Clipping championships for clients: how an agency sets up, charges and delivers
A marketing agency can set up the whole clipping championship and leave the client to simply accept and pay the prize. Here is how the set-up-for-someone-else option works, what the agency actually does during the contest, how to charge for management and how responsibilities split between agency, client and Cut.Pro.
Clipping championships for clients: how an agency sets up, charges and delivers
An agency can set up an entire clipping championship on Cut.Pro and leave the client to simply accept and pay: with the "I'm setting this up for someone else" option, the client gets a link by email, reviews the rules, fills in their CPF or CNPJ (Brazilian tax IDs), accepts the terms and pays the prize, and nothing goes live before that. The prize comes from the client (in credits, minimum 500, or, in Brazil, in PIX, from R$ 5,000 plus a 20% platform fee); the agency bills separately for management: library, rules, queue review and final report.
I will go in the order the work happens and say how I would handle each stage. Usual disclosure: I work at Cut.Pro.
Why does a client hire an agency for this?
Because a clipping championship looks simple in the form and takes work to run. The podcast owner or the brand does not have time to choose tags, pick a prize model, review hundreds of videos and explain rejections. That is exactly what the agency sells: the championship running without the client having to open the queue.
What the agency does not sell is guaranteed reach. Reach depends on what each video delivers, and a per-thousand-views prize is a ceiling, not a forecast. Anyone promising the client a view count is promising something neither the agency nor the platform controls.
How does "I'm setting this up for someone else" work?
- The agency fills in the four stages of the form (championship, rules, prizes, review) from its own account and turns on "I'm setting this up for someone else", entering the client's email.
- The client gets the link by email and opens it with the Cut.Pro account for that email. The invite is personal: another account cannot accept on their behalf.
- The client reviews the summary: networks, hashtags and profiles to tag, dates and prizes.
- The client identifies themselves as an individual (CPF) or a company (CNPJ). That name goes into the terms.
- The client accepts the terms and pays. Credits leave their account at acceptance. With PIX, they go straight to payment, and the championship only enters the approval queue once payment is confirmed.
- Cut.Pro approves it manually, within 2 business days. The championship opens right away or on the set date.
After acceptance, the championship belongs to the client. For the agency to keep operating it, the client adds the agency as a co-manager, using the email of the agency's Cut.Pro account. A co-manager can edit the library, review the queue and answer appeals. Put this in the contract before sending the link.
I like this design for a commercial reason: the prize money never passes through the agency. The client pays the platform, any leftover balance goes back to their PIX key, and the license to repost the clips is in their name. The agency does not become a financial middleman for prizes, and the client does not need to trust the agency with that.
Who does what: agency, client and Cut.Pro
| Task | Agency | Client | Cut.Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| Set up the championship in the form | Does it | Reviews via the link | |
| Identification (CPF or CNPJ) and accepting the terms | Does it | ||
| Pay the prize (and the fee, with PIX) | Does it | Receives it and shows it in the summary | |
| Approve the championship | Within 2 business days | ||
| Library (links, files, brief) | Organizes and registers it | Supplies and authorizes it | |
| Promote the championship | Plans and runs it | Announces it on their channels | Championship listing |
| Review the video queue | Does it, as co-manager | Can follow along | |
| Answer appeals | Does it, as co-manager | ||
| Decide reports between participants | Decides | ||
| Analyze artificial views and request proof of reach | Does it | ||
| Pay participants (wallet and PIX withdrawal) | Does it | ||
| Return any leftover balance | Receives it on their PIX key | Returns it | |
| Final report | Does it | Receives it | Provides the data in the dashboard |
| Repost the best clips | Selects them | Authorizes and posts, or delegates |
What does the agency do at each stage?
Library
The library is the list of what can be clipped: a YouTube video or channel, Twitch, Kick, a Drive file, a brief and a Discord server. Whatever a participant clips on Cut.Pro from it is free for them.
