How much does organic distribution cost?

What is the base rate?

Between $0.70 and $2.00 per thousand views. This is what clippers earn on the views their clips generate.

Where a campaign falls in that range depends on four things: the content category, the language markets targeted, how easy the source material is to cut into performing clips, and the total volume committed. Content that clippers want to work on prices lower, because more of them compete for it.

This rate is quoted before a campaign starts and does not move during delivery.

What are minimum and maximum payouts?

Every campaign sets two limits on what a single video can earn.

The minimum payout is a floor. A clip that gets very few views still earns a small amount, which keeps clippers posting through the early phase before the algorithm decides what to push.

The maximum payout is a ceiling. Once a single clip has earned up to that cap, it stops accruing, no matter how many further views it accumulates.

Both are set at the brief stage and both are visible to clippers before they start.

Why does the blended CPM come out lower than the base rate?

Because of the maximum payout.

Short-form distribution is extremely uneven. Most clips get modest numbers, and a small minority go far beyond anything predictable. When one of those clips passes its payout ceiling, every view after that point costs nothing, and those views are often the majority of the clip's total.

Across a full campaign, the effect compounds. The brand pays the base rate on the bulk of ordinary views, and pays nothing on the tail of the outliers. The blended CPM across all impressions delivered is therefore lower than the rate on the card, and how much lower depends on how many outliers a campaign produces.

This is the structural reason organic distribution can undercut paid advertising by so much. In an ad auction, the ten millionth impression costs the same as the first. Here it can cost nothing.

What is the lowest CPM you have delivered?

$0.07 per thousand impressions, blended across a completed campaign.

That is a record, not a rate. It happened because that campaign produced an unusual concentration of clips that ran far past their payout ceilings. It is what the mechanism can do at its best, and it is not what a brand should budget against.

For planning purposes, the base rate is the number to work from. Anything the caps deliver below it is upside.

How does this compare to paid advertising?

Paid social in the same categories typically runs between $15 and $30 per thousand impressions, and higher in competitive verticals.

At the base rate of $0.70 to $2.00, organic distribution lands roughly 10 to 40 times cheaper for the same impression. When the payout caps compound in the brand's favour, the gap widens further.

Two caveats worth holding onto. Paid impressions are labelled as ads and are skipped more often, so an impression is not strictly equivalent between the two channels. And paid advertising offers targeting precision that organic cannot match, which is worth something.

What are you billed for?

Verified human impressions only.

Accounts are vetted before a campaign starts, bot detection runs on views during delivery, and invalid traffic is filtered out before the invoice is produced. Impressions that do not pass are not billed.

The delivery report covers platform split, demographic orientation and geographic distribution.

How does billing work?

A deposit is required before launch, and campaigns are billed in tranches as impressions are delivered rather than in a single payment at the end.

The brand sets a written spend cap at the brief stage. Delivery stops at that cap. There is no auction, no bidding, no variable platform cost and no fee that appears after the fact.

What is not included?

Content production. Floods distributes a library the brand already owns; it does not shoot or produce original material. Brands without an existing content library need to solve that first.

Also outside scope: paid amplification, media buying, and any guarantee of a conversion outcome. The product is verified impressions, not installs or sales.

Can you quote before knowing the campaign?

Not accurately. The rate depends on the category, the markets, the state of the content library and the volume, and quoting without those produces a number that changes later.

A brief conversation is usually enough to produce an exact figure, and that figure is fixed before anything starts.