Creator Unit Math · deal math for creators
What do you really earn per deliverable?
A sponsorship is one number that hides several deliverables. Enter the total fee and each deliverable — production cost, your hours, the revision rounds you included — and see a margin waterfall per deliverable: allocated fee minus production, your time and revision overhead, leaving the net profit, your true effective hourly rate, and which deliverables quietly lose money.
How do you know if a sponsorship deal is profitable per deliverable?
Split the single total fee across the deliverables, then subtract each one's real cost: production (editing, props, location), your own time (hours × your hourly cost), and the overhead of the revision rounds you agreed to include. What is left is the net profit for that deliverable. Divide net by hours and you get your true effective hourly rate; if any deliverable's costs exceed its share of the fee, that one is a loss-leader carried by the others. A deal can show a healthy headline number and still hide a deliverable that earns you nothing.
Every figure on this page comes from the numbers you enter — this tool models your own deal and shows no benchmark or "typical rate" data, because there is no single official source for sponsorship rates.
Net profit on the whole deal
$830
On a $2,500 fee — blended margin 33%.
No deliverable loses money at this split.
Margin waterfall per deliverable
Each bar runs from the allocated fee down through production, time and revision overhead — what remains is your net.
- Dedicated video$546.71net
- Allocated fee:
- $1,646.71
- − Production:
- $400
- − Your time:
- $600
- − Revision overhead:
- $100
- Effective hourly:
- $45.56/h
- Story ×3$208.74net
- Allocated fee:
- $628.74
- − Production:
- $120
- − Your time:
- $150
- − Revision overhead:
- $150
- Effective hourly:
- $69.58/h
- Newsletter mention$74.55net
- Allocated fee:
- $224.55
- − Production:
- $0
- − Your time:
- $100
- − Revision overhead:
- $50
- Effective hourly:
- $37.28/h
The cost of one more revision round
At $50 per revision round, the whole deal has $830 of profit cushion — that is the most a single extra round across the deal could cost before the deal nets zero. Each deliverable above also shows how many extra rounds it can absorb before it tips into a loss.
You left the revision-round cost blank, so it defaults to one hour of your time ($50 per round). Set your own figure for a sharper number.
Take it to the negotiation
Export your full margin waterfall · $19 / €19
Download a PDF + CSV of this exact deal — every deliverable's waterfall, the net and effective hourly per deliverable, the blended margin, and the revision break-even. One-time, no account, ready to bring to the call.
Purchases handled by Lemon Squeezy (Merchant of Record).
Checkout is being finalised — the export will be available here shortly.
Estimate, not financial advice
This tool is an estimate to help you read your own deal before you accept it. It is not financial, tax or accounting advice, and it is not an adviser. The output is only as accurate as the costs and hours you enter, and it uses no benchmark or market-rate figures. Sense-check the result against your own records before deciding.
How the math works
How the fee is split across deliverables
The sponsor pays one total fee, so the first step is to attribute part of it to each deliverable. By default we split it by effort: each deliverable's share is proportional to its total cost (production + your time + revision overhead). A deliverable that consumes twice the resources is allocated twice the fee — this is deliberately honest, because it refuses to flatter a cheap-looking deliverable and it exposes a loss-leader for what it is. If you priced the deal per slot rather than per effort, switch the split to equal, which divides the fee evenly across the deliverable lines.
Production and your time
For each deliverable, production cost (editing, props, location, music, licensing) and your own time are subtracted from the allocated fee. Time cost is your hours multiplied by your hourly cost, multiplied by how many of that deliverable are in the deal. Use a fully-loaded hourly cost — what an hour of your attention is actually worth to you — not just a target rate, so the net reflects reality.
How revision overhead is counted
The revision rounds you include in a price are rarely free: each round is more work. We count revision overhead as the rounds included per deliverable multiplied by the cost of one round, multiplied by the count. You set the cost of one round; if you leave it blank we default to one hour of your time (a clearly-labelled fallback, not a market figure). That is why a deliverable with many included revisions can quietly turn negative even when the headline fee looks generous.
Effective hourly and break-even
Net profit divided by the hours you spent is your true effective hourly rate per deliverable — often very different from the headline fee. The deal-level break-even shows the profit cushion you have against one more round of changes, and each deliverable shows how many extra revision rounds it can absorb before it tips into a loss. These are the numbers to take into the negotiation.
Where the numbers come from
Everything shown is computed from your inputs, in your browser — nothing is sent to a server. This tool deliberately asserts no "typical sponsorship rate" or benchmark figures, because there is no single authoritative source for them and inventing one would be misleading. The starting values in the form are an editable example to make the tool usable on first load, not a recommendation.
Frequently asked questions
- How is the total fee split across deliverables?
- By default the fee is split by effort: each deliverable's share is proportional to its total cost (production + your time + revision overhead). You can switch to an equal split, which divides the fee evenly across the deliverable lines, if you priced the deal per slot rather than per effort.
- What does "effective hourly rate" mean here?
- It is the net profit on a deliverable divided by the hours you actually spent on it. A deliverable can look well-paid on the headline fee yet pay a poor effective hourly once production and revision overhead come out — this number shows the truth.
- How is revision overhead calculated?
- Revision overhead for a deliverable is the number of revision rounds you included, multiplied by the cost of one round, multiplied by the count. You enter the cost of one round; leave it blank and it defaults to one hour of your time, clearly labelled as a fallback rather than a market figure.
- Why does a deliverable show as losing money?
- Because at the current split its real cost (production + your time + revision overhead) is greater than the share of the fee allocated to it. That deliverable is a loss-leader carried by the others — worth knowing before you accept, so you can re-price it or drop it.
- Do you use any benchmark or typical sponsorship rates?
- No. Every figure on the page comes from the numbers you enter. There is no single official source for sponsorship rates, so the tool asserts none — inventing benchmark figures would be fabricated data. The example values in the form are editable placeholders, not market data.
- Is this financial advice?
- No. It is an estimate to help you read your own deal before accepting it, and it is not an adviser. The output is only as accurate as the costs and hours you enter; sense-check it against your own records before deciding.