Brand-deal platforms and agency rules in China and North America

Clients, creators, MCNs and service providers, each with its own fees and settlement rules.⁠¹

Join as a Douyin MCN first (shown as “joined” in the Douyin MCN back end); have at least five creators with 100,000 followers bound to the agency in “accepted” status; pay a RMB 100,000 deposit for agency verification, by company transfer from the bank account of the entity being verified.⁠²

An agency’s creator is synced to Xingtu when all of these are true: 10,000 or more Douyin followers, a binding in the Douyin MCN back end, the creator has signed in to Xingtu and accepted the platform agreement, and no fixed-price order is in progress.⁠²

Client side: 5% on assigned tasks, 10% on submission tasks, and 5% each on co-creation, recruitment and short-drama sponsorship tasks, charged on the task fee plus any service-provider fee. Creator side: individual creators and PGC creators pay 5% of the task fee; a creator bound to an MCN is settled by that MCN with the platform, company to company; the MCN settles with the creator and pays the platform 3% of the task fee.⁠¹

Payment arrives within 10 working days of a compliant invoice; invoices are accepted only from the company entity that took the task with the platform, never from a third party.⁠³

An agency that ends the cooperation itself must first have unbound all its creators and have every order completed; on a passive termination, the platform undoes the bindings between the agency and its creators.⁠⁴

Verify the company on Xiaohongshu’s professional-account platform first, then sign in to Pugongying with that account.⁠⁵

Join the Xiaohongshu partner platform first, then sign in to Pugongying.⁠⁵

Complete institutional verification on the Xiaohongshu creator platform first, then sign in to Pugongying.⁠⁵

Turn on creator collaboration in the Xiaohongshu app.⁠⁵

Recruitment tasks created from April 1, 2026: 10% on Channels and 20% on Official Accounts. Fixed-price settlement and settlement by natural plays: 5% of the deal amount (when a creator is settled RMB 500, the client pays RMB 525).⁠⁶

An agency is a user of the Channels agency platform; once it has applied for advertising permission, it can ask video creators through that platform to authorize Huxuan collaboration and then manage it for them, including whether to accept an order and what price to quote.⁠⁷

The applicant provides its business license and meets three conditions: advertising in the business scope, at least one year since the company was registered, and RMB 1 million registered capital.⁠⁷

An Official Accounts Huxuan order must be published before midnight on the agreed day, as the account’s first post that day.⁠⁸

Advertisers manage their tasks there, see campaign data, statements and invoices, and browse a directory of Weibo creators, livestream creators and others.⁠⁹

A company or organization whose main account is blue-V verified; at least 3 accounts signed or run, with 5,000 or more followers in total; at least 3 members in a single field who each posted an original post every week for the past 2 weeks.⁠¹⁰

Apply at mcn.weibo.com, signed in to Weibo on a computer; applications are, as a rule, reviewed within 3–5 working days.⁠¹⁰

Orders are settled by the platform by default; where an order involves a service provider, the uploader can switch it to settlement by the service provider after accepting the order and before it is completed.⁠¹¹

Creators must be at least 18, in a country or region where TikTok One has launched, and in line with the Community Guidelines and the Branded Content Policy; projects need at least 1,000 followers plus requirements that vary by project; creators can also join through their agency’s invitation link.⁠¹²

Available only to China-based agencies with an account manager; it can create TikTok One accounts but not ad accounts.⁠¹³

What a contract should cover when a brand runs a creator’s post as an ad: usage rights for ads.

Formerly BrandConnect.⁠¹⁴ Creators must be at least 18, in the YouTube Partner Program, in one of 24 eligible countries or regions, and free of active Community Guidelines strikes.⁠¹⁵

Once a creator sets a business contact email in the Creator Partnerships preferences, the agent or manager receives a copy of every inquiry.⁠¹⁵

After a channel joins an MCN, all its revenue flows through the MCN’s AdSense for YouTube account; joining does not change the creator’s revenue share with YouTube, and MCNs typically take a percentage from the creator’s portion. YouTube tells creators to understand, before joining, the fees, the services, their own obligations, the contract’s duration, how to terminate and when payments are made.⁠¹⁶

Reached through Meta Business Suite or Ads Manager; brands use it to discover and evaluate creators, send and receive partnership requests, and manage partnership ads permissions across Facebook and Instagram, and Instagram’s creator marketplace is reached through it; available only to business and creator accounts on Instagram.⁠¹⁷

On February 21, 2024, Meta said it would invite creators and brands in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Japan, India and Brazil to Instagram’s creator marketplace, and Chinese export brands to work with onboarded creators outside China.⁠¹⁸

Meta’s Branded Content Policies allow branded content to be posted only with the branded content tool, which creators must use, with prior permission, to tag the brand or business partner featured.⁠¹⁹ How sponsored posts must be labeled in China, the US and Canada: disclosure rules.