The agency's job here is curation and rights:
- register the whole catalog, not just the latest video;
- write a one-page brief: tone, forbidden topics, how to spell the client's name, examples of a good clip;
- confirm that everything belongs to the client or is authorized in writing (guest appearances on someone else's show stay out without permission).
Rules
The decisions that weigh the most:
- Tags. Every championship requires #cutpro; the agency adds up to 2 of its own hashtags per network, plus profiles with @, and at least one must be exclusive to the championship. If a participant forgets the tag on TikTok, Instagram or Facebook, they fix it by editing the description, without reposting.
- Requirements. Two at most. For a brand, the logo or watermark; for a podcast, the hosts as people who must appear.
- Prize model. The choice depends on the client's goal.
| Client's goal | Model | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Reach on a fixed budget | Per thousand views with per-video and per-participant caps | Pays for what was delivered, with a ceiling known upfront |
| Community and fans who clip | Ranking with a weekly prize | The recurring prize keeps people active until the end |
| Launch with many pieces | Per post with a per-person limit | Pays for the piece, good for testing formats |
The per-participant cap is mandatory for new per-thousand-views championships. The reason is in the data: in the per-thousand-views championships already closed on Cut.Pro, the top participant took roughly 23% to 87% of the prize, with a median near 45%. Show the client that number before they ask why the prize did not all go to whoever went most viral.
Queue review
This is where the agency wins or loses the client. Participants see how long their video has been in the queue, and a stalled queue is the main reason clippers quit.
- Review every day, and twice a day in the first week.
- Always reject with the right reason (duplicate, inappropriate, suspicious metrics, outside the period, rules violation, unavailable, unrelated).
- Answer appeals: a participant can appeal a rejection until the championship ends, once per rejection.
- Do not try to judge fraud by eye. Cut.Pro decides on reports between participants, and on artificial-view analysis too.
Final report
Clients renew when they understand what they bought. The report I would deliver has the numbers explained in how to measure clipping championship results:
- total views of approved videos versus paid views;
- net cost (what the client paid minus the returned balance) and effective cost per thousand views;
- active clippers over sign-ups;
- prize concentration in first place and in the top 5;
- rejection rate and overturned appeals;
- followers gained during the period, compared with the previous period, with the caveat that correlation is not causation;
- the list of clips the client can repost under the license in the terms;
- what to change in the next championship.
How much should you charge for management?
My rule: charge for the work, not for the prize size. Three formats are possible:
| Format | How it works | My take |
|---|---|---|
| Setup plus management | A fixed fee to set up (library, rules, brief) and a fee for the length of the contest | The best: it tracks the real work |
| Monthly retainer | A fixed amount for a client running championships continuously | Good from the second championship on |
| Percentage of the prize | A percentage of what the client puts into the prize | Avoid it: the agency earns more when the client spends more, not when the championship works |
To get to a price, estimate the hours. A math illustration with made-up numbers: if setup takes 6 hours, queue review 1 hour a day for 20 days and the report 4 hours, that is 30 hours. Multiply by your hourly rate and add your margin. Market ranges for clipping services are in the guide I wrote on how much to charge for clipping services.
Put three things in the contract: the client pays the prize directly on the platform, the agency does not guarantee view counts, and the client adds the agency as co-manager on the day of acceptance.
The cautions that fall on the agency
- Brand clips are advertising. A clip paid for by a brand needs to be disclosed as advertising, as explained in clipping campaigns for brands.
- No politics. Paying for political and electoral clips is forbidden in Brazil; see clipping contests during Brazil's election.
- No betting sponsors. Since Provisional Measure 1,394 of September 25, 2026, a championship sponsored by a betting operator cannot exist in Brazil.
Where to start
Set up a first championship for a podcast or streamer client, who has plenty of material, using per thousand views with per-video and per-participant caps. Send the link, ask to be added as co-manager at acceptance and deliver the report the day after it ends.
The form, field by field, is in how to create a clipping championship, and the comparison between a championship, a clipping agency and a hired editor, which helps sell the service, is in championship vs agency vs editor.
Sources: Open championships on Cut.Pro
