Short answer
UGC stands for user-generated content: photos, videos and reviews made by customers and other ordinary people, not by the brand. Brands use it in two main ways: organic UGC, which a customer posts on their own and the brand may reuse only with permission, and paid UGC, where a brand hires a creator to film customer-style videos for its accounts and ads. What a brand buys with paid UGC is the video and the right to use it; with influencer marketing it buys a post to the creator's audience.
What does UGC stand for?
User-generated content. The term started with forums, reviews and comments: anything the users of a site made, as opposed to what the site's owner published. In marketing today it means content about a product made by someone outside the brand, usually filmed on a phone and posted to TikTok, Instagram, YouTube or a shop's review section.
Strictly, UGC is defined by who made it: a customer, not the brand. In ad briefs the word has stretched to cover a look as well: one person, a phone, a real room. That's why "UGC style" and "UGC ads" exist as terms: brands hire creators to make videos that look like a customer filmed them, and the industry calls those UGC too, even though a brand paid for them.
What are the types of UGC?
By who made it and why, there are three kinds. Many definitions call UGC unpaid and then show paid examples; keeping the three apart tells you who owns a video and who has to disclose it.
| Organic UGC | Incentivized UGC | Paid UGC | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who makes it | A customer, on their own | A customer given a free product, discount or giveaway entry | A creator the brand hires to film to a brief |
| Who posts it | The customer | The customer | Usually the brand, on its accounts and in ads |
| Who owns it | The customer | The customer | The contract decides; with no written transfer, the creator |
| What the brand needs to reuse it | The customer's permission | The customer's permission | The usage rights it paid for |
| Disclosure | None needed while it stays the customer's own post | The customer discloses the incentive | The ad's label; the creator's too if they post it |
One paid case blurs the line: with a Spark Ads code or whitelisting, the brand's ad runs under the creator's own handle, so check who labels it before the ad goes live.
The common UGC formats, and where brands use each:
| Format | What it is | Where brands use it |
|---|---|---|
| Photo or video review | A customer shows the product and rates it | Product pages, post-purchase emails |
| Tagged post | A customer posts the product and tags the brand | Reposts, stories, the website's gallery |
| Unboxing | Opening the package and first impressions | TikTok, Reels, awareness ads |
| Testimonial | Talking to camera about why they use it | Paid ads, landing pages |
| Tutorial or demo | Showing how to use it, step by step | Product pages, Shorts, support |
| Q&A or reply video | Answering a viewer's question on camera | Ads, product-page FAQs |
| Before and after | Showing the result, without overclaiming | Ads, within the platform's claims rules |
Paid UGC is the one most people mean when they talk about "doing UGC" as a job. If that's you, the UGC creator guide covers getting started, platforms and pay; this page stays on what UGC is.
How is UGC different from influencer and affiliate content?
The difference is what the brand pays for. Paid UGC buys the video, influencer marketing buys a post to an audience, and affiliate marketing pays a commission on sales.
| Paid UGC | Influencer post | Affiliate (e.g. TikTok Shop) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What's paid for | The video and the right to use it | Reach: a post on the creator's account | Sales from the creator's link or showcase |
| How it's paid | A flat fee per video, plus usage | A fee per post | A commission on each sale, after returns |
| Followers needed | No | Yes, they're the product | A minimum set by each program (see the TikTok affiliate program guide) |
| Where it runs | The brand's accounts and ads | The creator's account | The creator's account and shop links |
| Risk sits with | The brand: it pays whether or not the ad works | The brand | The creator: no sales, no pay |
The pay models are different enough to be worth putting in numbers. Our rate calculator prices one edited 15 to 30-second video from a beginner, for organic use only, at $100–$300 (typical $175). The default product in our TikTok Shop earnings calculator, $29.99 at 15% commission with 8% returned, pays $4.50 a sale, or $4.14 once returns are averaged in. To earn the typical UGC fee from that one video as an affiliate, it has to sell 43 units (25 to match the low fee, 73 the high one).
A UGC fee is fixed when you agree the brief. A commission depends on sales, has no ceiling, and keeps paying while the video sells. TikTok treats both as branded content when they're posted on your own account: its policy lists a gifted product and a commission "via an affiliate link or promotional code" alongside payment. On the other side of an affiliate sale is a seller paying that commission; selling on TikTok Shop covers how they set it.
What does a UGC video look like before and after the edit?
The finished ad keeps the phone, the room and the voice, but the pauses, filler sounds and fluffed lines are gone. To show how much goes, we ran a 30-second talking-to-camera testimonial through the code behind UGCLive's AI edit. The clip is a synthetic test recording (an AI voice and a made-up serum, no real person) with the problems real takes have planted in it: two long pauses, three fillers, a stutter and a line said twice.
| Raw take | After the cut | |
|---|---|---|
| Length | 30.4 s | 20.5 s (32.5% shorter) |
| Spoken words | 75 | 62 |
| Long pauses (over 0.7 s) | 2: 2.6 s and 2.0 s | None |
| Time removed for pauses (the 2 long ones and shorter gaps between sentences) | 5.8 s, in 5 cuts | |
| Time removed for a retaken line | 3.4 s (11 words) | |
| Time removed for fillers | 0.6 s (2 of the 3: um and uh; "like" kept) | |
| Pieces on the timeline (cuts next to each other merge) | 1 | 6 |
| Caption lines | 21 |
In this take, about a third of the running time was silence, filler and a second go at a line. The finished video still looks unplanned, but it's 6 pieces stitched together with captions on top. The code kept "like" because it can be a real word, so it isn't cut blind, and it missed the planted stutter because the transcript wrote "they're they're" as two different words.
