How to Reply to a Brand Deal Email (and Spot the Fake Ones)
Don't quote in your first reply. Verify the brand, ask for the brief, then price in lines. Google's data on the fake sponsorship emails that hijack channels, and four templates.
A brand has emailed. They love your channel, they'd like to work together, and they want to know your rate. The instinct is to answer the last question first. Don't. The first reply to a brand deal email has two jobs, and quoting a price isn't either of them: make sure the brand is real, and find out what you'd actually be selling.
The short answer
Reply in three moves, in this order:
- Verify the sender before you click, download or open anything. Fake sponsorship emails are a documented way of hijacking YouTube channels.
- Ask for the brief: deliverables, dates, usage rights, exclusivity, budget and payment terms. You can't price a deal you can't see.
- Quote in lines, not one number. Base fee, then usage and exclusivity as separate items, so you have something to trade when they push back.
Templates for each step are further down. First, the part most guides skip.
Step 1: make sure the brand is real
This isn't paranoia. Google's Threat Analysis Group published a report on exactly this attack in October 2021: "Since late 2019, our team has disrupted financially motivated phishing campaigns targeting YouTubers with Cookie Theft malware."
The method is a sponsorship email. The attackers "lure their target with fake collaboration opportunities (typically a demo for anti-virus software, VPN, music players, photo editing or online games), hijack their channel, then either sell it to the highest bidder or use it to broadcast cryptocurrency scams." They don't invent brands; they borrow them: "the attackers sent forged business emails impersonating an existing company requesting a video advertisement collaboration."
The scale is not small. Google identified "Around 15,000 actor accounts" and "at least 1,011 domains created solely for this purpose", and says it "successfully restored ~4K accounts". Stolen channels were resold for anything from "$3 USD to $4,000 USD depending on the number of subscribers."
The trap springs after you say yes: "Once the target agreed to the deal, a malware landing page disguised as a software download URL was sent via email or a PDF on Google Drive". That's why the reply you're about to write matters. The dangerous moment isn't the first email. It's the "great, here's the product to try" that follows.
Red flags, straight from the sources
| Red flag | Source |
|---|---|
| You're sent software to "review" as a download, especially a zipped file with a password | YouTube Help: malware "usually sneaks through your devices as password protected and zipped files that end in .scr or .exe file." |
| They ask for access to your channel to "help with marketing" | YouTube Help lists "Marketing assistance that requires channel access" among messages not to answer |
| They want to move the conversation to WhatsApp, Telegram or Discord | Google TAG: "the actors were observed driving targets to messaging apps like WhatsApp, Telegram or Discord." |
| The product is a VPN, antivirus, photo editor, music player or game | These are the lures the TAG report lists by name |
| An email claims to come from YouTube but isn't from its domains | YouTube Help: "Legitimate emails from YouTube will only come from @youtube.com or @google.com email addresses." |
None of these on its own proves a scam. Plenty of real VPN brands sponsor videos. But the checks cost nothing, and YouTube's own safety page for creators tells you what to do before answering: "Before replying to a brand deal or sponsorship email, it's best to verify legitimacy by calling the company on the phone or reaching out to the person you usually work with."
In practice that means:
- Find the brand's real website yourself, by searching for it rather than through a link in the email, and check the sender's domain against it. A signature costs nothing to fake.
- Find a contact on the brand's own site (a press or partnerships address) and ask them to confirm the person who emailed you works there.
- Never run a file to "test the product". If there's something to try, get it from the brand's own site or an official app store, found by you.
- Don't treat a convincing website as proof. According to the TAG report, "The attackers registered various domains associated with forged companies and built multiple websites for malware delivery", and "Some of the websites impersonated legitimate software sites, such as Luminar, Cisco VPN, games on Steam". What protects you is a contact route you found on your own, not one the sender gave you.
One thing that doesn't work as a check: waiting for the offer to arrive through YouTube. YouTube's Creator Partnerships program does let brands reach eligible creators inside Studio, but its help page says those creators "may receive inquiries from brands through the Creator Partnerships tab and offline through email or their social handles." A real offer by email is normal. And even an offer inside Studio isn't the deal: "you will negotiate and sign an agreement directly with the brand, and you will be paid by the brand."
Step 2: ask what you're being asked to sell
Once the brand checks out, the goal of your reply is information. Creators Agency, a sponsorship agency that works mostly with US finance channels (its rate card draws on a dataset that is more than 95% US deals and about 75% finance or business), puts the logic in one line in its negotiation guide: "Integration type, exclusivity, and usage rights move the number up or down more than almost anything else." If you quote before you know those three, you're guessing.
