How many sales does a UGC video need to pay for itself?
For ecommerce brands. Four short blocks, and the number updates on its own.
Advanced optionsGifted product $0 · leakage 0% · 100% incremental
If the code includes free shipping, what each shipment costs you.
What the product you send each creator costs you.
The share of sales you lose. Raises the sales needed by 1 / (1 − leakage).
If half the people using the code would have bought anyway, enter 50%. Raises the sales needed by 1 / that share.
Reference tableSee the table
Code sales to recover a $150 video at 15% off, by order value and margin.
| Order value | 30% margin | 50% margin | 70% margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| $37.5 | 62 | 16 | 9 |
| $75 | 31 | 8 | 5 |
| $150 | 16 | 4 | 3 |
How many sales does a UGC video need to pay for itself?
For ecommerce brands (Shopify or whatever you sell on) about to order videos from creators. Before a Black Friday sprint, the question that matters is how many sales it takes for each video to pay for itself. A discount code can multiply that number, and running the video as an ad can shrink it: this calculator puts both in the same math.
Frequently asked questions
Another question? Write to us at hello@creatorplace.ai
What is the break-even point of a UGC video?
It's the number of sales at which the profit from those sales covers what you paid for the video. It's the video cost divided by the profit each sale leaves, rounded up. It doesn't include the brand value the content creates, so it's a floor: once you pass it, the video has paid for itself.
Why does a discount code need so many more sales?
Because the discount comes straight out of your margin. With a 30% margin and a 20% code, each sale leaves 10% of the order value instead of 30%: you need three times the sales to recover the same amount. The closer the discount gets to your margin, the faster the number climbs, and if it matches it, no number of sales is enough.
Which margin should I use?
Gross margin: price minus cost of goods, before ad spend and fixed costs. To be stricter, also subtract payment processing and packaging, or enter them as leakage in the advanced adjustments.
How does an affiliate commission affect it?
It's calculated on the discounted price and subtracted from the profit of each code sale, just like the discount. A 10% commission on top of a 15% code may look small, but on a 50% margin it takes almost a quarter of what's left.
What changes if I use the video as an ad?
The video stops depending only on the creator's code. When you run it as an ad, each purchase from that ad leaves its profit minus what it cost to get (the CPA), and that difference also pays the video back. That's why a creative that works in paid social pays for itself much sooner than one that only lives on the creator's profile.
See 3 more questionsSee less
What are incremental sales?
The ones that wouldn't have happened without the creator. A code is also used by customers who were going to buy anyway and found the code along the way: those sales recover nothing, because you'd have made them regardless, and now at a discount. If you don't know the share, 60–80% is a prudent assumption for a brand with repeat customers.
How many sales per video is a reasonable number?
It depends on your store more than on the creator. Compare the result with what your store sells in a normal week: if a single video needs more sales than that, the problem is the relationship between video cost, order value and margin, not the choice of creator.
Is it worth ordering several videos at once?
For paid social, almost always: the first days of a sprint are for finding out which hook works, and the winner usually pays for the ones that don't. That's why the calculator adds up the cost of the whole sprint and calculates sales on the total, not video by video.