Your YouTube campaigns, managed end‑to‑end

The transparent YouTube sponsorship agency.

We find the creators, lock the deals, and run the campaigns. No hidden markups, no padded invoices, no surprise fees.

Aurora Sleep
LIVE
5:42
50 hours with a $1M brand deal
Lifestyle Mama
Battle Realm
14:51
The Warhammer universe, explained
Science Squad
Craftly
11:32
Behind every campaign we ran
Piano Practice
Crunch Cloud
12:08
Honest review: our biggest sponsor yet
Mystery Hour
VaultVPN
LIVE
7:09
Proposal to live: 72 hours flat
Gamer123
BuildCamp
LIVE
15:02
The only creator metric that matters
Builder Brief
Pebble Mobile
8:23
We built this in a weekend
Wander Wagon
Glidekit
LIVE
6:17
Why every brand is chasing this creator
TechTalk Daily
FreshHaul
13:24
Testing 100 brands, ranked
Kitchen Crash

LIVE

·

Lifestyle Mama went live just now

300+
Brands
25,000+
Campaigns booked
$50M+
Paid to creators
9.4B
Sponsored views
How we charge

No hidden markups. Pick the model that fits.

Most agencies make their money in some shadowy area between what brands pay and what creators get. We don't. You always know exactly what we're making on your campaign, because we have two clear and transparent models for you to choose between.

Option 1

Transactional

Per campaign, with a transparent markup.
Sample invoice
Creator rate$28,500
ThoughtLeaders fee+ $7,125
Total invoice$35,625
  • Standard markup applied to every deal
  • No surprise fees, padded line items, or platform charges
  • Ask what we made on a deal — we tell you the exact dollar amount
Best for campaigns under $30k/month.
Most popular
Option 2

Monthly retainer

Startes at $6k a month. Media booked at face value.
Sample invoice
Creator rate$28,500
Markup added$0
Total invoice$28,500
Monthly retainer$6,000 / mo
  • Whatever the creator charges is what shows up on your invoice
  • Flat $6k/mo retainer covers our work and full platform access
  • Media cost and our fee never get blended
Best for sustained spend, $30k+/mo.
i
Most clients start transactional and switch to retainer once they're spending enough that the math works in their favor. We'll tell you which side of that line you're on the first time we talk.
What managed services actually means

We do the messy parts.

Most brands trying to run YouTube sponsorships hit the same wall. Picking the wrong creators. Negotiating without a benchmark. Chasing drafts that never come. Watching a video go live with the wrong promo code in the description.

We've run 25,000+ of these. We know exactly where the process breaks down and those are the parts we own.

Picking creators

Picking creators that fit

We don't pitch you our friends. Every recommendation starts in our database of 10,000+ vetted channels and gets ranked against your audience, your category, and what's already worked for brands like yours. If a creator's audience doesn't overlap with the customers you're trying to reach, we won't suggest them.

Top channel matchesAudience overlap
Ravi Patel
Tech · 18.4M
94%
TechPulse
Tech · 1.9M
87%
Crisp Labs
Tech · 1.3M
81%
Pricing & proposals

Pricing and proposals

We send proposals on your behalf within 72 hours of kickoff. You see every offer, every counter, every renegotiation. There's no rate card on YouTube, but there's a benchmark, and we have it. It's built into our Sponsorship Calculator, which we run every proposal through before it lands in your inbox.

Proposal · Re: Q2 sponsorship
3 messages · 14 hours
Accepted
Initial offer: $24k for a 60s integration
Closer to $32k — exclusivity included
Settled at $28.5k, 90-day exclusivity
Running the campaign

Running the campaign

Briefs, talking points, contracts, draft review, promo code QA, payments, go-live confirmations. All handled by us. You get a Slack or email ping at every milestone (if you want one).

#aurora-q2-campaign
3 new
TL Bot · just now
Brief approved
Lifestyle Mama · Aurora Sleep
TL Bot · just now
Promo code QA passed
AURORA20 verified in description
TL Bot · just now
Video went live
youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ · 5 min ago
Refining as we go

Refining as we go

Each wave of the campaign is more informative than the last. We watch what's converting and what isn't, then double down on the creators, formats, and angles that are working. The campaign you finish with isn't the campaign you started with, and that's the whole point.

