I'm a personal style/crafting/lifestyle content creator on Instagram, with 19,1k followers. My followers are dedicated and my engagement is usually pretty good.
Some years ago, when I didn't have half as many followers as I now do, I did a gifted collaboration with a cosmetic brand. Each year I've done the same thing with them, but now I feel like it's way overdue that I start charging money for the collabs as well. They've been gifting me around 50$-60$ worth of products each year, and last summer I only posted one story in return.
I really do want the products, but I've been trying to earn some income from Instagram collabs (I've never done that before, just a couple of gifted ones each year), and I feel like if I keep saying yes to them, it's not only a bad deal for me, but I'm kind of dragging other content creators down with me.
Now they reached out to me (last year I contacted them), so I feel like it's a good time to say that I want payment as well, but I find it super hard to ask, and I'm really unsure as for how to ask/what to write and what to charge. The brand is decently large globally, with a smaller branch in my region.
Do you guys have any suggestions on how to let them know, and what I should charge? Thanks!