Kill-fee clauses every Bangkok creator should demand in 2026
By Mai Influence
A kill fee is the money you keep when a brand cancels a campaign after you have started work. In Bangkok, most creators are still shooting without one written into the brief, then eating the loss when a client goes quiet at the approval stage. This is the clause you should be sending back before you accept any offer above about THB 3,000, and the exact numbers to put in it.
What a kill fee actually covers
A kill fee is not a refund. It is a payment for the time, prep, and opportunity cost you already spent, and it exists because the brand is the one walking away, not you. It should cover pre-production hours, location scouting, sample handling, and the slot you booked out of your calendar that another brand could have filled.
If a brand pushes back with "but you didn't post anything", the answer is that you priced the finished post, not the labour behind it. The kill fee is the labour bill, separate from the post fee. You can price this using the calculator inside your Free creator profile on Mai Influence, which pre-fills tier-based defaults so you are not negotiating from a blank page.
The percentage bands to use, by tier
The kill-fee percentage scales with how far into the project the brand cancels. These are the ranges Bangkok creators are anchoring to in 2026, split by follower tier so you can quote from your own bracket rather than a foreign rate card.
Nano tier (5K to 20K followers):
- Typical: 25% of the agreed fee if cancelled before shoot day, 50% if cancelled after shoot day, 100% if cancelled after delivery.
- Top-quartile: 35% pre-shoot, 65% post-shoot, 100% post-delivery.
Micro tier (20K to 100K):
- Typical: 30% pre-shoot, 60% post-shoot, 100% post-delivery.
- Top-quartile: 50% pre-shoot, 75% post-shoot, 100% post-delivery.
Macro tier (100K and above):
- Typical: 50% pre-shoot, 75% post-shoot, 100% post-delivery.
- Top-quartile: 60% pre-shoot, 90% post-shoot, 100% post-delivery.
The "post-delivery" line is not really a kill fee, it is the full invoice becoming due the moment you hand over usable files, whether the brand posts them or not. If a client wants the right to shelve a finished asset, they pay for a finished asset.
If the brand can cancel for free, the contract is not a contract, it is a request for a favour.
The trigger events you need to name
A kill-fee clause fails when it does not define what "cancellation" means. Bangkok briefs stall in three predictable ways, and each needs to be listed by name so you are not arguing definitions later.
- Written cancellation. The brand emails, LINEs, or WhatsApps that the project is off. Easy case, invoice on the same day.
- Silence past a stated deadline. Draft the clause so that no response within 7 business days of any approval request counts as cancellation. Bangkok brands love the slow ghost, this closes it.
- Scope collapse. The brand changes the deliverable so heavily (new platform, new format, new talent) that it is a different job. You get the kill fee for the original and a fresh quote for the new one.
Write the notice channel in too. In practice this means "email or LINE to [your address], with read receipt". Verbal cancellations at a meeting do not count until they are in writing, which protects you from the "we never actually cancelled" walk-back.
Payment window and enforcement in Thailand
A kill-fee clause without a payment window is a wish. In 2026 the standard Bangkok freelance window is Net 15 from invoice date for kill fees, tighter than the Net 30 that often applies to full campaign fees. The reasoning is simple, the client already decided not to use the work, so there is no approval loop to justify a longer wait.
Add a 1.5% per month late fee written into the same clause. It is small enough that no legal team will fight it, and it gives you standing to escalate if a brand tries to sit on the invoice past 60 days. For anything above THB 30,000, ask for a 30 to 50% deposit on signature, non-refundable. That deposit is your kill fee already sitting in your account, and it changes the negotiation from chasing to keeping.
If the brand refuses to sign a kill-fee clause at all, treat it as pricing information rather than a fight. Add 20 to 30% to your quote to self-insure, or walk. A brand that will not agree to pay for cancelled work is telling you they expect to cancel.
The two-line version if the brief is small
Not every collab is worth a three-page contract. For anything under THB 10,000, or a one-post seeding job, use this two-line kill-fee clause pasted into your quote email.
"Cancellation before shoot: 30% of agreed fee. Cancellation after shoot or delivery: 100%. Silence past 7 business days on any approval counts as cancellation. Payment Net 15 from invoice."
That is enough to hold up in a Bangkok small-claims dispute, and enough to make the brand read the terms before saying yes. The point is not to litigate, the point is to make sure the person on the other side knows there is a bill either way.