Spend by creator tierWinners ↑ 3.1×
Month 1
30%45%25%
Month 2
15%35%50%
Month 3
17%78%
LosersNeutralWinners
The platform behind the work

You see everything we see.

We give you a login to our proprietary data platform — the same toolset our campaign managers use. Channel performance, audience overlap, sponsorship history, projected views, competitor activity. You can log in whenever you want, so you're never sitting around waiting on a status update.

Filters 4
Clear
Brands3
Channels1
Keywords
Uploads
SELECTED
Tech ×SaaS ×EN-US ×100K+ subs ×
Brands

Tech competitor sweep — Q2

Brands
24
Sponsored views
142M
Avg. views
1.84M
Spend (live)
$687K
CPV
$0.038
Sponsored views by week
LiveScheduled
Channel intelligence

Sponsorship history, audience demographics, evergreen scores, who else has booked them, how those campaigns performed.

Projected Views

Our model for what a sponsorship will likely do before you spend a dollar on it. Built off nine billion sponsored views of training data.

Live campaign tracking

Every booking, draft, live link, and payment in one place.

How we actually decide who to book

Our methodology, in plain English.

Five steps, every campaign. No mystery, no inherited wisdom.

Read the full methodology →
01

We start with the brands that already win big on YouTube.

If a brand in your category is renewing the same creators every quarter, those creators are doing something right. We start there.

02

Find the proven winners.

The channels brands trust enough to come back to. Not just channels with big numbers.

03

Look-alikes.

For every winner there are five creators with overlapping audiences nobody's booked yet. Often better value, almost always better availability.

04

Get real proposals.

YouTube has no rate card. The only way to know what something actually costs is to ask, in writing, with specifics.

05

Compare on value, not sticker price.

A $30k creator with the right audience beats a $10k creator with the wrong one. We do the math, side by side, before you decide.

Results

Campaigns worth renewing.

We see YouTube as a performance marketing channel with a goal of acquiring customers efficiently. Our account manager has been aligned with our goals from day one.
Anne Wang, Senior Growth Marketing Manager · Magic Spoon
Their comprehensive reporting platform makes reviewing metrics and demographics a breeze. Running the numbers, it looks like we double our ad spend on average through ThoughtLeaders.
Lane Wagner, Founder · Boot.Dev
Talk to us

Let's talk about your next campaign.

No minimum commitment
We'll tell you if YouTube isn't right for you
Full transparency on every dollar spent
Or email us at info@thoughtleaders.io
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FAQ

Questions we hear most.

Don't see yours? Ask in the form above — we answer every email.

How long does it take to launch a campaign?
From kickoff call to first creator booked, usually 7–14 days. We send proposals within 72 hours. The rest depends on how fast creators respond to the offer and how many revisions the contract needs.
Do you require a minimum spend?
No minimum. We've run $5k pilots and $500k quarterly campaigns. The retainer model only makes sense above a certain monthly spend — we'll tell you when you cross that line.
Do we own the creator relationships?
Yes. Every contract is between you and the creator. We sit in the middle to negotiate, manage, and report — but the deal is yours. If you stop working with us tomorrow, the relationships go with you.
How do you measure success?
Whatever you measure success on. CPM is the default for awareness campaigns. For DR campaigns we plug into your attribution tool of choice (post-purchase survey, Northbeam, Triple Whale, GA4) and track promo code revenue, blended CAC, and payback.
What if a video underperforms?
Sponsorships are media buys, not guaranteed deliverables. But we built Projected Views to set realistic expectations before the contract is signed. If a video badly underperforms its projection, we factor that into the next round of recommendations and renegotiations.
Can we use the platform without managed services?
Not currently. The platform is an extension of the work — it's how our campaign managers operate, and how we share that view with you. We're piloting a self-serve tier for 2026; ask us about the waitlist.
How do you handle exclusivity?
We negotiate category exclusivity windows on every contract — typically 30–90 days post-publish. If a competitor approaches a creator we've booked for you, the creator can't run a sponsorship for them inside that window.
Do you work with agencies or only direct brands?
Both. About 35% of our clients are agencies running YouTube on behalf of their clients. We white-label the proposals and reporting where it makes sense.