Clipping glossary: every term, defined
The vocabulary of paid clipping borrows from advertising, from streaming and from payments, which is why it can feel like three jargons at once. Here is every term you're likely to meet, defined plainly.
The money terms
- CPM
- Cost per mille — the amount paid per 1,000 views. The standard unit for clipping pay. See the full explainer for the arithmetic and the traps.
- Payable views
- The subset of a clip's views that the campaign actually pays on, after counting windows, caps, minimum thresholds and verification are applied. Usually lower than the number on your post.
- Milestone bonus
- A fixed payment for crossing a view mark — say a bonus at 100,000 views. All-or-nothing rather than proportional.
- Per-video cap
- The most a single clip can earn, regardless of how far it travels. Stops one viral post consuming an entire budget.
- Minimum view threshold
- A floor below which a clip earns nothing. Prevents payouts on posts that barely circulated.
- Counting window
- The period during which views count toward payment. Views after it closes are real but not payable.
- Budget
- The total a brand has funded for a campaign. When it's exhausted, the campaign stops paying out.
- Escrow / funded campaign
- Money held before clips can earn against it, rather than promised. The single most important thing to check before spending time on a campaign.
- Platform fee
- The cut the platform takes. Charged at different points by different platforms — on withdrawal is the most common.
- Hold / finalising period
- Time between a payout being credited and becoming withdrawable, while view counts settle and engagement is re-checked.
- Reversal
- Earnings removed after the fact, normally because the views behind them were found to be fake.
- Auto-withdraw
- A setting that sends each payout automatically once it clears, instead of you requesting it.
- Minimum withdrawal
- The smallest amount you can take out. A high one is how earnings get stranded on a platform.
The campaign terms
- Brief
- The brand's instructions: what to make, what footage to use, what to avoid, what gets rejected. The document that decides your approval rate.
- Source material
- The footage the brand supplies for you to cut from. Using material you weren't given is the fastest route to rejection.
- Submission
- A live post's link, sent to the campaign to connect it to a payout. A clip that's never submitted never earns.
- Approval
- A brand confirming a submission fits the brief. Earning normally starts at approval, not at posting.
- Rejection
- A submission declined for not fitting the brief. Good campaigns give a reason; that reason is the most useful feedback you'll get.
- Public vs private campaign
- Public campaigns are open to the whole creator pool. Private ones run on an invite link, usually for a brand's own community.
- Whitelisting
- Giving a brand permission to run your post as a paid ad from their account. A separate arrangement from ordinary clipping.
The content terms
- Clip
- A short vertical video made for a campaign — cut from longer footage or assembled from supplied material.
- Clipper
- The person making and posting clips. The word comes from cutting highlights out of streams, but now covers any short-form video made to order.
- Hook
- The first two or three seconds. Decides whether the rest is watched, and therefore whether the clip is distributed at all.
- Retention
- How much of a video people watch. Three-second retention is the number that matters most for distribution.
- UGC
- User-generated content. In practice it means making a video and handing the file to a brand to run as their ad — as opposed to clipping, where you post it yourself and are paid on views.
- Native posting
- Publishing directly on the platform from your own account, rather than supplying a file. Standard for clipping.
- Repost
- Re-uploading someone else's video largely untouched. Not clipping, and grounds for rejection on any serious campaign.
- Disclosure
- Marking a post as paid or sponsored where the platform or the law requires it. Usually specified in the brief, and your responsibility to apply.
The trust terms
- View verification
- Checking that counted views are genuine, normally against the platform's own data, before money moves.
- Bot views / botting
- Artificially inflated views. Detected and stripped by any serious platform, taking the attached earnings with them, and often risking the account too.
- Account verification
- Proving a social account is yours — commonly a short code placed in your bio — so submitted posts and view counts can be trusted.
- Audience proof
- Evidence that a post's audience is real, sometimes requested for a clip that earns, such as a screen recording of the post's analytics.
Frequently asked
What's the difference between clipping and UGC?+
In UGC you make a video and hand the file over for the brand to run as their own ad, and you're paid for the asset. In clipping you post on your own account and are paid on the views the post earns. Different deliverable, different pay model.
What does "payable views" mean?+
The views a campaign actually pays on, after counting windows, per-video caps, minimum thresholds and verification are applied. It's frequently lower than the view count shown on your post, and the difference is normal rather than a mistake.
What is a funded or escrowed campaign?+
One where the brand's money is held before clips can earn against it, rather than merely promised. It's what makes a campaign safe to spend time on, which is why funding status is worth checking before you post.
What does whitelisting mean?+
Granting a brand permission to run your organic post as a paid ad from their own account. It's a separate agreement from being paid for views, and it should be paid separately too.
Related guides
What is CPM in clipping?
CPM means cost per mille — the amount paid per 1,000 views. In clipping, a $2 CPM pays $2 for every 1,000 payable views a clip earns, so 250,000 views pays $500. The complications are all in the word "payable": counting windows, per-video caps and minimum thresholds decide which views the rate applies to.
What is clipping?
Clipping is cutting short vertical videos out of longer content — or making them from a brand's material — posting them on your own social accounts, and getting paid for the views they earn. Brands fund a budget, clippers post, and pay is tied to verified views rather than to follower count.
How to choose a clipping platform
Judge a clipping platform on nine things: whether campaign budgets are funded up front, how views are verified, how often payouts run, the minimum withdrawal, the full fee stack, per-video caps, the rejection policy, who owns your content, and whether support is reachable. Advertised CPM is the least reliable signal.
How this works on Shoot
What do Accumulating, Pending and Available mean?
On your Submissions page each clip's money moves through three states — Accumulating, Pending, and Available — so you always know what's withdrawable and what's still on the way.
What does the Funded badge mean?
The green Funded badge means the campaign's full budget is already deposited with Shoot and held until approved work clears — so the money is there before you post.
How to verify your social accounts
Verify each social account before submitting clips on it — usually by placing a bio code on your profile that Shoot reads back, or by connecting the account, so brands can trust your posts and views.
Why did my earnings change or get reversed?
Earnings track live view counts, so they can move as counts settle. They can also be adjusted or reversed for fake or manipulated views, duplicate or stolen content, chargebacks, refunds, or campaign reconciliation.
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Last updated 2026-08-12