You check a sponsor email in three passes, in this order: is it safe, is it fair, is it complete. Most creators only do the first one, badly, and then answer the email.
The reason to do it in that order is that the failure modes are different sizes. A bad price costs you a few hundred dollars. A bad attachment costs you the channel.
And the volume is the real problem. A creator on r/PartneredYoutube described getting ten to twenty sponsorship requests a day, with nine out of ten being scams. Nobody runs a careful check twenty times a day. So the check has to take seconds, not an afternoon.
This article gives you the three passes and the rules inside each one. Then the tool at the end runs all three on any email you paste.
Why is the attachment the most dangerous part of the email?
Because it is the one part of a sponsorship that can take your channel instead of your time. Everything else in a bad deal is recoverable. This one is not.
A creator on r/PartneredYoutube described how ordinary it looked: "I got a gaming sponsorship offer for what appeared to be Black Desert Online, email seemed legit and credentials matched up so I opened up the standard asset package but it was a scam." The browser crashed, and the password, the phone number and a security key on the account all changed within minutes.
Notice what did not save them. The email read professionally. The company was real. The credentials matched. Every surface check passed, because the surface is the part scammers are good at.
So the rule is about the file, not the vibe. A real sponsor sends a brief, a link to their own site, and a contract. They do not need you to open an archive, an .exe, or a password-protected PDF to start a conversation. If the first ask is a download, the answer is no — no matter how good the email reads.
What actually gives a fake sponsor away?
The domain after the @ gives it away more often than anything else. Not the display name, not the signature, not the logo — the domain.
A long-running thread in r/PartneredYoutube keeps a list of the domains these offers arrive from, and the pattern is always the same: a real brand's name in front, a free or foreign webmail domain behind it. If the message claims to be a big brand and the address ends somewhere unrelated to that brand, the conversation is already over.
Then there is the second tier, which is subtler and just as reliable:
- The move off email. A real brand runs deals over email and a contract. "Let's discuss on Discord" or Telegram is a way to leave the paper trail behind.
- The mismatch. One creator making Marvel comics videos was pitched by a desk company that had previously sponsored Linus Tech Tips. Both facts were true and the fit was still nonsense.
- Too good for your size. A big brand offering a big number to a small channel is the oldest hook there is, because it's the offer people most want to be real.
- Terms before trust. An NDA or a signature request before anyone has named a price or a deliverable is backwards.
None of these is a verdict on its own. Stacked, they are. That is what a risk score is for — it counts the flags in one email instead of making you feel your way through it.
How do you price your own slot before you read their number?
You price it from your average views, not from their offer. This is the whole trick, and the order matters — once you have read their number, it anchors you.
The arithmetic is simple. Take the average views of the videos this ad would actually run in, divide by a thousand, and multiply by a rate band for the format. A 60-90 second integration sits in a different band from a 10-second end roll, and a dedicated video is a different product entirely.
Then adjust for the things brands actually pay for: how much of your audience is in the country they sell to, whether the video keeps earning views for years, and whether your niche has buyers in it. A finance audience and a meme audience with identical view counts are not worth the same money, and both sides know it.
That gives you a range with a floor. The floor is the part that matters. It's what lets you answer the email without the feeling behind this line from r/NewTubers: "I dont want to overcharge and get passed on or undercharge and them be like 'oh this guys FREE'."
Why do so many real offers still turn out badly?
Because the terms that decide the outcome are the ones the email leaves out. The number is the visible part; everything expensive happens in what wasn't said.
A creator on r/PartneredYoutube laid out an offer that looked perfectly normal: "They proceeded to offer me $17 CPM with a cap of 100K views after 30 days... I found this odd, there were NO details about how long the integration was. What the payment method was. No contract sent etc."
Read that again with the missing pieces in mind. A CPM with a view cap and a 30-day window means a video that overperforms earns you nothing extra, while a video that underperforms earns you less. All the upside sits on their side of the table.
And view-based pay is exactly where deals go wrong. Another creator agreed to $800 for 100k views in 14 days, hit it in six, and then watched the brand invent a problem: "Instead of paying me, they asked for a second promotion at no extra cost." The fix isn't distrust. It's a written list of the terms that must be answered before you agree — length, placement, payment timing, caps, usage rights, exclusivity, approvals.
What should you do about commission-only offers?
Price them at what they realistically pay, which is usually close to nothing, and then decide. The mistake is treating an affiliate deal as a sponsorship because it arrived in a sponsorship email.
