Kill fee

A kill fee is a partial payment owed to a creator if a brand cancels a collaboration after work has already started but before it’s completed.

It compensates the creator for time and resources already spent — filming, editing, planning — when a campaign is cancelled through no fault of the creator, rather than leaving them unpaid entirely.

• Negotiate a kill fee clause into every contract before starting work, not after a cancellation happens.
• Set the kill fee as a percentage tied to project stage (e.g. 50% if cancelled after filming, 25% if cancelled after only the brief stage).
• Without a written kill fee clause, you have far weaker grounds to request any payment for a cancelled deal.