What is a rate card, and what a physician's should contain

A rate card is a short document that states what working with you costs, what each deliverable includes, and the terms that go with it. Brands ask for it early, usually in the second email, and a physician who does not have one ends up pricing every inquiry from scratch, under time pressure, in a reply written between patients. That is where most of the underpricing happens.

This post explains what a rate card is, what a healthcare creator’s should contain, what it should leave out, and how to write one in an afternoon.

What is a rate card?

A rate card is a one or two page document, usually a PDF, that lists your deliverables, the price of each, what is included, and the standard terms that apply. In the creator economy it grew out of advertising, where publishers have used rate cards for a century to tell advertisers what a page or a spot costs.

For a creator, it does two jobs. It saves you from re-deriving your prices in every conversation, and it sets the frame before the brand does. A brand that receives a clear rate card negotiates against your structure. A brand that receives “what did you have in mind?” negotiates against its own.

Why a physician’s rate card is different

A lifestyle creator sells attention. A physician sells attention plus credibility, and the credibility is the expensive part. It was earned in training and it can be spent in ways that do not grow back. That changes the rate card in three ways.

First, the audience is described by composition, not size. Twenty thousand people who share a diagnosis are worth more to the right brand than three hundred thousand people who watched a dance. The rate card should say who is actually in the audience.

Second, professional risk is priced. Some deliverables carry more reputational exposure than others: a personal endorsement is not the same as an educational segment with a sponsor credit. The rate card can reflect that, and it can also say plainly what you will not do.

Third, usage rights and exclusivity matter more, because a physician’s face and name next to a product mean something specific. Those terms get their own lines rather than being buried in “a post.”

What a physician’s rate card should contain

A short positioning line. One or two sentences on who you are, what you cover, and who follows you. Specialty, audience composition, and the kind of content you make. This is the part that justifies the numbers below it.

Deliverables, defined precisely. Not “a post.” A single sixty-second vertical video, one round of revisions, posted to one named platform, live for a stated period. A dedicated newsletter segment of a stated length. A thirty-minute recorded conversation. Each line describes one thing a brand could actually buy.

Base prices per deliverable. The number for the deliverable as defined, with organic posting on your own channel and no additional rights. Everything else is an add-on.

Usage rights, as tiers. Organic only. Brand reposts on its own channels for a stated period. Paid amplification, by duration and territory. Whitelisting. Each tier priced separately, because each one is a different thing the brand is buying. This is the line physicians most often give away for free.

Exclusivity, as a separate line. Category exclusivity for a stated number of months, priced. A brand that wants you to turn down competitors is asking for something with a real cost.

What is included and what is not. Revision rounds, turnaround times, whether you script, who owns raw footage, and whether you will attend a briefing call.

Your standards. A few lines on what you will not do: no claims beyond the evidence, no products outside your scope, every partnership disclosed. Brands worth working with read this as a reason to trust you.

How to book. Who to contact and what a proposal needs to include.

What to leave out

Do not publish your rate card on your website. A rate card is a sales document shared in a conversation. The right number depends on the brand, the deliverable, and the terms, and a physician who publishes a single price has committed to it for every combination of the three.

Do not include follower counts as the headline. Put them in, because brands will ask, but lead with composition and engagement.

Do not include a discount schedule. If a brand wants a package price, that is a negotiation, and you want it to happen in a conversation where you can ask for something in return.

Do not include rates you would resent. The point of the document is to stop you accepting work at a price that leaves you annoyed at the brand and at yourself.

How to set the numbers

The generic calculators price attention and get physicians wrong in both directions. The inputs that actually matter are audience composition, the deliverable precisely defined, usage rights, exclusivity, what it costs you to produce the thing well, and the professional risk involved. We covered that in detail in what a physician’s audience is actually worth. The short version: start from the clinical value of your time, add the rights and the risk, and do not let the follower count set the ceiling.

How to write it in an afternoon

Open a document. Write the positioning line. List the three or four deliverables you would actually be happy to produce. Price each one organically. Add usage and exclusivity tiers. Write the inclusions and the standards. Export it as a PDF with your name and date. Update it every six months or whenever your audience changes materially.

Then stop sending prices in email replies. Send the card, and let the conversation happen against your structure instead of theirs.

Why Studio Germina

Writing a rate card is the first place a clinician discovers that the business side of creating has a structure, and that the structure can work for them. It is also the first thing we build with every creator we represent, because it changes every negotiation that follows.

You are the medical expert. We are the marketing and business experts. That is the whole arrangement, and it is a partnership rather than a vendor relationship. You keep doing the part only you can do: the clinical work, the answers, the teaching, the content people trust. We take the part you never wanted: positioning, marketing, the deals, the contracts, the pricing, the follow-up, and the reporting that proves it worked.

The hours you already spend online answering questions and posting useful content are real work. You would happily do it for free, and most clinicians do. We make sure that time gets paid for, and paid properly, without turning you into a salesperson.

We select the opportunities we bring you, and we turn down the ones that do not fit. Every deal, campaign, and partnership has to line up with your brand, your ethics, your morals, and your vision for the work. If it does not, we say no on your behalf, and we explain why.

You get the thinking, not a black box. Every recommendation comes with the reasoning, the tradeoffs, and what success looks like, so you become a better decision-maker through the relationship rather than dependent on it. And you work directly with the founder, whose career runs from creator and brand partnerships before healthcare to brand, PR, and growth leadership inside it. Engagements are deliberately small and senior.

That is why clinicians who have tried the alternatives come here, and why we are the better choice for a physician or healthcare creator who wants the business side handled by people who understand both the business and the medicine. Book a consultation, or take the Fit Quiz if you are not sure what kind of support makes sense. The representation and partnerships page describes how we handle the commercial side directly.