These offers are common with the faceless niches — game top-up sites, VPNs, AI tools — and they're framed generously. One creator was offered "a flat fee and 10% CPS commission, as well as exclusive coupons and some game points for your subscribers." Another was moved onto pure affiliate and asked the right question out loud: is it better to ask for upfront money rather than commission?
Yes, when you have no conversion data. A commission deal transfers all the risk to you: you make the video, you spend the slot, and you get paid only if strangers buy. The brand pays nothing for a slot that would have cost them real money as a flat fee.
The reasonable answer is a floor plus commission. A flat fee that covers the slot, then a commission on top as upside. If they won't cover the floor, they're not buying your ad — they're asking you to gamble your best real estate on their conversion rate.
What does a good reply look like?
Short, warm, and numbered. You are not arguing; you are supplying the information they left out and the price the slot costs.
Three replies cover almost every offer that lands:
- The counter. Thank them, name your rate for that exact deliverable, give the one reason behind it (your real average views on comparable videos), and offer a package option. One number, one reason, no apology.
- The terms-first reply. When the offer is plausible but thin, ask the five questions that make it real: integration length and placement, payment timing and method, view cap or flat, usage rights beyond your channel, exclusivity window.
- The decline. For the junk, no reply at all. Do not open the file, do not click through, do not explain yourself. Block and move on.
One thing worth unlearning is the fear behind this line from r/NewTubers: "I feel like if I come at them asking for that much they'll lose interest." A brand that walks over a fair, explained rate was never a client. And the number you say the first time sets the ceiling for every deal after it.
What does the real output look like?
Here is the actual output from the sample run — three offers from one week in a faceless channel's inbox, inspected together:
RISK 24/100 — likely legitimate MONEY: they offered $150 flat for a 60-second integration Your slot is worth $480 - $720 (24,000 avg views, 68% US) VERDICT: LOWBALL — about $450 under the middle of your range COUNTER (ready to send): "Happy to do it. For a 60-second integration my rate is $600. My last six videos average 24,000 views with 68% US audience, and they keep earning views for years after upload..."
Why it works: it prices the slot from the channel's own numbers first, so the $150 anchor never gets a chance to set the ceiling.
RISK 96/100 — DO NOT OPEN. DO NOT REPLY.
FLAGS: sender domain is free webmail, not the studio's
first ask is a .rar download ("standard asset package")
password-protected archive defeats virus scanning
urgency: "campaign closes Friday"
This is the channel-takeover pattern. Block the sender.Why it works: the one offer in the batch that could cost the whole channel is the one it screams about, before you ever weigh the money.
Three emails, thirty seconds, one counter-offer written and one disaster avoided. Run it on the next offer that lands.
How do you run it yourself?
You paste one prompt into Claude Code and it builds the tool for you. It arrives pre-filled with the three offers above, so it works on the very first run.
It has a settings panel for your own API key, so you can paste in the next real offer the day it lands and run it again — which is the point, because these arrive every week.
Grab it below — drop your email and the prompt is on the very next page. Paste it in, swap in your own channel numbers, and inspect the offer sitting in your inbox right now.
Can you turn this into a side hustle?
Yes — think of it as a skill you just acquired in one paste. Skills can be sold, and this one sells by the deliverable.
It works like this: local businesses pay for Paste the sponsor email you just got and your channel numbers. Get a scam-risk score with the exact red flags in that email, what the deal is really worth against your views, the deal terms they left out on purpose, and the reply to send back. all the time. You take the job, let the tool do the heavy lift, review it, and hand it over. Typical pricing is $500 a month per client.
The best part is the cost to start: a free prompt — it pays for itself on the first job. The tool does the heavy lifting in minutes, so your margin is high and you can take on more clients without more hours. To get your first client, reach out to a few local businesses you already know. Do one for free, show them the result, and ask who else needs it.
FAQ
Does it need my real channel numbers?
It needs your average views, your niche and roughly where your audience is. That is what turns a guess into a price. Subscriber count barely matters — brands pay for views and audience, not for subs.
Can it tell me for certain that an offer is a scam?
No tool can be certain, and it does not pretend to be. It counts the specific red flags present in that email and tells you which ones, so you are deciding on evidence instead of a feeling. On the dangerous pattern — an attachment you have to open — it errs hard toward telling you not to.
My channel is small. Is it too early for this?
That is exactly when the bad offers arrive. The creators asking these questions on Reddit are at 800, 1,100 and 3,000 subs. The first number you agree to becomes the ceiling for every deal after it, so getting the first one right matters more than the tenth.
Can I reuse it on the next offer?
That is the point. Enter your API key once and paste in each new offer as it lands. Your channel numbers stay saved, so every future inspection takes a few seconds.