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What a marketplace is actually providing
A marketplace does three things beyond simply listing work: it brings briefs to a pool of approved creators instead of you having to find each brand yourself, it defines the deliverable and terms before you start (price, revisions, usage rights, on several platforms by default), and it handles collecting payment from the brand and paying it out to you.
That bundle is not free. JoinBrands takes a 15 to 20% platform fee depending on plan; Insense takes 20%, 10% or 7% depending on the brand's tier. Both of these are charged to the brand side on the pages checked, which matters because it means the fee does not necessarily come out of your rate directly, but it is still a cost built into how the brand priced the job in the first place.
What direct outreach replaces that with
Reaching out to a brand directly with a pitch and a portfolio link removes the marketplace's cut entirely, since there is no platform sitting between you and the brand's payment. It also removes everything the marketplace was doing: you are now the one defining the deliverable, the revisions, the usage rights and the payment terms, usually by sending your own simple proposal or invoice, and you are relying on the brand itself to pay reliably with nobody else collecting on your behalf.
Where a brand-run program sits in between
Several large brands run their own creator programs directly, skipping third-party marketplaces but still providing a defined application process and stated terms. Walmart Creator, for example, is reported (via a secondary source, since Walmart's own public page showed only a promotional snippet in this research) to pay a commission of up to 20% in top categories on purchases made through a creator's link, which is a commission structure rather than a flat per-video UGC fee, and is a different kind of deal from the marketplaces covered elsewhere in this guide.
Nomatic's own creator community page describes free product plus a commission, with no flat per-post fee stated, which is a similar affiliate-leaning structure rather than a UGC flat fee.
What direct outreach is realistically worth trying for
- A brand you already have a genuine connection to or history with, where a cold pitch is less cold than it would be otherwise.
- A niche with few or no marketplace briefs available, where there is simply no middleman option to compare against.
- A rate you believe is meaningfully above what marketplace briefs in your niche are currently paying, since direct outreach is the only way to set your own price with no platform fee built in, at the cost of doing your own invoicing and chasing payment yourself.
The risk direct outreach carries that a marketplace absorbs
A marketplace is also, in effect, insuring you against a brand that never pays. Because the marketplace collects from the brand and then pays the creator out of its own processed funds, a creator working through Billo, Insense, JoinBrands or Influee is generally not waiting on an individual brand's own willingness to pay once content is approved. Working directly with a brand removes that buffer: if a brand is slow, disputes the deliverable, or simply does not pay, there is no platform holding funds in escrow or enforcing its own terms on your behalf, and recovering payment is entirely on you.
This is not a reason to avoid direct outreach, since plenty of brands pay reliably with no platform involved at all, but it is a real cost that a flat comparison of "marketplace fee versus zero fee" leaves out. Getting payment up front, or a deposit before filming, is one practical way independent creators commonly reduce this risk when working directly with a brand for the first time.
What to have ready before pitching a brand directly
- A short portfolio link, the same one you would use to apply to a marketplace.
- A specific, one-paragraph pitch naming the product and a concrete idea for the video, not a generic "I'd love to work with your brand" message.
- A stated rate or rate range, and what it includes (length, revisions, usage rights), since without a marketplace's default terms behind you, an unstated scope is the most common source of a dispute later.
- A simple invoice template ready to send once a brand agrees, since nothing processes payment for you the way a marketplace does.
A reasonable way to think about the choice
The decision is not really marketplace or direct outreach as a permanent identity; it is a per-opportunity calculation. A marketplace is the lower-effort, lower-risk default, especially while building a portfolio and a track record, since it handles the scoping and the collection of payment for you at the cost of a fee built into how the brand priced the brief. Direct outreach becomes more worth the extra effort once you have a strong portfolio, a clear sense of your own rate, and either an existing relationship with a brand or a niche where marketplace briefs are thin on the ground.
Running both at the same time, rather than choosing one permanently
Many working creators do not treat this as an either-or choice at all. Keeping a marketplace profile active for the steady flow of pre-scoped briefs, while occasionally pitching a brand directly when a genuine opportunity or connection comes up, spreads the risk: a slow month on one marketplace does not leave you with nothing, and a direct pitch that goes nowhere does not cost you anything beyond the time spent writing it, since nothing about applying to one closes off the other.
Reviewed November 13, 2026. Walmart Creator's pay figure above is from a secondary source, since Walmart's own public page showed only a promotional snippet in this research, not a stated per-post or commission detail.