply. You pick a handle, say whether you are a Real or an AI creator, choose up to five niches, and share three links to your work, two sample clips, a short pitch and your usual rates. Your answers save as you go.

A pre-screen reads your application first to sort the queue, then a person reads it and makes the decision. We aim to reply within one to five working days, and we reply either way, by email.

Nothing up front. There is no fee to join, to list a clip or to keep one listed. When a clip sells, you keep 85% and SourceUGC takes 15%.

Each file is screened against the Creator Content Guidelines before it can go on sale. If something needs fixing, you are told which guideline it is and what to do about it. A person also reads your first five listings before they go live.

You set the Standard price, within the range SourceUGC allows. Extended and Exclusive are optional: price Extended at least 1.5 times your Standard price and Exclusive at least five times, or leave them out and only Standard is offered.

Anything you did not film or make yourself, or that you made for another brand. No logos, trademarked products or other people's artwork in frame, no music you don't own, and nobody recognizable who did not agree to appear. Nothing sexual or explicit, nobody under 18, and no video below 1080p.

Every upload carries your statement that you filmed or made it, that everyone in it agreed to appear, and that no one else's music, logo or footage is in it. Your agreement with us is on the Creator terms page.

Yes. A Standard or Extended license leaves the clip yours, so you can license it to any number of brands. An Exclusive buyout ends that: the clip comes off SourceUGC and you keep a portfolio credit.

Browsing, saving, applying and listing are free. When a clip is licensed or a brief is paid, SourceUGC takes 15% of the transaction and the creator keeps 85%. There is no subscription.

See where the money goes.

Thirteen points run the marketplace. The other two go into a reserve that backs the rights claim cover on every license.

US dollars and Canadian dollars. A creator sets their prices, and is paid, in one of the two.

A creator's 85% of a sale is released 24 hours after it, and on a brief, 24 hours after the delivery is approved. It is then paid to the bank account they connect.

Payouts are not open yet. Approved creators can set up everything else now, and we will email them when bank accounts can be connected.

A person reviews every application before that creator can sell. A pre-screen reads the application first and sorts the queue, and anything an application shares with another account, such as a portfolio link, goes to a person as a question, never as an automatic ban. The decision is always a person's, and nobody puts a clip on sale until they are approved.

Every file is screened against the Creator Content Guidelines: logos, trademarked products and other people's artwork in frame, music the creator does not own, people who did not agree to be filmed, anything on the never-allowed list, and footage below 1080p. A person looks at anything the screening questions, and at each new creator's first five listings, before they go on sale, and reads a random sample of everything else afterward.

It says whether a creator films real people or generates their clips. Every creator is one or the other: they choose when they apply, the label is locked once they are approved, and it is shown on every clip they sell. Passing one off as the other is never allowed.

Use Report this clip on the clip's page. Only our staff see reports, the creator is never told who sent one, and a person reads every one. A clip reported several times in a day comes off the site while we look, and a report that a child appears in it takes it down at once.

Report it from your own clip's page, under Report misuse of it. A person reads every report, and staff can warn or suspend the account that is misusing it.

No. In public a creator is their @handle, and their page shows no legal name.