As an indie developer, I've been researching the Creator Economy and noticed a huge gap: User-Generated Content (UGC) creators often struggle to price their deliverables accurately. Spreadsheets get messy, and enterprise CRM software is too expensive when you are just starting out or managing a handful of deals a month.
That's why I built UGC Deal Tracker.
It is a completely free, lightweight microapp designed specifically for creators to:
- Calculate Base Rates: Factor in your real expenses, gear amortization, and taxes to find your true minimum hourly rate.
- Price Usage Rights: Automatically add industry-standard multipliers for Whitelisting, Spark Ads, and Exclusivity terms.
- Track Deals: A minimalist dashboard to manage leads, negotiations, and closed deals without any visual clutter.
Why it's different
No heavy onboarding, no forced $39/month subscriptions. It’s built on vanilla web technologies for speed and simplicity. I believe in tools that do one thing perfectly without getting in your way.
Try it out for free here: ugc-deal-tracker.devetty.es/?utm_source=devto&utm_medium=community&utm_campaign=ugc_validation
I'd love to hear your feedback in the comments! What features do you feel are missing in current creator tools?
Top comments (5)
One distinction that would help a new creator is “deal closed” versus “cash received.” A deposit, invoice due date, and outstanding balance can keep the dashboard small while preventing an agreed fee from looking like spendable money. For the hourly-rate calculator, it would also help to make non-billable hours explicit: pitching, revisions, admin, and chasing invoices all reduce the hours available to earn that rate. Usage-rights assumptions should stay editable, since the contract matters more than a default multiplier.
Thanks, really useful. "Deal closed vs cash received" is exactly why the quote now includes a 50% deposit line. Agreed on keeping usage-rights assumptions editable: the calculator at ugcratescalculator.com lets you change every multiplier. Non-billable hours is a great idea for a next step.
That distinction makes the tracker much more useful: agreed fees, deposits, and cash actually received are different stages. Keeping those figures separate should help creators avoid budgeting money before it arrives.
That deposit line is a practical safeguard. Showing the remaining balance and expected payment date separately could also make partially paid deals easier to plan around.
Agreed: remaining balance and expected payment date are the two numbers a creator actually plans around, so they belong next to the deposit line. I'm adding it to the list for the next round of changes rather than promising a date. If you try the tracker with a partially paid deal in the meantime, I'd love to hear what felt missing: https://ugcratescalculator.com/?utm_source=devto&utm_medium=comment&utm_campaign=ugc_validation