Retainers: deliverables, recurring periods, and negotiations

A Retainer pays an agreed total amount when a creator completes the required deliverables for a period. For example, “five qualifying posts for $250” is a $250 deal for the five-post requirement. It does not automatically pay $250 per post or pay extra for every post above five. For a shared pool that pays at a per-post rate, use a Race.

Find and manage retainers

Open Creator Community → Campaigns → Retainers. Under Overview, use All retainer types to choose Fixed, Recurring, or Dynamic. The CSV export button sits beside the dropdown and exports the matching retainers; Show archived is at the far right.

Use the section’s Negotiations, Creators, Videos, Lives, and Slideshows views to inspect deals and content. The shared Create button at the top opens the campaign builder, where you can choose Retainer.

Retainer requirements

Configure the supported content types, required post count, payment amount, products, and schedule. The content must satisfy the campaign's product, date, and participation rules.

An optional Minimum GMV adds a second requirement: the creator must satisfy both the deliverable count and the campaign GMV floor for that period. Meeting the count alone is insufficient. The GMV floor is campaign-wide, including creators with personalized deals; it is not the creator's overall historical shop GMV.

LIVE requirements. When the retainer counts only LIVEs, the LIVE requirement switch offers two ways to state the deal: Number of LIVEs, a count of streams, or LIVE duration, a total time on air in hours and minutes for the period. When the retainer counts LIVEs together with videos or photos, the post count stays the requirement and an optional LIVE duration can be added alongside it, so the creator must meet both.

Fixed, recurring, and dynamic schedules

Recurring retainers use contiguous weekly/monthly windows and are saved without grace. Fixed and dynamic retainers can use the separate grace settings. The join-date switch is hidden in Dynamic mode because deal timing governs eligibility.

A fixed or recurring campaign can have a past start date. Whether earlier content counts depends on that window and the join-date setting, not a blanket “posted after campaign creation” rule.

Once a creator has joined, the schedule type can't change, and a recurring retainer's start date and cadence are locked. A fixed retainer's dates stay editable until content is posted or anything earned; after that only the end date can move. Saving a change to a locked field shows an error. This preserves period numbering and payout history. The payout method (picking creators vs GMV tiers) also locks as soon as anyone joins. Edits to custom offers never make a joined creator's deal worse; see Editing an offer after creators join.

Personalized creator payouts

At the top of the rewards, choose Same offer for everyone or Custom offers. With custom offers, choose How creators get their offer:

• Pick creators: build custom offers, each for a group of creators you choose (see below).
• By their GMV: set GMV bands instead of naming creators, and each creator's rate is picked automatically when they join.

Creators who aren't in an offer get the Standard terms: the first row of the offers table, with the campaign's own posts, payout, and contract. Hide the payout and ask creators for their rate applies to the whole campaign: with it on, every payout in the table reads Creator sets, and creators in any offer make the first offer.

Custom offers

Click Add offer for each group of creators who should get different terms. Each row of the table is one offer:

• Creators: click Add creators (or Edit) to choose who gets it, from My CRM, CSV or paste, or a Saved list. You can also give the offer a name there; unnamed offers are numbered, starting at Offer 2. A saved list stays a list: a creator added to it later gets the offer too, as long as they haven't joined under other terms.
• Its own posts and Payout.
• Terms: click the row's terms to open them. Keep Same as Standard, or choose Custom terms and pick a different published contract under Attach → Contract to sign for creators in this offer to sign instead. The dialog shows the contract's status: its signature boxes, whether anyone has signed it, how it ends, and when creators sign. It also shows how many creators already joined on these terms; they keep what they agreed to.
• The Standard row's terms are the campaign's own. While the campaign uses custom offers or GMV tiers, Terms creators agree to on the Brief & who can join step lists each row's terms, and Edit opens that row in this table.

A creator can only be in one offer. Saving is refused if a handle, or a member of one of the offer's lists, is already in another offer, and the error names the creator. If a list later gains someone who's already in another offer, the earlier offer in the editor wins.

Use Viewing as above the phone preview to see the campaign as a creator in each offer sees it. To check one person, choose A creator and type their handle. The preview shows the terms that creator would get, including through a saved list, or the deal they already have if they joined or negotiated.

Editing an offer after creators join

A creator's terms are fixed when they join. Edits to their offer reach them only when the new terms are at least as good for them: the same or a higher payout, and the same or fewer posts. Otherwise they keep the terms they joined under, and only creators who join later get the change. When that happens, the save confirmation tells you how many creators kept their terms.

• Removing a creator who already joined from an offer doesn't take their deal away.
• Adding a creator who already joined to an offer, by handle or through a saved list, reaches them only if the offer is at least as good as the terms they have.
• Lowering the Standard terms doesn't lower them for creators who already joined on them. They keep what they joined on, and get the Standard terms again once those are at least as good.
• Changing an offer's contract, or the campaign's contract, only affects creators who haven't joined yet. Creators who joined keep the contract they agreed to.
• A saved list decides a creator's offer only until they join. Adding a creator who already joined to a list, or removing them from one, doesn't change their terms. To move them, edit the offer and save.
• A deal reached through negotiation is never changed by editing the offer.

