Set your rate and caps

Four numbers decide who clips your campaign and what the pool buys. Here is how to set each one, with a worked example at the end.

Rate per 1,000 views

Open Discover and read the rates on campaigns in your niche. That is the market, because creators read the same board every day and pick the best paid footage they like.

Sit at or slightly above the others. The difference between $1.00 and $1.20 on 500,000 views is $100. The difference in who is cutting your footage is large. Below the board, the good clippers go elsewhere and you get the ones nobody else approved.

You pay only for views that happen, so a higher rate does not raise your total spend; it raises the quality of the clippers and how fast the pool is used.

Max payout per clip

The cap protects the pool from one enormous clip and tells clippers what kind of campaign this is.

A rule that works: cap between 100 and 500 times the rate.

• $1 rate, $100 cap: stops paying at 100,000 views. Safe, and the clippers who chase hits will skip it.
• $1 rate, $300 cap: pays up to 300,000 views. Covers nearly every clip, stops the rare monster from taking the pool.
• $1 rate, $500 cap: pays up to 500,000 views. Attracts the clippers who land hits, and one hit costs you $500.

If you are not sure, start at 300 times and raise it once you have seen your first cap hitter. The cap hitters are usually your best clips.

Minimum payout

The dollar amount a clip has to earn before it enters your review queue. It keeps clips nobody watched out of your queue.

At a $1 rate, a $1 minimum is 1,000 views; a $5 minimum is 5,000. Somewhere in that range is normal. Go higher and you lose the clippers whose clips reliably land at 3,000 to 8,000 views, which is where a lot of the volume is.

Budget

Divide by the rate to see the views you are buying. $5,000 at $1 is up to 5 million views; caps and minimums shave a bit off. Then add 10% for the fee: $5,500 in balance funds a $5,000 pool.

Start smaller than you think for the first campaign. Two weeks of a $2,000 pool tells you your real cost per view and which clippers to keep. Topping up is one click.

Flat bonus per clip

Optional. A fixed amount for every approved clip on top of the per view pay. Useful when you want volume from a UGC campaign where each video is real work, or when you want to reward steady posting rather than hits. Leave it empty for a pure clipping campaign.

Tracking window

Days a clip keeps accruing after submission. 30 is the default and fits how short video behaves: most of a clip's views arrive in the first two weeks. Shorter windows save budget on slow burners; longer ones reward evergreen clips.

Reading the burn

Once live, Home shows spend against budget. In the first week:

Burning fast. Clippers found it worth their time. Top up if it is working.

Barely moving. Rate under the board, dull footage, or a brief too strict. Raise the rate first; it is the fastest lever.

Fast and flagged. A few clips with sudden jumps that trip the flags. Reject them with a reason and the money stays in the pool.

A worked example

A podcast wants reach. The niche pays $0.80 to $1.20 on the board. They set $1.25, a $300 cap, a $2 minimum, TikTok, Reels and Shorts, a 30 day window, and a $3,000 pool, funded as $3,300.

In three weeks, twelve approved clippers post about 600 clips. Most earn under $5. Forty earn $20 to $100. Three hit the cap. The pool empties around 2.6 million views, and the brand tops up with the cap raised to $400.

The longer reasoning is in how brands should set a clipping rate.