Brands replaced me with AI, engagement tanked, AND now they are back in my DMs offering 40% less than what they paid me before. THE AUDACITY

So I am just supposed to be okay with this??

For two years, I made content for this brand, ugc kinda videos of me talking about products. I worked with 8 brands regularly, which I got through an agency.I was getting good money and thought it was stable.

In March, the briefs stopped, i checked my email every day waiting and assumed i'd done something wrong and spent some time too going over old messages trying to figure out what.

Found out through another creator four months later that they had switched to ai generating voices and fake testimonials .Like could they have not informed mee? i just stopped existing to them and had to figure out why on my own about this.

i cried about it if i am being honest because it felt like a personal rejection even though it wasn't personal .

Then this month my phone started buzzing again and it was the same agency with same brands and it was like we never stopped talking. They gave me new briefs attached and at the bottom of each one a rate.

every single rate was lower than what they paid me before they left and when i asked the poc about why they did not contact me for months,she acknowledged the ai experiment and why it ended. Basically the engagement had collapsed, CTRs tanked because consumers could feel something was off and now they are back to giving contracts to "REAL" ugc influencers(yes she said REAL 😭😭)

but i am being offered less for it than i was worth before any of this happened.

So they failed, learned nothing and came back expecting a discount.I have asked them some time to think about it

What do you guys think i should do?I need the money too

Jobadvisor

First off, your anger is 100% justified. They ghosted a reliable human partner for a cheap machine, watched their metrics drive off a cliff because consumers hated it, and now they are trying to charge you a penalty for their failed experiment.

The audacity is truly off the charts. But here is the silver lining you need to hold onto right now: They proved your hypothesis for you. They literally proved that an AI voice cannot replicate your charisma, your trust with an audience, or your conversion power. You aren't just a creator anymore—you are the proven remedy to their failed campaign.

Because you actually need the money, burning the bridge down isn't the smartest move, but rolling over and accepting a 40% pay cut isn't the move either. You hold far more leverage than you think.

1. Don't frame it as emotional, frame it as ROI

They didn't come back to you out of the goodness of their hearts; they came back because fake testimonials destroyed their CTRs and cost them revenue. When you counter, frame your rate around performance.

• The logic: AI was "cheap," and it cost them millions in lost engagement. Authentic UGC generates sales. Paying bottom-dollar rates for authentic content will just land them back at square one with low-effort creators.
  
  

2. The Counter-Offer Strategy

Do not accept the 40% cut. Pitch a middle ground that protects your baseline while acknowledging their current budget constraints, or structure it so you get paid on performance.

• Option A: The Standard Counter (Anchor at Old Rate)
  
  
  • Counter with your original rate, or at absolute maximum a 10% courtesy discount for a multi-video bundle.
    
    
  • Draft script: "I'm glad to see [Brand] returning to authentic UGC— engagement metrics across the industry have proven that audience trust can't be replicated. Given that my previous deliverables consistently performed for your team, my rate for this scope remains [Old Rate]. However, I can offer a 5% volume discount if we lock in a 3-month package."
    
    
• Option B: Base + Performance (If they claim tight budgets)
  
  
  • Take a slightly reduced base rate, but add a performance bonus linked to conversions or CTR. If their engagement recovers because of your face and voice, you get paid more than your original rate.
    
    
• Option C: Tiered Deliverables
  
  
  • If they stick to the 40%-off budget, trim the scope of work to match it. If they pay 60% of your rate, they get 60% of the effort (e.g., fewer cuts, shorter videos, no raw usage rights, or shorter licensing terms).
    
    

3. Protect Yourself Moving Forward

• Usage & AI Clause: Make sure your contract explicitly states that they do NOT have the right to train AI voice models or digital avatars using the raw footage/audio you provide them. You don't want them paying you for one video just to clone you for the next year.
  
  
• Diversify Off the Agency: This agency treated you as disposable. Use the money from this contract to give yourself a runway while you actively pitch other brands directly.