A canvas UGC deal has more moving parts than any per-video gig: a monthly quota, pay that often depends on views landing after you post, and an account that may not belong to you when it ends. That's exactly why it needs a real contract, not a DM thread you scroll back through later. This is the plain-English reference — the clauses that actually matter, what each one protects, and a checklist you can paste into an agreement before the first video goes up. If the model itself is new to you, start with what canvas UGC is; this page is about pinning it down on paper.
Why a canvas contract is its own animal
A traditional UGC contract answers one question well: what the brand can do with the video you made. A canvas contract has to answer several more, because the deal is ongoing and the asset in play is a whole account, not a single clip. The generic UGC contract guide covers the shared spine every deal needs — parties, deliverables, payment, usage rights, kill fee, disclosure. Everything below is what canvas adds on top. Skip these and the gaps surface at the worst possible time: the month a video underperforms, or the week the engagement ends and someone asks who keeps the login.
Account ownership and the handover clause
This is the clause most likely to cost you real money, and the one most conversations never get to. Decide, in writing, one of two things:
- Brand-owned from day one. The brand holds the account; you operate it. You have no claim to it when the deal ends — which is completely fine, as long as everyone knew that going in.
- Creator-owned with a handover. You create and hold the account, and at termination you transfer it — login, email, recovery — to the brand. That transfer is a genuine asset changing hands, so the contract should say when it happens, what "handover" actually includes, and whether a fee is attached to it.
The trap is silence. An account with 40,000 followers and a year of momentum is worth something, and "we never discussed it" resolves in favor of whoever is more willing to fight. Name the owner, name the handover trigger, name exactly what transfers. The ownership question is common enough that what canvas UGC is covers it too — worth a read if you're unsure which way to lean.
Content and IP ownership
Separate from the account itself is the footage on it. Spell out who owns the raw and posted video, and — more important for canvas — whether the brand can repurpose your clips as paid ads on its own channels. That's usage, and usage has a price. Plenty of canvas deals bundle full repurposing rights into the retainer, which can be perfectly fair, but it should be a decision rather than a default. If your best-performing canvas videos quietly become the brand's paid ad library, that's leverage you gave away for free the moment the contract stayed silent on it.
Payment terms — and the floor that protects you
Canvas pay comes in three shapes, covered in full in canvas UGC rates: a flat monthly retainer, a per-view CPM (commonly around $2 to $6 per 1,000 views, varying by brand and niche), or a hybrid. The contract has to state which — and if there's any per-view component, it has to nail three numbers:
- The CPM rate — dollars per 1,000 views.
- The minimum guarantee — a floor you're paid even when views come in low.
- When payment lands — since views accrue after posting, CPM money usually settles in arrears on the following cycle.
Pure-CPM with no floor is the structure that quietly hurts newer creators: a slow month pays like a slow month, and a fresh account has slow months. Push for a hybrid with a guaranteed base. You can sanity-check what a given rate implies at different view levels with the UGC rate calculator before you sign anything. A floor is the difference between a gamble and a job.
Quota, cadence, and the view-counting window
Two operational clauses decide whether a good deal stays good:
- Posting quota and cadence. State the number of videos per cycle and the pace. Canvas commonly runs several a week — roughly 15 to 40 posts a month. Vague quotas like "post regularly" end engagements over mismatched expectations. Holding a real cadence is easier with a plan; the UGC content planner is one way to keep a rhythm you can actually sustain.
- View-counting window and source of truth. If you're paid on views, define which views count and for how long. Views keep climbing for weeks after a post — does a video posted on day 28 get counted at cycle close, or carry into next month? Name the platform analytics screen as the source of truth, and name the cutoff. This single ambiguity causes more canvas payment fights than the rate ever does.
Revisions, kill fee, and exclusivity
Three clauses borrowed from standard deals but tuned for volume:
- Revision cap. At canvas volume, unlimited revisions is just working for free. Cap the rounds per video — one or two is typical — and treat anything past the cap as billable.
- Kill fee. If the brand pauses the account mid-cycle, or a pure-performance deal produces almost nothing because the product simply won't travel, a kill fee protects your time. Tie it to work delivered, not to views the brand's own product failed to earn.
- Exclusivity scope. Brands often ask you not to run a competitor's account. Fair — but bound it: name the category, the duration, and confirm it doesn't quietly block you from taking unrelated canvas or traditional UGC work. Exclusivity with no boundary is you working one client for the price of one video.
Disclosure, contractor status, and termination
The clauses that keep you legal and let you leave cleanly:
- FTC disclosure. A canvas account is styled to feel like a real consumer, but it's paid — and paid means disclosed. The contract should require clear #ad or paid-partnership labeling and put responsibility for compliance where both sides can see it. "Looks authentic" is the goal; "hides that it's an ad" is a liability you don't want to carry.
- 1099 contractor status. You're an independent contractor, not an employee — you own your taxes, your schedule, and your tools. Say so, so there's no confusion later about withholding or benefits.
- Termination. Notice period, what a final cycle's pay looks like, and — looping back to the top — what happens to the account. Termination and handover are really the same conversation; write them together.
Two clauses separate canvas from every other UGC deal: who owns the account at the end, and whether your per-view pay has a floor. Nail those two in writing before the first post, and most canvas disputes simply never happen.
A canvas UGC contract checklist
Before the first video posts, confirm the agreement names:
- Parties and 1099 independent-contractor status
- Account owner (brand or creator), the handover trigger, and exactly what transfers
- Content and IP ownership, plus any paid-ad repurposing rights
- Pay structure: retainer, CPM rate, and a minimum guarantee/floor
- Payment timing (in arrears on the next cycle for CPM)
- Monthly quota and posting cadence
- View-counting window and the source-of-truth analytics screen
- Revision cap per video
- Kill fee tied to delivered work
- Exclusivity scope — category and duration
- FTC and #ad disclosure requirement
- Termination notice and final-cycle terms
Once the contract is set, the next job is billing it. How to invoice a brand for UGC walks through invoicing a monthly cycle with a view bonus, which is its own small art. And if the relationship started as a gifted collab or a one-off before it grew into a monthly engagement, the contract is where you formalize the shift.
How Plug Pro handles this for you
Plug Pro treats canvas UGC as its own deal type, so the terms above aren't clauses you redraft from scratch each time — they're fields on the deal. You set the account owner and a handover step, the monthly quota, the CPM rate and any base, and the platform runs the monthly cycles: auto-generated invoices, a post log where each video's link and view count is recorded, and a view bonus computed from those logged views. Account ownership and handover status live on the deal, and the cycle invoice reflects the floor plus the view bonus without you rebuilding the math. What Plug deliberately does not do is source the deal or take a cut — you find your own brands, they pay you directly, and Plug is the back office, not a marketplace. It's a flat subscription with zero per-deal fee.
Start your free Plug Pro trial — flat subscription, zero per-deal fees, keep 100%.