The DM looks legit. A brand you have actually heard of wants to work with you. The budget sounds real. The manager seems professional. You are already mentally spending the money.
Then the contract never comes. Or the “brand” asks you to pay for shipping. Or the deal is real, the work gets delivered, and the invoice sits unpaid for four months.
Every one of those outcomes was preventable, and the prevention happens at the same moment: before you sign. Most creators vet brand deals with a gut check and a quick scroll through the brand’s Instagram. That is not vetting. That is hoping.
Here is how to actually vet a brand deal, in the order the red flags show up.
Step 1: Verify the person is who they say they are.
Fake brand collaborations almost always fall apart at this step, because scammers impersonate real brands using lookalike emails and unofficial accounts.
Check the email domain character by character. An outreach email from a major brand should come from that brand’s actual domain, not a Gmail address and not a domain with one letter changed. Then verify the person exists. Search their name on LinkedIn and confirm they work where they say they work. A real brand manager has a footprint. A fake one has a two-week-old profile or none at all.
If anything requires you to pay money, send products, or share account credentials to “activate” the partnership, stop. Real brand deals pay you. They never charge you.
Step 2: Vet the brand’s history with creators.
A legitimate brand can still be a terrible partner. The deal is real, the money exists, and you will still spend six months chasing the invoice.
Before you sign, look for the brand’s track record. Search the brand name alongside words like “unpaid” or “late payment” in creator communities. Ask other creators who have worked with them, most will tell you the truth in a DM. Deals sourced through structured pitching platforms like PitchBrand also come with more context than a cold DM ever provides, because you can see the brand’s history and how they run partnerships before you ever talk terms.
A brand that has burned creators before will burn you too. The information is out there. Most creators just never look.
Step 3: Pressure-test how they talk about payment.
How a brand discusses money before the contract predicts how they behave after the invoice.
Ask two questions early: what are the payment terms, and who processes payment. A healthy answer is specific. Net 30, paid by their accounts payable team or a known agency. A red flag answer is vague. “We’ll figure that out,” “payment goes out after the campaign wraps up,” or terms that quietly stretch to Net 60 or Net 90 mean you are financing their marketing budget for free.
If a brand gets cagey when you ask about payment terms, believe them. They are telling you what the invoice experience will be like.
Step 4: Never let the deal skip the contract.
Every fake collab and most slow-payment disputes share one trait: there was no real contract, or the contract was written entirely in the brand’s favor.
“We’ll send the brief over email” is not a contract. A contract states deliverables, deadlines, payment terms, usage rights, and what happens if payment is late. If you are not sure what belongs in yours, start with what every creator needs in their client agreement. And if the brand sends their own contract, read it before you sign, because the terms that hurt creators are designed to look routine.
Working without one costs more than most creators realize. We wrote about the real cost of working without a contract for a reason.
Step 5: Decide what happens if it still goes wrong.
You can vet perfectly and still get a client who does not pay. Vetting lowers the odds. It does not eliminate them.
This is why the smartest creators set up their protection before the deal, not after the invoice goes silent. DUPAY builds the contract, generates the invoice, and if the client delays or disputes payment, real advocates pursue recovery on your behalf. Creators using DUPAY have recovered over $1M in unpaid invoices, and the ones who came in with a contract already in place recovered faster.
If you are already past that point and staring at an unpaid invoice, here is exactly what to do when a client won’t pay.
The bottom line
A brand deal is a business transaction, and business transactions get vetted. Verify the person. Check the brand’s history. Ask about payment before they ask for deliverables. Get it in a contract. And have a plan for the version of events nobody wants.
Five steps. Twenty minutes. Thousands of dollars protected.
FAQ: Vetting Brand Deals
How do I know if a brand collaboration is fake? Check the sender’s email domain, verify the person on LinkedIn, and treat any request for payment, product, or account access as an immediate dealbreaker. Real brands pay creators, not the other way around.
What payment terms should creators accept in a brand deal? Net 30 is standard. Anything beyond Net 60 means you are extending the brand an interest-free loan. Always confirm terms in writing before starting work.
Do I need a contract for a small brand deal? Yes. Deal size does not change how disputes work, and small invoices are the ones brands are most comfortable ignoring. A contract is what turns “they ghosted me” into a recoverable debt.