Payouts by GMV tier

1. Choose Which GMV decides the tier:
   • GMV with your brand (last 30 days): only sales the creator drove for your shop, across all their accounts.
   • GMV across TikTok Shop (last 30 days): the creator's TikTok-reported GMV across every brand, the same figure as the GMV column on My Affiliates.
2. Add tiers. Each one has a Min. creator GMV, a Payout, and optionally its own posts requirement (leave it blank to use the campaign's). Each tier needs a higher minimum than the one before it.
3. Click the eye icon on a tier to preview which of your affiliates would qualify today.

When a creator joins, Cruva checks their GMV at that moment and gives them the highest tier whose minimum they meet. Their rate is locked from then on, even if their GMV changes later. Creators below the lowest tier get the campaign's standard payout.

Tier-assigned rates show an Auto tier badge in the campaign summary and the participants table; hover to see the GMV it was based on.

Once anyone has joined, the payout method, GMV source, and tiers can't be changed. Switching from manual rates to tiers removes the manually assigned rates, since a creator can't have both.

Check personalized payouts

Check the exact handle, then preview it with Viewing as → A creator. Personalized requirements are not simply a bonus added to the default payout. In a private campaign, creators in a custom offer, whether named or on one of its lists, also have access, alongside the explicit allowlist.

Let creators negotiate

Turn on Allow negotiation to let creators counter your listed rate, or Hide the payout and ask creators for their rate to have them make the first offer. You can also customize the negotiation button text, such as “Don't like this offer?”. These apply to the Standard terms and to every custom offer.

1. The creator opens negotiation with an offer, including the proposed payment and deliverables and an optional message.
2. The offer appears for the brand to review in the campaign's negotiations interface.
3. The brand can accept, decline, or counteroffer. The creator can respond to the brand's counteroffer.
4. The parties take turns. A proposal under review is not an accepted deal.
5. Acceptance records the agreement for that creator and period, and closes the negotiation for that period: neither side can make another offer on it. Declining rejects the proposal; it does not create an approved paid deal. After a decline, either side can reopen the negotiation with a new offer.

A creator whose application or negotiation was declined can't get back in by joining again.

Negotiation can put a joining creator under review even if ordinary applications would auto-approve. A pending approval request and a negotiation awaiting a response are different states. Review the accepted amount and deliverable count for the relevant period instead of assuming the campaign's headline offer applies to everyone.

When creators sign the contract

On a retainer with a contract to sign, a creator signs when they accept the final terms:

• Joining at the listed rate is accepting, so they sign as part of joining.
• Proposing their own rate opens a negotiation instead. They can read the contract while you negotiate, and sign when the deal is agreed:
  • If they accept your offer, they sign before the acceptance goes through.
  • If you accept their offer first, the creator shows as Awaiting signature. They get a message asking them to sign to lock the deal in. Their posts don't count toward the deal until they sign, and signing makes the deal active right away.

A creator who already signed the contract, for example from its link or in an earlier period, isn't asked again.

Negotiation actions can also appear as structured cards in the creator's Cruva conversation with the brand. A normal chat message saying “sounds good” is not the same as accepting through the negotiation controls.

Dynamic retainer deadlines in detail

A dynamic period must have an active deal before its posts can count. With negotiation enabled, an accepted deal creates that window. Posting before agreement does not make a new deal retroactive.

The first qualifying post after the deal anchors the creator's duration. For example, with a ten-day duration, a first qualifying post on September 5 starts that creator's ten-day posting window. Use the displayed deadline for the precise cutoff. If an earlier qualifying post is discovered later, it can move the anchor earlier and change which later posts fit.

Grace is normally extra time to collect metrics on posts already made within the duration. It extends the posting window only if Allow new posts during the grace period is enabled. Content made in a gap outside an agreed posting window does not automatically become eligible merely because the creator submits it later.

When negotiation is enabled, a later period needs another agreed deal. The next negotiation opens after the previous period is fulfilled or its window expires; Cruva does not silently accept a new paid deal for the brand. Without negotiation, an expired dynamic window can roll into a subsequent period as later content is processed, subject to the campaign's period settings.

Detailed dynamic-period examples

For exact deal timestamps, first-post anchors, duration-plus-grace gaps, renewals with and without negotiation, and why an earlier discovered post can move a deadline, see Dynamic retainer periods. This includes a worked timestamp example and the meaning of each negotiation/submission error.

Why a retainer is not complete or payable

Check the period, accepted/personalized deliverables, required count, any GMV floor, approval status, product matching, disqualifications, and posting/deal deadlines. A successful manual link submission can still be awaiting TikTok metrics or product validation.

In the Payout column, a creator who is still In progress shows the amount their deal pays once the requirement is met, so you can see what a period will cost before anyone qualifies. The amount comes from their personalized rate, GMV tier, or the campaign default. It only becomes payable when the post count, any GMV floor, and the deadline are all satisfied.

Finishing deliverables, closing a period, and releasing payment are separate events. Review the campaign's payment controls and payment history before telling a creator money has been sent. See Creator payouts and Content tracking.