The questions worth asking, and why each one changes the price:
| Ask about | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Deliverables — integration or dedicated video, length, number of videos, any Shorts or community posts | On Creators Agency's rate card, "a full sponsor video often costs about two times a mid-roll", which it calls "a common planning mark, not a rule." Its guide for new finance creators names the risk of leaving scope open: "Vague deliverables lead to revision requests that were never in scope." |
| Dates — when the script is due, when it goes live | The same guide: "First contact to live video is typically 2-6 weeks." A tighter timeline is rush work and can be priced as such. |
| Usage rights — will they run your clip as an ad, where, for how long | Paid usage is a second product. See how to price usage rights. |
| Exclusivity — can you work with competitors, and for how long | Exclusivity is income you give up. See how to price category exclusivity. |
| Budget | Asking isn't rude. Creators Agency's guide to negotiating tells creators to do it up front: "Ask what their budget is for this campaign." |
| Approvals — who reviews the script, how many rounds | Every extra round is unpaid time unless the contract caps it. |
| Payment terms — when you get paid, and what starts the clock | "Net 30" means nothing until you know day one. See brand deal payment terms. |
One more thing to settle early: disclosure. On YouTube, a sponsored video has to be declared. YouTube's help page says "you have to let YouTube know by selecting the paid promotion button in your video details", and that doing so "adds a disclosure label that appears at the beginning of your video". In the US, the FTC's guidance for influencers adds that "the disclosure should be in the video and not just in the description uploaded with the video." A brand that asks you to skip or hide it is asking you to take a legal risk on its behalf, and YouTube is explicit that "You and the partners you work with are also responsible for understanding and complying with all applicable legal requirements."
Step 3: quote in lines
When you have the brief, price it. Our sponsorship rate calculator gives you a starting figure from your views and niche, with the source of every number labelled next to it.
Then send it as lines, not a total:
- Base fee for the integration
- Usage rights, if any: platforms and end date
- Exclusivity, if any: category and end date
- Extra deliverables: Shorts, raw files, extra revision rounds
The reason is negotiation. When a brand comes back with "that's above our budget", a single number leaves you one move: cutting your fee. Lines give you better moves. You can shorten the usage window, narrow the exclusivity or drop a Short, and keep your base rate intact for the next deal.
Templates
Rewrite these in your own voice. Brands read a lot of creator emails, and the ones that sound like a template get treated like one.
Reply 1: you need the brief
Hi [name],
Thanks for reaching out, [brand] sounds like a good fit for my audience.
Before I send a quote, could you share a few details?
- What deliverables you have in mind (integration or dedicated video, length, any Shorts)
- Target dates for the script and the publish date
- Whether you'd like to use the video in ads, and for how long
- Any exclusivity you'd need
- Your budget for this campaign, and your payment terms
Happy to send my media kit in the meantime.
[your name]
Reply 2: you have the brief and you're quoting
Hi [name],
Thanks for the brief. Here's my quote:
- 60–90 second integration in one video, publishing [date]: $1,200
- Paid usage on YouTube ads, 30 days ending [calendar date]: $240
- Category exclusivity, [category] only, 30 days from publish: $120
Total: $1,560. Payment 50% on signature and 50% within 30 days of the video going live.
This includes one round of script revisions. Happy to adjust the usage or exclusivity if the budget is tighter.
[your name]
Example figures, not a recommended rate. The usage and exclusivity lines follow the proportions our calculator uses: 20% and 10% of the base fee per 30 days.
Reply 3: the budget is too low
Hi [name],
Thanks for the offer. At [their budget] I can't do the full package, but I could do [smaller version: shorter integration, no paid usage, no exclusivity]. If the full scope matters, my rate for it is [fee].
Either way, I'd love to work with [brand] when the timing works.
[your name]
Reply 4: something doesn't add up
Hi [name],
Thanks for getting in touch. Before we go further, I'll confirm the collaboration with [brand]'s partnerships team through the contact on your website. Who should I mention? Also, I don't install software or open downloaded files for reviews.
[your name]
A real partnerships manager won't mind being checked. Just make sure the confirmation comes through the contact you found, not a reply in the same thread.
Keep the thread
A deal starts in email, but it doesn't stay there. The dates, the usage end date, the exclusivity window and the payment date you just agreed are all promises that come due weeks later. If you're running more than one deal at a time, write them down next to the deal, in a spreadsheet or in something like VidCRM, so none of them depends on you searching your inbox.
What we don't know
- How common these scams are today. The Google report is from 2021 and describes activity since late 2019. YouTube's current help pages still warn about fake sponsorship emails, but we haven't found a newer public figure.
- What a "normal" first offer is. Opening numbers seem to reflect the brand's budget more than your channel, though we haven't seen data on it. The Creator Partnerships help page itself warns that amounts shown there "are provided by the advertiser and are not meant to be confused with final offers".
- How representative the agency advice is. Creators Agency works mostly with US finance and business channels, and its rate card's dataset shows it; the general advice we quote comes from the same experience. The questions travel well; any specific figure is a starting point.
None of this is legal advice. If a contract is large or the terms are unusual, a lawyer reading the actual document is worth more than any template.
Free tools
- YouTube money calculator — estimate what a video earns from ads.
- Sponsorship rate calculator — work out what to charge a brand.
- See all tools