How to Get Brand Deals in 2026: The Complete Guide by Platform and Follower Count

How to get brand deals in 2026 comes down to being easy to hire and then going to brands instead of waiting. Pick one niche a brand can sell into, film two or three ad-style sample videos with products you own, and put your median views, audience location and samples in a one-link media kit. Then work three routes every week: apply to campaigns brands post, pitch brands that already pay creators your size, and opt into TikTok One, Instagram's creator marketplace and YouTube Creator Partnerships. Content-only (UGC) deals need no followers at all.

Your follower count decides which doors are open, not whether you can get a deal. Under 1,000 followers, go after content-only UGC and gifted work: Aurelia sets no follower minimum, Billo requires no following, and Club Target starts at 500. From 1,000 followers, TikTok One brand projects, the US TikTok Shop affiliate program and Insense open up, with Social Cat at 3,000. From 10,000, Tubefilter reports that TikTok One's Creative Exchange opens. In CreatorIQ's 2025-26 survey, brands ranked brand suitability first and follower count last when choosing who to work with. Minimums are as of October 2026.

On TikTok, brand projects in TikTok One need 1,000 followers and an account holder aged 18 or older, branded posts need the commercial content disclosure toggle, and a brand needs your authorization to run a post as a Spark Ad. On Instagram, the creator marketplace needs 1,000 followers, you negotiate each deal yourself, and the Paid Partnership label is required even for gifted product. On YouTube, the 1,000-subscriber and 4,000-hour thresholds belong to the Partner Program, not to sponsorships; Creator Partnerships sits under Earn in YouTube Studio, and sponsored videos need the paid promotion setting.

Published pay benchmarks for brand deals vary widely. Influencer Marketing Hub's 2026 planning ranges put a TikTok video at $50 to $200 for accounts under 10K followers and $200 to $800 for 10K to 100K followers, while Later's 2026 guide puts a post at $100 to $500 for nano accounts and $500 to $2,500 for micro accounts. Scope moves the number: deliverables, revisions, speed and usage rights. Later puts running your content as paid ads at 30 to 50 percent on top of your base rate. Set a floor with a rate calculator before a brand asks.

If you are not getting brand deals, match the symptom to the fix. Never picked after applying: film a sample in the exact format the brief asks for. No replies to pitches: open with one idea for one product and send it to a named contact. Only offered free product: reply with a paid option. Replies stall at the price: offer two or three scoped options. After a first deal, send a results recap a week after posting and propose the next project. Ignore any offer that asks you to pay, buy product or move to a messaging app.

Aurelia makes getting brand deals easier. It is the creator campaign marketplace where brands post campaigns and creators of any audience size apply in a few taps, with their media kit, stats and answers attached automatically. Every campaign shows your take-home pay, the product, the usage rights and the deadline before you apply, and the take-home you see already has Aurelia's fee taken out. There is no follower minimum, applicants are ranked by fit with the brief rather than follower count, the contract is written from the campaign, and you are paid to your bank after the brand approves your work.