A typical UGC ad runs 15 to 60 seconds: an opening hook, the problem, the product in use, some proof, and a call to action. The ten formats brands buy most (testimonial, unboxing, problem and solution, demo and more) are broken down beat by beat, with sample scripts, in our UGC examples.
What brands usually expect in a delivered UGC video: vertical 9:16 at 1080×1920 or higher, daylight from a window, clear sound (a clip-on mic beats the phone's own), no background music unless the brief asks (brands add licensed tracks in the ad), no app watermark, and burned-in captions only if requested.
Why do brands use UGC?
- It looks like the feed. On TikTok and Reels a phone video from a person looks like the other videos in the feed, so people watch it as a video before they decide it's an ad.
- It answers buyers' questions. A customer's video shows size, texture and what it's like to use, which a studio photo can't show.
- It's cheap to test. 3 beginner videos with 2 extra hooks (opening lines) each give a brand 9 versions to run; our rate calculator prices that, with 30 days of paid ads, at $585–$1,755 (typical $1,024).
- Customers already make it. Tagged posts and photo reviews are organic UGC a brand can ask to use. Asking for reviews after a purchase brings in more; the FTC says that if you offer anything for them, you can't make it depend on a positive review, and you shouldn't only ask the customers you expect to be happy.
You'll see big percentages quoted for how much more people trust UGC. Most of the ones in the top results are vendor surveys from 2016 to 2022, often without a year attached, so we haven't repeated any.
Can a brand repost a customer's video?
It can share or repost it inside the app; anything beyond that needs the customer's permission. Instagram suggests reposting or sharing to stories when you want to show another account's reel without editing it, because the creator keeps the credit (Instagram). Downloading the video and posting it as your own, or running it as an ad, is different: Instagram's copyright help says to get written permission from the author, and says that giving credit to the copyright owner doesn't, on its own, stop a post from infringing (Instagram copyright).
Posting a video also doesn't give brands any rights. The license users grant in Instagram's terms runs to Instagram, not to other accounts (Instagram terms), and TikTok's intellectual property policy says using others' copyrighted content "without proper authorization" may break its rules (TikTok).
- Ask in writing
A comment or DM is fine to start. Say where you want to use it (your feed, your website, ads) and for how long.
- Get a clear yes to those uses
"Yes, you can use it" to a question that named ads is better than a heart emoji. Keep a screenshot with the date.
- Pay or license it for ads
Running someone's video as an ad is a bigger ask than a repost. Offer a fee, and write down the period and channels.
- Credit them
Tag the creator. It isn't permission on its own, but it's expected.
Is UGC advertising, and who has to disclose it?
Once a brand pays for it, gifts a product or runs it as an ad, yes. The FTC's endorsement guidance tells companies they're "ultimately responsible for what others do on your behalf", that you "can't condition an incentive... on a review being positive", and that asking only happy customers for reviews can be misleading (FTC). Since 2024 its rule on reviews and testimonials also bans paying for reviews of a particular sentiment and buying fake followers or views (16 CFR Part 465).
- When the brand posts or runs it as an ad, it's the brand's ad, labelled by the ad platform.
- When a creator or customer posts it after being paid or gifted, they disclose it in the video itself, not only in the caption (FTC: Disclosures 101). On TikTok that means switching on the commercial content disclosure toggle (TikTok branded content policy).
- Tagging the brand isn't a disclosure. The FTC says a tag is an endorsement but doesn't tell viewers there's a connection.
Are you buying UGC, or making it?
Our pick for a brand's first paid UGC test: two or more videos with a 30-day paid window, rather than one video bought outright. With our rate calculator's defaults (perpetual paid usage is +150%, inside the 100 to 200% SideShift's guide gives), one beginner video with perpetual ad rights is about $438. For about the same money, $455, you get two different videos with 30 days of ads each. Running both shows which angle sells; then you extend the usage on the one that did.
- Making it: the UGC creator guide (how to start with no followers) and where UGC jobs are posted. UGC is one of seven kinds of paid creator work, if you're weighing it against the others.
- Briefing it: the brief template puts the product, hooks, deliverables and usage window on one page for the creator.
- Putting it in writing: the contract template covers usage rights, whitelisting and disclosure.
- Making it with AI actors instead: our MakeUGC review and Arcads breakdown cover what those AI-made, UGC-style ads cost per video and what their licences allow.
What didn't we check?
- Real footage. The before-and-after numbers come from one synthetic 30-second clip. A real person's take could have more or fewer pauses, and the repeated line was marked by hand, where the app would ask an AI model to find it.
- Law outside the US. The disclosure rules quoted are the FTC's; the UK, the EU and others have their own.
- What UGC does for sales. We didn't measure whether UGC ads outperform studio ads; nobody in the top results publishes a controlled test either.
- Rates in your market. The fees are the rate calculator's defaults, from US-dollar rate guides, for one video. Brands and platforms pay very differently.
