Exclusivity Clauses: When to Say No (and What to Charge When You Say Yes)
An exclusivity clause is a brand buying your silence about their competitors. That’s a legitimate thing to sell. The problem is that most creators give it away as a contract formality, without reading the scope or doing the arithmetic on what it costs.
Read the scope first
The clause “Creator will not promote competing products for six (6) months” has three moving parts, and each one changes the price.
What counts as competing? “Other budgeting apps” is narrow and reasonable. “Financial products and services” covers most of a finance channel’s plausible sponsors. I’ve seen a clause covering “technology products,” offered to a tech channel, for no additional fee. That’s not exclusivity, that’s a hiring contract without the salary.
How long? Thirty days around the video is standard and usually fine. Six months is a real commitment. Twelve months should be priced like the partnership it actually is.
Which platforms? Your channel only, or everywhere you post? Watch for clauses that quietly cover platforms the brand isn’t even paying to appear on.
The arithmetic
The pricing logic is opportunity cost, and it’s simple enough to do on a napkin. Estimate how many sponsorships you’d normally take from that category in the exclusivity window, multiply by your rate, and that’s the revenue the clause deletes. A finance channel doing one finance sponsorship a month at $2,000, asked for six months of category exclusivity, is being asked to forgo roughly $10,000 of other work. If the deal fee is $3,000, the brand is asking for a $10,000 asset as a free add-on.
A reasonable market rate: narrow product exclusivity for 30 days is often baked into a fair fee already. Category exclusivity beyond that should add 25 to 100% to the deal price depending on scope and duration. Brands who actually need the exclusivity will pay it. Brands who put the clause in as a default will drop it the moment it has a price, which tells you exactly what it was worth to them.
When to just say no
When the category definition is vague and the brand won’t tighten it. Vague scope plus a signed contract equals a dispute where the paper is against you. And when the exclusivity outlasts the relationship: if a brand wants your category locked for a year, they want an ambassador, and ambassador deals are a different negotiation with different money.
Every contract we negotiate prices exclusivity as its own line item, visible to both sides. Brands respect it more often than creators expect. That’s the job.