A mid-tier content creator with a seven-figure follower base, a platform exclusivity offer with a four-year term and a category-wide non-compete, and a payment structure that back-loaded eighty percent of the guarantee. We rebuilt the deal into something a creator could actually run.
The primary platform offered a four-year exclusive with a headline guarantee that read well on a press release. Read against the payment schedule, eighty percent of the guarantee sat in Years Three and Four, contingent on engagement metrics the platform controlled unilaterally.
The non-compete restricted him from posting to any competing platform for the term plus twelve months. The category exclusivity blocked brand deals across food, apparel, and streaming, categories that already made up half his current income.
We shortened the term to two years with a mutual option, moved sixty percent of the total guarantee into Years One and Two, and tied the remaining payments to engagement metrics defined by objective third-party measurement rather than platform-internal analytics.
We narrowed the non-compete to the primary platform's direct competitor set (three named platforms), excluded secondary channels entirely, and dropped the post-term tail to ninety days. On category exclusivity, we carved out T.V.'s existing brand relationships in food, apparel, and streaming, capped future exclusivity to categories the platform actually sold into, and gave him a right to renegotiate any specific brand block for a rebate.
We routed all payments through his existing content company entity, added quarterly engagement reporting with a third-party audit right, and built a fifteen-minute term sheet he can use on any future offer.
"They offered a big number. Brandon showed me the small print underneath."
— T.V., Content Creator
Platform deals are marketed on the number in the press release. The number that actually matters is buried in the payment schedule, the non-compete radius, and whoever controls the metric that triggers payment. T.V.'s offer read like a win on the surface and functioned like a four-year lockup underneath.
A creator's income rarely comes from one source. A category-wide non-compete that ignores an existing brand book is not protecting the platform's investment, it is taxing income the creator built before the platform ever showed up.
We negotiate platform exclusivity, brand, and syndication deals for content creators, and we build a reusable term sheet into every engagement so the next offer takes an afternoon, not a crisis.
Most engagements are flat fee, quoted before the work begins — and most matters resolve without litigation. Start with a free consultation.