Creator Income & Brand Deal Tracker
This creator income tracker holds brand deals, ad revenue, affiliate and subscription money in one file and shows what each deal actually pays per hour.
Creator income arrives from six places on six schedules, and the only thing they have in common is that none of them tells you what you earned this month. A fee that sounded generous stops sounding generous once you count the hours the deliverable really took and the usage rights you handed over without charging for them.
What is in it
- Seven linked tabs: Start Here, Rate Card, Brand Deals, Other Income, Costs, Where You Stand and Month by Month.
- Rate Card — 20 deliverables with a base rate each, plus your own percentage uplifts for usage rights and exclusivity, so a licence is priced instead of given away.
- Brand Deals — 200 deals followed through every stage from pitch to paid, with scope, fee, hours, invoice raised and payment received on the same row.
- Other Income — 200 rows for ad revenue, affiliate and subscription money, so platform income sits next to brand money instead of in a different app.
- Costs — 200 rows, each with a business-use share, so a part-personal purchase is not counted whole.
- Where You Stand — delivered but not invoiced, invoiced but not paid, and profit to date, with any deal paying under your target hourly rate shown in red.
Who it is for
Creators and influencers taking brand work on any platform, plus UGC makers, podcasters and newsletter writers with more than one income stream. It suits the point where the money stops being one payout a month and becomes a mix of fees, ad revenue, affiliate cuts and subscriptions, all landing on different dates. It is a tracker for people who invoice, not a media kit.
The worked example
The file arrives filled in with ten brand deals at every stage, nine rate card lines, four months of ad and subscription income and ten costs. The line that makes the point: a $320 reel that honestly takes six hours pays $53.33 an hour against a $60 target — and that is before a single revision.
Where You Stand then reads the whole file back as three numbers a platform dashboard never puts on one screen: $1,800 delivered but not yet invoiced, $1,160 invoiced and still unpaid, and $2,238.99 profit for the period after costs. The first two are the ones that quietly fund a brand’s cash flow instead of yours.
How it works
Compatible with Microsoft Excel 2016 or newer on Windows or Mac, Google Sheets, and LibreOffice. No macros, no add-ons, no account to create, nothing to install.
The download has two workbooks: one with the example above already filled in, so you can see what every column expects, and the same file completely blank for your own figures. A plain-English guide comes as a PDF. Buy it on Etsy — $9
Sold through my Etsy shop, ThePlainLedger, so the download, the payment and the buyer protection are all handled by Etsy.
Questions people actually ask
How do I know if a brand deal is worth the money?
Put the fee and the hours the deliverable honestly takes on the same row and the file gives you the hourly rate, flagged red if it falls under the target you set. In the worked example a $320 reel that takes six hours pays $53.33 an hour against a $60 target, before revisions. Usage rights and exclusivity are priced separately on the Rate Card as percentage uplifts on the base rate.
Does it handle income that is not brand deals?
Yes — Other Income holds 200 rows for ad revenue, affiliate and subscription money, and Month by Month adds it to brand fees over 24 months. That is the point of the file: platform payouts and invoiced work end up in the same total instead of two apps that never meet. Costs sit alongside them with a business-use share on each row.
I have no idea what to charge. Will this tell me?
It will not set your prices, but the Rate Card gives you a structure to set them in: 20 deliverables, a base rate for each, and your own percentage uplifts for usage rights and exclusivity. Put in what you have charged before and the hourly rate column will tell you whether it was enough. The judgement stays yours; the arithmetic stops being a guess.
Do I need Excel, or does it work in Google Sheets?
It works in both — the file is built as .xlsx and opens in Google Sheets and LibreOffice as well as Excel 2016 or newer on Windows and Mac. For Google Sheets use File, then Import, then Upload, and choose Replace spreadsheet; every formula carries over. There are no macros and no add-ons to enable.
Does it connect to YouTube, TikTok or my bank?
No — it connects to no platform, no API and no bank account, and nothing in it syncs or logs in anywhere. You type the figures in from your own statements and the file does the arithmetic on your own computer. It also does not read contracts and it is not tax or legal advice; capacity is 200 deals, 20 rate card lines and 24 months.
Need it built around your business?
This file assumes you invoice for your own work, price per deliverable, and carry the costs yourself. If your setup is different — an agent or management company taking a percentage before you see it, a team of creators under one roof, retainers rather than one-off deals, or revenue shares that need reconciling against a platform statement — I can rebuild the same arithmetic around the way your income actually arrives.
All other templates are listed on the Excel & Google Sheets Templates page.