What Is a Kill Fee? How to Price a Canceled Brand Deal

A kill fee is the payment a brand owes you when it cancels a brand deal after the work has begun. Price it in stages, for example 25% of the creation fee once the brief is accepted, 50% once the script is approved and 100% once filming is done. Write the stages, the payment deadline and what happens to the content into the contract.

Without that clause, a canceled deal can leave you arguing over payment for weeks of blocked dates and finished work. This guide covers how to size the fee, the terms the clause needs and how to collect it.

What is a kill fee?

A kill fee is the payment a brand owes you if it ends a deal after you've started, for any reason other than your own breach. The term comes from publishing, where it describes a fee paid to a writer when a commissioned piece doesn't run.

Revision Legal, a law firm, wrote in September 2024 that a publishing kill fee is often 25% of the fee that would have been paid. In influencer contracts, it describes the fee as compensation when a brand terminates for any reason other than the influencer's breach.

Contracts also call it a cancellation fee or a termination fee, and Revision Legal suggests formal terms such as a no-cause termination fee. Whatever the label, the clause answers 1 question: what does the brand owe you if it walks away?

MakeInfluence's guide separates 2 kinds of ending. Termination for convenience is when a party ends the agreement without either side doing anything wrong, and termination for cause follows a breach. A kill fee covers the first kind.

How much should a kill fee be?

Set the kill fee by how far the work has gone when the brand cancels, rising to the full fee once the content exists. MakeInfluence's guide says there's no legal or industry-standard rate and that the contract has to set one.

Here's a staged schedule you can adapt. The percentages are an example to negotiate from, applied to your creation fee:

Add 2 things on top of the stage fee. Refund any expenses you've already paid at cost, such as props, travel or a paid editor, and pay for any exclusivity you've already kept, for the days it ran.

Revision Legal advises setting the fee at a reasonable amount so it isn't treated as a penalty. Tying each percentage to work you can show is the simplest way to keep it reasonable.

How a platform's own rules handle it

TikTok One, TikTok's platform for brand projects, publishes its own cancellation schedule for creators. Its help page, as we checked it in November 2026, sets these payments:

The same page says that when an advertiser chooses to review an order and neither approves nor rejects it, approval is deemed after 14 days. That's a useful model for your own contract, so a brand that stops answering can't stall your payment.

TikTok's rules cover projects inside TikTok One only. It says private arrangements made directly with an advertiser are out of scope and need their own cancellation terms, which is the job of your kill fee clause.

MakeInfluence's worked example, which it calls made up, uses 20% before production starts, 50% after production starts and 100% after delivery. That example and TikTok One's schedule both rise with the work, and they set different numbers at each stage.

What should a kill fee clause say?

A kill fee clause should name the trigger, the stages and amounts, the payment deadline, and what happens to the content and any exclusivity. Each term closes a gap a brand could use to pay less.

Use this checklist:

• Trigger: the brand cancels or ends the deal for any reason other than your breach.
• Notice: cancellation in writing, with a date, sent to the person the contract names.
• Stages: the percentage due at each stage, measured by what you've finished when notice arrives.
• Expenses: costs you've already paid, refunded at cost on top of the fee.
• Deadline: payment within a set number of days of the notice, such as the 14 days MakeInfluence uses as an example.
• Deposit: whether the deposit counts toward the kill fee, and that it isn't refundable once work starts.
• Content: who holds the content after cancellation, and that any license to use it starts only when the brand pays the full fee.
• Exclusivity: when it ends if the brand cancels. Our guide to exclusivity clauses covers pricing the lockout itself.
• Approval: content counts as approved if the brand doesn't respond within a set number of days.

Here's the same term written 2 ways. The fairer version is example wording to discuss with your lawyer.

Your content after a kill

You keep the copyright unless the contract moves it. The Copyright Act says copyright vests in the author (17 U.S.C. 201(a)), and a transfer of ownership isn't valid without a writing signed by the owner (section 204(a)).

Watch the phrase "work made for hire." The Act treats the person a work made for hire was prepared for as its author (section 201(b)), so under that clause a canceled video may belong to the brand anyway. Revision Legal suggests content licenses that end, or become revocable, on a no-cause termination unless the brand pays extra.

How do you get a kill fee paid?

Invoice the kill fee as soon as the cancellation notice arrives, at the stage the contract names, and chase it like any other invoice. A deposit on signing puts part of it in your account up front.

Late payment is common enough to plan for. Digiday reported in February 2024 that creators are usually paid 30 to 90 days after the work is done, and that 56% of creators surveyed by the finance platform Tipalti said they'd faced late payments.

A deposit covers the first stage before anything goes wrong. If the brand pays a deposit on signing, such as 50% of the creation fee, and the contract says it isn't refundable once work starts, you already hold the early stages of the kill fee when a cancellation arrives.

Add a late fee for a kill fee paid after its deadline, the same as for your main invoice. Our guide to how influencers get paid covers invoices, terms and timing.

Legal & Business Affairs and Brand Partnerships are 2 of our 10 services, and the full quote structure, kill fee included, is in our guide to pricing a brand deal. If you'd like a management team reviewing your deal terms, apply for representation.